Dragodile Dreaming

Last night I had a bizarre dream, which was cool because I've been having some "normal" dreams lately (with things that could actually happen in real life), and where's the fun in that?

It was just another peaceful day in college. Some people felt mild tremors in the ground, but nothing extraordinary happened.
Until this guy showed up. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the rare, exotic dragodile!

There was a sudden mad scramble as people all over campus ran into the nearest classrooms and locked all the doors and windows.

It was now up to the three musketeers to save the day, or at least try. Drum roll please!

Here we are. If you don't like how you look, YOU try drawing your face on Paint (without a graphic tablet) and I'm sure it'll look like my drawing of me here. 

The terrace of the main building was, for some reason, considered the safest place to hide from the Dragodile. So of course that's where it went and promptly parked itself. The three of us rushed to the rescue, and found the little room in the terrace occupied by kids. The G-Ra shooed them out.

 What were such little kids doing in our college anyway?

And then we set out to take on (or keep off) the beast.

Chit very happily obliged.

Me wussing out.

I stepped out of the bathroom to find that all doors had been closed. I was one person locked out in the corridor, and I was sure to get eaten.

After being alone in terror for what seemed like hours, I slowly peeped out of a window, and saw this:

Dragodile was still on the terrace, but was now sleeping peacefully. Our principal had just put up that sign, and a few moments later, she announced through the public address system that the danger had passed, and that everyone was to get back to work immediately.

Time Changes Everything

Sometimes I wonder if life wouldn't be simpler without different time zones all over the world. What if we all just followed GMT, or some other universally fixed time, throughout the earth? How much easier it would be to keep track of days, dates, and important times!

Think about it. We wouldn't have to make confusing calculations. The only possible downside is that almost everyone around the world would be asleep during the same hours, but we know that'll never happen. It doesn't even happen in the same city. People will sleep when they want to. 

Sure, some people might have to sleep with the sun shining and do daytime stuff when it's dark, but there are folks who already live in places with six months of sun and six months of darkness, and I bet they survive just fine. Those unhappy with their schedules can move somewhere else. Maybe if that happened, all call centres could be re-located to one section of the planet. Oh wait, they probably wouldn't work different timings then. See, problem solved! 

Television shows and such things could air at the same time everywhere. Live telecasts of events like World Cup football matches or even the Royal Wedding would be more easily watchable if it wasn't time for about half the world to be sleeping.

No time calculations also means absolutely no miscalculations. So even if you live in a place that is (/was?) a little behind the times, so to speak, you'll no longer, say, wish someone a happy birthday on the following day thinking it's still (the night of) his/her birthday.    

Take a hypothetical situation: let's say you know that the world really is ending on December 21, 2012 at 11:11 GMT. You'd want to do everything you possibly can before that happens, right? Suppose you don't know how far behind GMT you are (and I'm sure a lot of you don't) or, in some extreme cases of ignorance, think GMT is the standard time followed by your country when it's definitely not (I tell you, it's quite possible) you could end up very, very disappointed. Like this:

You make all these plans for the last day of your life...

...but what's that? 

Whoops, Earth exploded before you could do any of those things. Awkward, eh? 

Here's something for the people who came up with those ridiculous high school math problems where one had to find out how long it would take for the two trains to crash into each other, or something like that:

Two spaceships (or whatever you want them to be) weighing two tonnes each are at equal distances (400,000,000 miles) away from the surface of the earth at sea level, on opposite sides of the planet. They both start moving at exactly the same time and travel at a constant speed of 2296.3 kilometres per hour.

1) At what time will they hit the earth's surface? 

(Logically, it would be at the same time, but thanks to different time zones, you'll find them hours apart. So it'll be at the same time, but also at different times.)

2) How long will it take for each to reach the core of the earth (and crash into the other)? 

(You'll find that, naturally, both spaceships get to the core at the same time, except I'm not sure how they keep track of time there)

Note: This is a math problem. Weird things happen in math problems. I mention this so that you understand it's taken for granted that the spaceships can pass through different materials without changing speed and are completely heat resistant, because it's a hypothetical situation.

Well, that's how the world goes round. I mean, look at this - something else related to math (and religion) which I came across on dearblankpleaseblank.com 

Dear math teachers,

If Jesus had two loaves of bread and five fish, how many people could he feed?

Sincerely, good luck with that.

The Bible's answer makes no logical sense, right? But people go with it anyway.

So I guess that in the end, there's no point in me complaining about time zones, except that it makes me feel good to get it out. Also, I have successfully written one more article (if you can call it that) for my blog, with colourful pictures! I may not be ruling the world (yet) but for now, I'd say this is good enough.

Chronicles of a Death Foretold - Best Synopsis Ever - Part III (The Aftermath)

I decided not to draw too many pictures here because I'm sick of this story and this is the less important part and it's not like anyone cares much. I'll make this quick.
An autopsy is done on Santiago Nasar's body. It's a huge deal but turns out to serve absolutely no purpose. The Vicario brothers spend some time in jail before being tried, and then they are let off.

Hortensia Baute (the woman who thought she saw blood on the knives much before the murder took place) goes mad and runs down the street naked. So random, and strangely funny.

Like Archimedes, but not that enlightened. Or maybe more enlightened, because she saw something before it happened?

Clotilde Armenta's 86 year old husband Don Rogelio de la Flor sees the pieces of Nasar's body and does not survive the shock. (He dies.)

Yes, I know he doesn't look 86. That's because, as the book says, he was "a marvel of vitality" and I forgot how old he was while drawing.  

Bayardo San Roman comes back to Angela, after she spends like half her lifetime writing him a letter every week. The book is filled with jobless people, I tell you!

And finally, the narrator comes back to the village 27 years after the incident, collects bits and pieces of information about the events of that Monday morning from everyone, puts them together in the same haphazard way, and writes a chronicle.

Also, he meets Angela somewhere in the towns of Guajira four years before this (that's 23 years after the incident). She's sitting at a machine doing embroidery (but I drew her knitting, simply because I wanted to) like a sweet old woman. Except she's not, because no one ever found any proof that Santiago Nasar was guilty of what he was accused of, and when her cousin asks what really happened, this is what she says, in her usual cool, rehearsed manner:

So wait, it's quite likely that she got her brothers to kill the wrong guy?!? Go figure!

I'm finally done with this, so I can say it: I now hate everything to do with this book, and I never want to see or hear about it ever again. 

Chronicles of a Death Foretold - Best Synopsis Ever - Part II (The Incident)

Now here's where all the confusion happens. Santiago Nasar wakes up at 05:30 to get ready and greet the Bishop. After being grossed out by the dead rabbits, he leaves the house. It's 06:00, maybe five minutes past, and Pablo and Pedro see him walk out of the main door and get up to kill him.

However, they are dissuaded by Clotilde Armenta who tells them to "leave him for later, if only out of respect for his grace the bishop". So they simply sit around and wait again.

The bishop, not surprisingly, yet to everyone's disappointment, doesn't get off his boat. Just the customary blessing and he's gone.

People disperse. At 06:25, Margot, the narrator's sister, invites Nasar over for breakfast, and he promises to be there in fifteen minutes. He walks purposelessly with Cristo for a little distance and then bids him farewell.

Seconds later, Yamil Shaium tells Cristo about the twins' plan.

Cristo runs off to find his friend, but he has already disappeared. He goes to his house, but Divina Flor, the young maid, tells him Nasar has not come back yet.

The man in demand is, meanwhile, at his fiance Flora Miguel's place, at 06:45. Miguel's family usually sleeps till noon (lucky people, huh?) but woke up really early on this day because of the noise made by the bishop's boat. Flora is upset with Nasar, blah blah blah. Not important. What IS important is that Flora's father, Nahir Miguel (who is a wise old man - the one who orders everyone in the house to sleep until noon) tells Nasar to either stay in the house or exit with a revolver unless he wants to be killed. Nasar who has been blissfully unaware of everything, is shocked to the core.

In the meantime, Cristo feels he should be a good friend and at least prepare Nasar for what might happen. He goes up to his bedroom at 06:56 and a couple of minutes later (at 06:58, since they've mentioned it in the book) he takes Nasar's revolver to hand over to him whenever he is found.

He the heads out and passes by Armenta's shop where Pedro yells out to him to tell Nasar that they're waiting to kill him. Cristo also runs into Colonel Lazaro Aponte again and informs him about the recent developments. Aponte says he'll look into it but isn't too worried as he doubts that the twins will be back with weapons so soon after he took away their knives and told them to go home.

ADD/ADHD much?

Cristo Bedoya is still looking for his friend. He spends some time helping to move Prospero Arango's ailing dad who can't quite walk. Then he goes to Santiago's house again, and this time Divina Flor says she saw him going up to his room from the entrance facing the square.

Incorrect information. Hallucination? Sneaky plot?

Santiago has just received the news of the plot to kill him, and he stumbles out of Miguel's house, unarmed and still dazed. People all around him are shouting instructions and he doesn't know who to listen to.

He sees the twins running towards him and suddenly realizes what is happening. From her angle, his mother Placida Linero looks out the window and sees the twins running to the main door, but doesn't see her son in front of them. After Divina's reassurance that he is in his room upstairs, Linero runs to the door and bolts it so the twins can't go up to her son's room to kill him.

Isn't it ironic?

Linero has locked out her own son, and he is now trapped. Unarmed, he turns around to face his killers. They stab him over and over again, but the knives keep coming out clean and bloodless. That's the beauty of magical realism and supernatural elements...

...but not for long, because after all, they're all human. Poor Nasar is stabbed for what seems like forever, and finally he falls. 

Now comes the creepy part. The "dead" dude stands up and picks up his intestines (which are totally spilling out. Don't even ask about the blood). Then, carrying them in his hands, he walks around the house, goes through the house of his neighbours (weirdos who think he is glowing), walks into his house through the kitchen.   

Then he falls to the floor. Dead. Definitely so this time. And that, my friends, is how the story ends.

Part III is where less important things happen, but it's because of what happens then that the important stuff that happens until now is recorded.  

Chronicles of a Death Foretold - Best Synopsis Ever - Part I (Background)

Bad judgement. That's what made me think, "Wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to go through Chronicles of a Death Foretold, figure out the timeline and the exact order of events, and then tell it in that order with lots of illustrations? It most certainly would!"
It most certainly was NOT, but since I planned it and spent some time putting events on the timeline, I figured I might as well see this through. I've split it into three parts to make it easier (for me).

I declare it's the best synopsis you'll ever find because it has relevant information sifted out and also provides some entertainment. You may argue about the entertainment value, but I bet it's more entertaining than the actual novella. Why didn't I do this before my exam? Would've made going through this befuddling book much easier.

To start at the beginning - Bayardo San Roman marries Angela Vicario and sends her back home a few hours later - some time after midnight - because he discovers she's not a virgin.

I've tried to stay true to the description - San Roman's unbuttoned shirt and pants held up by suspenders, and Angela with the dress in shreds, wrapped in a towel up to her waist.

What a douche, right? Anyway, apparently Angela's been raped, and here's what her mom does: whips her for two hours straight. You'd think a girl would protest, but Angela's too good for that.

All right, maybe she didn't use a whip like that, but that's hardly the point!

After she's whipped for a couple of hours, her twin brothers Pablo and Pedro come back home after a night of revelry and demand to know what happened. It's now a little before 03:00

She's supposed to be sitting on the dining table while the other two are standing. Thus the weird heights. 

Well, the twins decide that they ought to kill Nasar to preserve their family's honour and go off to the butcher's to sharpen their knives, at 03:20. Faustino Santos (the butcher) asks them what they're doing and they tell him their plan.

Santos doesn't quite believe them but thinks he'll let a Leandro Pornoy (a policeman) know, just in case.

Pornoy (*snigger*) tells Colonel Aponte, who takes his own sweet time to get ready with the perfect bow tie for the Bishop, eat his breakfast of fried liver and onion rings, and basically enjoy his lazy morning.

Meanwhile, about five minutes before 04:00, Santiago Nasar, his friend Cristo Bedoya, the unnamed narrator, and the narrator's brother Luis Enrique think it a swell idea to go sing for the newlyweds outside their house. They set off fireworks and rockets from their lawn, singing loudly outside the windows with Enrique on the guitar, oblivious to the fact that Angela has been sent back to her house.

By 04:10, the twins have their knives sharpened and are waiting outside Clotilde Armenta's shop. It's the only shop open at this time, and it's right opposite Nasar's house, so they'll see him when he gets home and finish off the job quickly, or so they hope.

Yeah, Achmed style!

A little later, the merry party of four mentioned above breaks up. Enrique stops by Armenta's shop to buy something and the twins ask him where Nasar is. Looking back, Enrique can't remember what he said because, you know, he's drunk out of his mind, but the twins claim this is what happened:

 Please note that drunk Enrique has a mole on his face ;)

A few minutes after this, at 04:20, Nasar himself is back home and asleep in bed, but the twins don't know that because he takes the back door, and doesn't turn on any lights.

Nasar's dreams = omens of impending doom

Colonel Aponte, while eating breakfast, hears the gossip about Angela from his wife and puts the pieces of the puzzle together.

He then goes to Armenta's store at around 05:00, and after talking to the twins, he takes away their knives.

Armenta tells Aponte to arrest the twins, but he says no one gets arrested on plain suspicion of murder, and Armenta explains:

Important theme - victimization by society and its expectations

But of course, he has to show he's boss and will do whatever he likes, and won't take orders from a mere woman. Little does he know that the twins are debating over getting new knives. Although the murder was originally his idea, Pedro is scared as shit now, so he can't even pee against a tamarind tree in peace (It says so in the book, I kid you not). While he attempts to do his business, his brother Pablo goes to the pig pen and brings out two knives and talks his brother into not giving up.

 Some foreshadowing there. Nasar's fate is sealed.

They stop by Prudencia Cotes' for coffee, and on their way to Armenta's shop again, some woman named Hortensia Baute sees their swords dripping blood and thinks they've already killed Nasar.

Supernatural element, and more foreshadowing. Couldn't decide if she saw the blood through the newspaper the swords were wrapped in, or if she saw no newspaper at all. Thus I leave room for options.

The twins get to Armenta's shop again. The good lady gives them a bottle of rotgut rum, hoping to get them so drunk they won't remember about Nasar. Pedro puts on a random show of machismo by shaving with his butcher's knife (which probably isn't integral to the story in any way, but it's funny)

Really, what is up with these guys?

So now the twins are waiting, and Nasar is up and ready for the bishop. He goes to the kitchen for breakfast and is horrified at the way in which rabbit guts are being pulled out, which is a little strange coming from him because he goes hunting every once in a while.

MORE foreshadowing. It's like Nasar has a strong feeling he'll be in the rabbit's position soon. (Oh, you'll have to imagine the rabbit guts being pulled out, because I didn't have the heart to draw that.)

This is about it until Nasar steps out of his house at 06:05 to greet the Bishop. That happens in the next part. 

Random introspection

Ever since I've started blogging here, I've hit "Next Blog>>" several times to see what's out there. Most of the blogs I see usually happen to be in another language, and I often have to click the button several times before seeing one that's interesting enough to read. Sometimes I just get frustrated with the lack of quality and give up, but there have been times when I've found some pretty remarkable stuff.


One thing I've noticed on blogs by random people as well as friends is that most people seem to have a post coming out every two weeks at the most. It makes me wonder if I write a little too often. I sometimes wonder why I feel so compelled to put up at least two posts every week. 


Maybe it's the excitement that comes with the beginning of a new blog. Maybe it's my current joblessness. Maybe it's to make myself feel like I'm doing something slightly constructive. Maybe it's to make it worthwhile for the people who've been so good as to follow my blog. Maybe it's the parents who ask me almost every other day if I've posted something new.


Or maybe I just enjoy putting up random stuff like this. 

Where Have All The Good Films Gone?

Watching television at someone's place yesterday, hoping to see some exciting new movie trailers, and all I could see was Salman Khan's constipated-looking face across most channels. That guy needs to either retire or start playing roles which suit his age (preferably the first) instead of doing stupid dances and looking so pleased at being flanked by 20-something year old girls.


Really, what's happening to the industry right now? Haven't heard of a single good film in the past three months. This year hasn't brought with it too many movies I've really felt like watching, let alone a single movie I've watched and rated as good. Hindi films seem to stupid to be watchable. Check out some of these:

  (I'd need to have an extra-crazy family to voluntarily watch that)

Unfortunately, I did watch this, thanks to mom's enthusiasm. Needless to say, the movie was stupid. Madhavan and Kangana Ranaut have never been more annoying!

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!! Looks like it could be soft porn, but it's probably worse.

The poster with the random people says it all, if the name hadn't already done the job.

Thank you mom for not making me watch this!

This was actually one of the more interesting looking films, but I heard it's terrible, so...

Please! The very title is off-putting

Wow, this actually looks more classy than the poster in the cinema hall near my house. 

With the number of dumb people out there, this might actually do well.

I wonder how Dilli Chalo is. It looked not too bad, and at least it has actors I like. Heard that I Am is good, but I don't see it in theatres anywhere.

All the new English movies I hear of seem to have doomsday themes - Battle Los Angeles, Black Death, Thor, etc. And really, who wants to watch The Hangover Part II? Didn't even like the first movie (excuse me for not being that crass) and the second one is apparently exactly the same, but in a different location. 
How many Pirates of the Caribbean movies can one watch? Oh wait, this has Johnny Depp AND Penelope Cruz. Okay, I might watch that. Thank goodness Kung Fu Panda II is coming up soon!


To all my friends who have given me movies, I love you. It's thanks to them and my laptop that I manage to watch some good movies in bleak times like these. For example, yesterday I watched No Reservations, and loved it! Then again, how can you not love a movie with brilliant Catherine Zeta-Jones playing the lead character, against a backdrop of food? Aaron Eckhart was charming, and Abigail Breslin was surprisingly sweet. Nothing revolutionary, but a heartwarming story well told. 

Watch the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi295567641/ Then watch the movie. Because feel good films rule!