The trapped miners have finally been freed!
Unless you have been living under a rock (do excuse the pun), pretty much the whole of India has been following the story of the miners trapped in Uttarakhand – 41 men at the mercy of a mountain. American equipment failed, and it finally took a banned (manual rat-hole mining) technique to rescue them.
I guess Akshay Kumar has a sequel to work on now.
But today’s post is not on this rescue. It is on the art of storytelling, best demonstrated by this gentleman who was at the rescue mission.
Captivates you in two minutes doesn’t it? Oh, what a good story (or a snippet of it) can do to refresh the tired mind:)
Speaking of stories, it is now fashion to link together stories, however un-linkable, into a ‘Universe” of sorts. It started with the Astra-verse, an unintenionally humorous Brahmastra as a flagship of a (in hindsight) poorly thought of Lord of the Rings, and now you have the YRF Spy Universe with Pathaan and Tiger (and combinations thereof) that don’t really have much in common other than overaged once-superstars playing pretend-spy.
You also have the “Cop Universe” with aamchi Mumbai police playing James Bond (and now Bondi with Deepika), Tom Cruise and The Rock all rolled into one lean, mean underpaid machine. Step aside SWAT, here we come. Tiger has also joined in so sasta Bruce Lee as well.
And of course, the Lokiverse. Kaithi was good, Vikram superb and on the other end of the spectrum was “Bloody Sweet” hyena lover Leo Das. I mean, what was the bloody sweet all about? I couldn’t spot a confectionery factory within miles of the story, and I guess he uttered the line once in the film. The movie was watchable, but illogical and brought out many (1.5 to be exact) facets of the acting capabilities of the new Thalapathy on the block. The wig was nice and well, stayed in place regardless of the 20 kicks and 200 men he fought so well…can we have a contact number of the hair stylist please?
But pray, where is the Universe connection here, other than Kamal calling him at the end of the movie asking a ruthless killer who maimed at slightest opportunity, a shot at eradicating the drug mafia? I mean, HR has to do at least a bit more work na? And what in gods name was a hyena doing as a pet? Phew.
Write stories that are woven into each other. Not hanging on for dear life with a single thread, just for the sake of making a universe that no one really cares too much about anyway.
Oh, the lost art of good storytelling!