Count Fantastic-o-Dracul-a

Vampire Owl: Greetings, my dear vampire apprentices. I have just come back from the dead. Well, it is one of the advantages of being immortal; you never really die even when you forget the conditions of the immortality pact. As I am back again, we are going to have one of those special classes right now, and today’s subject is “Count Fantastic-o-Dracul-a”, and it is from a work which I have written along with the Vampire Bat who happens to be my co-author for many tales of vampirism. There will be the need to remember this for two papers, and so be careful because the class will determine how much you will score for the examinations. By the end of this class, you will surely get to understand how great the achievements of Uncle Dracula have been. Any questions?

Vampire Penguin: Sir, when is the break? Is it after half an hour?

Vampire Owl: There will be no break and no more questions. Lets get back to the work. As you know, it is a great work, as I am the one who wrote it. It has been selected for the Vampire Booker Prize as well as the Vampire Academy Special Prize. It deals with the great vampire saga of Uncle Dracula, or Count Fantastico who skillfully created an illusion of death when stabbed through the heart by those miserable humans, and continued to serve the world.

Vampire Crocodile: They still think that Uncle Dracula is dead? How ridiculous!

Vampire Penguin: I believe that most of them think that he never really existed. Can you believe it?

Vampire Owl: There are rather too many things that the evil humans believe. They have manipulated the story of Dracula trying to buy a small amount of land with a house in a rich, capitalist neighbourhood and depicted him as a demon. In his story with himself as the hero, they have made him the villain. The true villain was always Abraham Van Helsing, and it was Jonathan Harker who is responsible for spreading all those rumours which lead to this villain being termed a hero. The only thing that Dracula tried to do is to save Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray who were controlled by these people. For this, they have destroyed the letters and diary entries written by Dracula which they managed to steal, and created their own versions.

Vampire Crow: This is quite depressing, you know.

Vampire Owl: Yes, but after creating that illusion of his death, Dracula thrived. He traveled all around the world, living most of his time in exile at the villages of different Asian nations, helping people and teaching them how to protect themselves from the evil like Abraham Van Helsing and his dangerous minions. They were the ones to call him Fantastico for the very first time. He taught them that they had to stand for their rights or all that they will have might be a knife or a stake through the heart this day or the other. He recruited his first disciple and the new master of dark arts, Vampire Bat during his visit to the South of India.

Vampire Penguin: So, the rumours were indeed true.

Vampire Owl: Yes, he also attained spiritual enlightenment during his travel through the Himalayas. The truth is that there is no mountain in the world which he hasn’t visited, and there is no river which he hasn’t crossed. He has been a true traveler on Earth, as he has provided the humans with information as well as wisdom during his journeys. He has also indirectly played a huge role in stopping the two world wars, especially the second. But the humans will never know it, and the ones who realize that will try to hide that information because Dracula will always be an outsider to them.

Vampire Crow: I seriously don’t understand why the humans are so mean.

Vampire Crocodile: They have always done that; often appreciating people only according to the religion, caste, ethnicity and region. There is no universal brotherhood among them, and unlike us, they are not one – so they are surely not going to accept one of us as we are twice the outsiders.

Vampire Penguin: Yes, they only like me because I am white. Otherwise, they would have asked me to return after trying Fair and Lovely.

Vampire Crow: What? Why would you even say that now?

Vampire Owl: You just note these things down and think about how and why Uncle Dracula needs to be known as Count Fantastico, the man who has no match in his greatness. The better you understand his qualities, the more you can score in the examinations. I can provide you with an extra photostat versions so that you can deal with the one word questions better – there will be ten of them from outside the syllabus. The top scorer in this subject will get a special prize from Uncle Dracula himself. It is something called the Golden Medal of Imperial Blood.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of the movie, Hotel, Transylvania.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

TeNy

Did I Really Do It?

It has been some years, but it feels like an eternity. I don’t really remember those days at all. Did they really happen or were they just dreams? I do have the certificate and the mark list; so it should have happened at some point of life. I have only some recollection of the same, but it seems like I did do it. There will be doubts if it is really a useful thing, but I guess I did it at that time. Sometimes I wonder if it was ever supposed to bring something better in mortal life or monetary benefits; I guess it wasn’t on the list.

Yes, I am talking about the MA English Language and Literature course. It was only a few days ago that I found and looked at the syllabus of the course, and that made me wonder if it was me who really studied that course and wrote those exams for that MA English First Class (read as the BCom First Class which was mentioned in the movie, Naadodikkaattu). I actually remember very less from the course and a lot of these papers in the syllabus stare at me as if I am a stranger. The syllabus itself seems to wonder if it had ever seen me before, but I will show this one the degree certificate! I will just go through what used to be that syllabus and see if we remember each other enough in the end.

I will miss this classroom all the time, no matter where I visit in my life!

I dig deep into the memories, and I remember those earlier works like The Canterbury Tales, Utopia, Doctor Faustus, Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Way of the World and all that we studied, but there were the two papers which followed, and those were Phonetics and Literary Criticism. I remember being shocked at the subjects which were part of these papers.

Vampire Owl: What do you mean?

Vampire Bat: Biographia Literaria, The Language of Paradox and others.

Vampire Owl: Okay, whatever.

In the case of Phonetics, I felt that I was going straight to hell. But I still passed, and scored well there, and that was a confident booster. I still believe that words should be spoken like we want to and not according to the Phonetics side – that will be Indian English 😀

These days, when I look at these papers, I am only going to be more and more shocked. I really wanted to use what I studied in life because I managed to pass, but such an opportunity was never to come. While my earlier talk was about the first semester, here I remember that the second one was much smoother, and I remember the second semester as a rather easier one; I was more comfortable with the class and the college, and the seniors were close; the papers were smooth and Linguistics remained the only problem there. But with more focus on that, I could do it better than I did in the case of Phonetics.

I remember that the first semester of the next year, and this third semester of the course had two big troubles; one being the Literary Theory – I was absolutely uninterested in this, but I had good teachers. The classes turned out to be better than expected and something in the internet surely helped. Nature of the Linguistic Sign? The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles? The Death of the Author? The Critic as Host? And whatever came after that, I don’t remember much of it, and I am not that disappointed about my short memory here. I will keep the memories of my college instead of that, the greenery and everything else. Those sights will surely bring more of the memories back to me.

The greenery at college is inspirational, but the theories are surely not.

The second big trouble was this paper called Politics of Narration, about the aspects on fictional and non-fictional expression in narratives. Even though this was a twisted paper, the scores came good just like Literary Theory. Another thing about this paper is that the talks and discussions related to this paper has helped me in improving my writing. Along with the same, there were a few interesting works of fiction with this paper. Women and Literature along with Writings of the Public Domain were partly bad for me! But the fiction and some interesting ideas saved the day most of the time. I still wish I could go forward with life as the MA English graduate, but that option is the jobless one.

Film Studies was the strangest paper for me; one one side, there were those movie which we surely had to watch, and there was the need to write critical appreciation of movies. This side was pretty much okay for me, and by the end of this paper, I was ready to start the blog, Movies of the Soul. The review of Celluloid at the blog is the same which I submitted for the assignment, with slight changes. But it took me a long time to recover from the theories which were related to movies; those were the difficult ones for me, and I shall not name them – but the memories are coming back to me; now I realize that I had learnt them all, and they are stored somewhere in my memory 😀

Now I am sure and I remember that I am MA English First Class from Mahatma Gandhi University and jobless 😦
Check this video of the BCom First Class version from the movie Naadodikkaattu 😛

***The images used in this blog post were taken by me at Union Christian College, Aluva.

Btw, check out for my favourite movies from the year 2015.

TeNy

Significance of Death

Vampire Bat: Good morning, my dear vampire apprentices; welcome to the second day of the second stage of this week’s vampire syllabus. I hope you loved the last class about Lies and Hate from the Vampire Owl because he has told me that he enjoyed discussing the topic with you. It will be me in charge of today’s classes. I will be taking four hours continuously and after that you can have the blood lunch. I know that you can take it because it is better than Uncle Dracula taking care of the whole day’s hours. The topic won’t be the typical vampire stuff though. This will be the external elective subject and we have chosen the Death Theories from Lady Death after the voting; the choice just seemed too easy. You will find newer ideas from this class, no matter how much you are interested in it.

Vampire Alligator: This is going to be an advertisement for Lady Death and her Death-care supplies. I feel that Vampire Owl is behind this. He was always obsessed with Lady Death and Vampire Bat with her evil twin sister.

Vampire Crocodile: Inspiration to follow death’s way. That should be interesting. We should take down extra notes.

Vampire Crow: But we are immortals. We can’t follow Lady Death just like that. Death has his limitations in exploring vampire immortality.

Vampire Bat: We live as immortals. But the Death Theories from Lady Death give us the opportunity to check this from another perspective which has been absent from the usual vampire life. We have to think about how humans find death, and how our giving up of immortality reflects the same. A lot more concentration will be needed, but I am sure that all of us will go through this new perspective in the way it is supposed to go.

Vampire Raven: So, we simulate death right now, with possibilities of giving up the immortality coming up later.

Vampire Bat: Exactly. Lady Death has clearly stated this as part of her Death Theories. The first point in favour of death is that it doesn’t look for one’s religion, caste, race or economic status while taking lives, and with all dead in the same manner, souls are also taken care of according to the good and evil which they have committed in their lives. She has also added that there is a provision to divide between the two. She is the one who provides the best kind of poetic justice while humans are never fair.

Vampire Crow: But we don’t have such divisions. I guess this is for humans only. It is depressing that they don’t have this in their huge lists of syllabus. It is up-to us to do this then.

Vampire Bat: Yes, and we are to look through their eyes. If you read what the humans write these days, there is too much praise about their own religion. They can’t look through the eyes of others, but thankfully, we have that ability. They will continue to justify their actions saying that people from other religions have done that evil, or that they did that like that centuries ago just because they want to justify their actions now. But Lady Death has given instructions not to hate them, because they are either murderers or inspiring murders, thus providing her with more souls. It consistently saves her from the soul scarcity. Without souls, there will be no Lady Death.

Vampire Crocodile: But we are beyond such divisions. We need to activate our special ability to look from the perspective of these humans. Werewolves, zombies, goblins and orcs are less twisted, and it is easier to the see from their viewpoint. They don’t cause divide among themselves.

Vampire Bat: Yes, we will meditate more in peace related to the same later. Coming to the second point, Lady Death has made it clear that there is the need to escape all these troubles and hatred of this world. Here, good things are not rewarded, and evil only reigns supreme. But she has promised that it will surely be better in her world, and that those with problems should go and embrace her. She says that there is no point in continuing in this world which will end by itself or with your death. So, the question is about why one shouldn’t people embrace it early enough?

Vampire Alligator: That is actually a fair point. Even the absent Vampire Hamster would like this.

Vampire Bat: There is also the promise of happiness and goodness which are absent in this world, especially that of humans. I am sure that it doesn’t exist in this one, but Lady Death has promised them all. Without the haters, abusers, fascists, extremists and the vain people I don’t see how it can’t be better in the other world. She will roast them in the pan and we will live happily ever after. Fair isn’t it?

Vampire Crocodile: I don’t see anything better!

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of the movie, Hotel Transylvania.

TeNy

Eternal Mask of Vanity

“Uncle, I really don’t get your point here” she wondered.

“It seems that you can’t catch up with our family brilliance” he said.

“Err…I don’t know about that, but please make your point clear”.

“He gets twenty five thousand five hundred more salary than her, which should be a seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty more than what you earn too. He is also married to a girl who is richer by eighty seven cents of land. In your case, you almost have no land assets” he added.

“But uncle, how is that relevant here?” she asked with curiosity.

“Do you have any idea how awesome my son is?” he asked.

“Okay, but how is the significant in what we are discussing?” she asked again.

“Because he is my son and I am his father” he made a point as if it was the greatest he could ever make.

“But do you need to boast every now and then about it? I mean, you say that I am dark skinned, but your son is darker skinned, and you say that I am fat, but have you ever noticed how fat your daughter-in-law is? Why do you have to keep discussing about my fat and the colour of my skin everywhere? Why do you compare the salaries and possessions of everyone you know”?

“Because my son has everything that is needed, and he is better than all of you cousins combined. She is married to rich girl that he loved and with this grand salary, will live happily ever after” he said with pride.

“So you think that he will live like that forever. You feel that all these are forever?” she asked.

“Yes, why not? I have everything in the world forever. Some of you don’t have a job, some of you couldn’t find the right partner, and some of you are uneducated or working for some pathetic salary. You all have minuses, too many of them. We have none. We are perfect”.

“But how is that eternal?” she asked.

“Because I know that we are better than everybody else. Otherwise, you would have got a better salary. Can’t you be like my daughter-in-law? She is so good”.

“I can’t be like your daughter-in-law because I am your niece and another person; and your never-ending comparison of everyone you know will not help in anything” she added.

“Do you know that he is buying a new car with his own salary? I have written down the specifications. It is a big vehicle. You don’t have a car now, right?” he asked.

“This never stops” she murmered.

✠ The Vampire Bat finished writing on the board and turned around. “So my dear vampire apprentices, what kind of mask is this?”

“I think I know such an uncle, but doubtful about the mask” remarked the Vampire Crocodile.

“The Mask of…of…I forgot? Can I have the lifeline, may be Phone a Vampire?” asked the Vampire Hamster.

“What? No, not at all. This is a class. The quiz competition was yesterday” said the Vampire Bat.

“The Mask of Vanity?” asked the Vampire Alligator.

“Well done. It categorizes as an eternal mask, one of the eight of the eternal kind. It is a great disguise to be used when feeling the need to boast and make others feel inferior. It has enough in its dark soul to be considered as the best disguise, as it can hide one’s own mistakes and lack of capabilities by trying to bring down others. Now that finishes today’s class about the fourty seventh type of mask. Don’t forget to continue your work at home and always do your vampire studies home work” said the Vampire Bat as he dispersed the class an hour before the regular time.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of Hotel Transylvania, the animated movie.

TeNy

To Shave or Not to Shave

[No vampires were harmed while writing this story] [All images used here are from Gillette India’s official Facebook Page].

The settings were all complete for the Great Bloody Day of the Vampires. All arrangements were already done by the Vampire Bat, the Vampire Owl and the vampire apprentices. Vampire Crocodile was in charge of saying the welcome speech and the Vampire Cat with the vote of thanks. There was an unlimited supply of noodles and blood shake arranged by the Vampire Kung-fu Panda Catering service. The Vampire Cat was busy making sure everything was at the right places.

“Surprise! I am here early” screamed Dracula.

“Who are you? What do you want? What business do you have here?” asked the Vampire Owl.

Dracula was in doubt. It was the first time he seemed unknown in the vampire community. No other vampire had ever asked him that question; not even Louis de Pointe du Lac or Lestat de Lioncourt. A lot of them knew him from even a kilometre away; such was the impact created by him.

How many reasons do you need to shave with a Gillette?

“I am your uncle, the great, legendary Dracula” said Dracula.

“No, you are not Dracula. You are just a caveman in a Halloween costume” said the Vampire Crocodile.

“No, I am your most awesome Uncle Dracula. See my fangs?” Dracula said as he showed his teeth.

“No, our uncle is a bloody old man with the looks of a handsome young man. You look like you were wandering in the Carpathians and has now come here to take a free shower” said the Vampire Owl.

“I am Dracula, because my name is Dracula”.

“Yes, you might be a Dracula, but not the Dracula. You were named after our great uncle and teacher?” asked the Vampire Cat.

“What is wrong with you people? This is just the first time that I haven’t shaved”.

Lets learn something from the Wall here.

“No, Dracula never had the facial hair. Human turned Vampires never have that. You are a fake” remarked Vampire Owl.

“I never had the facial hair because I always shaved, you idiots” yelled an angry Dracula.

“We are not accepting that. We don’t see the vampire gentleman in there. It is too risky to let another person into this secret celebrations” said the Vampire Bat.

“See, this is my visiting card; it says Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, Member of the House of Drăculești, Full time Vampire and part time Count, The Vampire Castle”.

“Anyone can make such a card. Do you have an id?” asked the Vampire Bat.

“What id? I don’t need an id. I am the greatest vampire of all time. Why do I need an id?” asked an aggressive Dracula.

“We need to approve you if you are to enter here. So, go and get your id”.

“But it will take me hours to go back there and by then it will be too late. Do you have a razor?” asked a worried Dracula.

Roger Federer. Awesomeness, Class and Gillette.

“No, we don’t keep razors here, because we don’t need that. Now, please leave as we wait for our one true uncle with absolutely no hair on his face” said the Vampire Owl.

“Yes, you shall not have any of my noodles with the special ingredient unless you prove that you are the one” yelled the Vampire Kung-fu Panda from a distance.

“What kind of idiots have I trained? I should have trained a coconut tree and it would have done better than these guys” murmured Dracula as he returned to the castle.

*Moral of the story from Count Dracula: Always shave or lose a significant moment or two.

This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity
at BlogAdda in association with Gillette.
I’m accepting and acknowledging the tag of Maniparna through this post. I’m tagging a few of my blogger friends for the same activity: Namrata, Rohit, Vartika and Sagarika

Please don’t forget to mention that you were referred by me in your post.

Topics for Girls:
An instance when a stubble came in the way of a man’s chance to make a good impression.
An instance when a well groomed look ensured that they struck gold on an opportunity given to them.
Topics for Guys:
Missed chances- Stories or instances where you missed out on an opportunity because of a non-shaven face.
Luck or Confidence?- Will you leave your fate in the hands of destiny or will you step up and say yes to a well-groomed face to be at your best everyday? #WillYouShave.

TeNy

Visualizing a Dream Home

It has been just two months since we moved to our new home – our own renovated house after leaving the life at the flat behind. It has been exactly two months and five days, and I have to say that I am extremely happy to be at this new home, which is a lot better than how I thought a very old home could have been converted into. But is in no way, my dream home, and I am going to visualize one right now with items from Porcelanosa. All the images are from http://www.porcelanosa.com/ where you can check for further details.

I am going to begin with the house that I have, and for the same, the first thing should be the tiles for the floor. My choice here would be Slate which has an impressive and natural look which is my first choice for the floor. It is something that my parents would never allow, but there is nothing like standing on something that looks natural and I would say that there is a certain amount of antiquity associated with it – here is Pizara Kathmandu Pulido that comes to that picture. I would choose natural wood for the sit-out and the balcony area though (Classic Ebano Luxor), as it gives a certain kind of royal look.

Wall tiles are a must to add to the variety, and it is surprising that a good number of houses don’t have the same. For the same, I would add STON-KER wall tiles because I doubt anything else could give the right look for my home. With space left in there for the books, it would look fantastic on my wall. I would just need to find a complimenting paint, and the combination should be pretty much amazing.

The kitchen choice would be the G975 KRION / Ukola model – it looks so simple and elegant, and so neat; we don’t really have that kind of relatives who can keep it neat, but we can always handle that, can’t we? One thing is sure, that people would love to eat there, and the taste of food won’t matter that much as long as we have such an impressive design for kitchen. Do check for the Monomando Nantes taps in the list, it is the perfect tap choice for me.

Then there is the need for furniture; look at this for a dining room, inspiring people to have more of dinner. With Dreams KRION table and Curve Roble Blanco Cal chairs – notice the simplicity, and yet it looks better than the huge dining table and the curved chairs that we have at home – it is not size that matters, as it is the simplicity and usefulness that should define the place that we choose to have our food.

For the bathroom, I take the Victorian Single bathtub to satisfy my love for the Victorian literature and style which I admire the most. It looks so impressive that we can use that for a period drama movie. I would choose mosaic for the walls, and it would be Mini Iris Stone Whites. For showers, I choose the Essence-C set combining modernity with antiquity. Essence-C works nicely for the combination too, as it seems to be the best sanitaryware I can choose for now – wish there was something like that in our local shops. I am also adding the Mood accessories to the list because they would look nice sticking out from the mosaic.

Then look at the wardrobe setting for Natura Roble Marengo / Lino Cancún Textil – it is something like what I should have right now; even though I might not use that for the same purpose at it is made, but it is extremely useful and stylish as one can notice from its looks. I have never seen something like that before, that is for sure. It is the perfect choice for a great bedroom. It is not just a bedroom anymore, but a customized world – it is multi-purpose as far as I am concerned.

This much should be enough for me, and for the rest, I can manage with what I already have. *Part of the Happy Hours campaign from Porcelanosa in association with Indiblogger for the topic “Pick as many items as you can from Porcelanosa to build your dream home. Tell us why you chose them and why”. For more details, please do check at http://www.24kliving.com/

TeNy