Subs (sub-editors, deskfolk) are sworn servants to the style sheet. A style sheet is what dictates the eventual look of any newspaper or magazine. It contains details regarding type face, font size, column widths etc. It also specifies what way certain words are to be spelt wherever they appear. Style sheets tell you that ‘here’ is a no-no. You must always spell out the name of the place. Style sheets wouldn’t let you get away with acronyms. Style sheets, in short, screw the way a sub looks at anything he is reading.

Technically, there can’t be a mad mad scientist. But I am sure you realise that. Now that we are past that tiny issue, let’s come to think of his appeal as a motif in modern myth of the corny variety. Having appeared extensively in comic books and movies over decades, his characteristic nuances are unmistakable.

He operates on a grand scale. He is driven by overpowering ambition. He has a thing for monologues (this also goes for super villains and evil overlords) that frequently end with, ‘…once and for all’ or ‘…mine, all mine.’ More often than not, he breaks into manic laughter that echoes in his innermost sanctums or his courthouse (if he is the court-holding type).

I heard they are going to air National Treasure on Star Movies some time soon. I thought it might do some people some good if I re-post the review I wrote after watching it for the first time in Chennai. Feeling very Chennai-sick right now. So here goes:

A bit of the father-son thing from Indiana Jones but the rest was cool, I dare say better. Nicholas Cage has a cool name, Benjamin Franklin Gates in the movie. What made it watchable was that Cage had generations of explorers to look back upon. The (however sentimental) premise of family and tradition made the movie so enjoyable for me. Am a sucker for things like that! The introduction where young Gates is mock-knighted by his grandfather was extremely cool (my opinion).

I wrote this piece for Digantik.com in 2005.

Neither at the reasonably comfortable hotel room at Parvatipuram, nor when I am at the base camp of the team that takes a periodic trip to the hilly villages with the Mandal Revenue Officer some 18 kilometres from the town, does the realization of where we are going dawn on me. It is only when the jeeps can no longer cross the ditches and our path started getting ever more vertical that ‘the walk’ started. Our luggage, mostly containing edibles and filming equipment, was unloaded and the officials who we were travelling with led the way to what was to be the destination of our lifetime.

One afternoon, boredom brought back memories of watching B R Chopra’s Mahabharat on Doordarshan long ago. I remember hearing one story about the son of Hanuman. Yes! I know how it sounds. I told someone the same story some time ago and got, “Yeah sure! And I am Queen Elizabeth…” kind of responses. Whatever that might have been, here is the story - or what I remember of it.

I’ve got lice in my head (that’s part of the myth). Suppose its an advanced and evolved civilisation of parasites. There must be intellectual lice who warn their folk of the ill effects of sucking too much blood off me. They tell them that if I die, they all die.

And there are the evil corporate lice. They work at advancing a head-wide empire of commerce. They make products from my blood and market it all over their world.