Horror.One of my Favourite genres. Part2

Continuing from my last post.
     Along with horror stories I have been watching horror movies since my school days.It started with Aahat, Sony's horror series.The best thing about Aahat was its theme music and the opening animated sequence. Zee horror show was another show which too had an equally chilling theme music.The skull at the start of the show used to terrify me more than the show itself.

     The following movies are some of my favourites.I like psychological horror which involves little to almost no gore.Slasher movies don't interest me and I don't bother watching them.

-Ring,the Hollywood remake.

Ring was a great movie which reignited my interest in horror.Its ending remains one of my most favourite horror moments.After 'Ring' I started looking for horror movies.

-The wicker man by Robin Hardy

This was the most recent horror movie I saw and this is a horror movie like no other.Other horror movies have normal events taking place and then things turn for the worse.But in 'the wicker man' from the beginning you sense a undercurrent of foreboding.And there are no sudden sound effects,everything is shown so casually and normally.And yet as time passes by you can feel the helplessness and the desperation of the lead character.This film is not easy to forget.

-The Exorcist by William Friedkin

The story of an exorcism of a young girl has some spine chilling moments.The spider walk down the stairs was one such.The theme song tubular bells provided the perfect atmosphere for the movie.I was once narrating a horror story to a friend and along with I was humming this music in between words.After a few minutes into the story he stopped me exclaiming that I was unnerving him.

-The shining by Stanley Kubrick 

This has a superb premise.The sense of isolation is one of many factors of a horror movie and shining excels in it.The three characters are shut off from the world and the effects of the isolation slowly start showing in the main lead.Jack Nicholson's acting adds to the already tense setup.

-The Thing by John Carpenter

Again isolation plays a main role here.The research station in the Arctic plays a perfect part as the background of this masterpiece. 

-Alien by Ridley Scott

The opening sequence where we first see the spacecraft and then slowly the different parts of it remains one of my Favourite opening sequences.The stillness and the lifelessness of the craft provide a prelude to the coming events.
  

-The Blair Witch Project

 It remained with me for a long time.The whole premise of a group of students documenting a trip to a haunted forest to investigate the rumours of a witch was very interesting.The camping scene was truly terrifying.Nothing is seen except the expressions of the actors as they listen to some unusual sound coming from the forest around them.When I was camping in the hills of Uttarakhand all I could think of during the night was this movie.

-The Birds by the great Alfred Hitchcock. 

 Birds will never look the same again after you see this movie.Back home we have a lane which  is lined with trees on both sides and every evening crows crowd the branches and caw continuously. The last time when I was walking there all I could think of were the birds of the movie 'Birds' It was a bit unnerving.I chuckled to myself thinking of the effect the movie was having on me.

-The sixth sense by Night Shyamalan.
The story of a boy who could see dead people has a scare a minute.The twist in the ending is one of the best ever.

Some other movies which I like

-The Village by Night Shyamalan

-The Others by Alejandro Amenabar

- Jaws by Steven Speilberg

-Night of the Living Dead by George Romero

-Ju on.The Grudge by Takashi Shimuzu

-Scream  by Wes Craven

-Session 9 by Brad Anderson

-Signs by Night Shyamalan

Horror.One of my Favourite genres. Part1

What makes horror stories so interesting?
Is it in the chills that pass through your spine.Or in the electric feeling that you get on your skin.Or maybe because of the scares it provides.Or maybe simply in the atmosphere of paranormal. The supernatural,that realm that lies on the border of reality and fiction,that space whose existence is acknowledged by some and scoffed at by others,has an undeniable truth to it that it creates an interest. Doesn't matter if you like it or hate it, it elicits a strong reaction nevertheless.I was drawn to horror stories right from my childhood and used to read a lot of them.I like the atmosphere created in those tales of terror.And they make the imagination run wild. Horror stories have always fascinated me.
         I used to read a lot of them during my school days.Some of the earliest stories that I have read are some of my favorite too.It began with Stories of Algernon Blackood and Ambrose Bierce. Blackwood's 'Wendigo' was one of the reasons I got lured to this genre.The atmosphere of suspense and mystery it creates is unmatched.The bleak climate,the swamps of Canada,the cold,a group of hunters and a mysterious creature.The story stayed with me for a long time.It made me hungry for more.And more I did find.Ambrose Bierce's 'The Damned Thing' again about an unknown being was an excellent read.
         My favorite compilation of horror stories was a book by Ruskin Bond 'Ghost Stories of the Raj' It had stories of British and their supernatural experiences with the natives. Though not any one story stands out it is the combination that sends the reader back to the days of the British Raj and their thatched bungalows,lonely forest rest houses and hunting lodges.It is one of the reasons I have a fascination for the forest rest houses left by the British in the jungles of India.
         And then there are stories by Edgar Allan Poe.I read a few,among them 'The pit and the Pendulum' stands out. More than the stories I liked his horror-poem 'The Raven'. For all the readers I suggest you read it after 2pm in a lonely cottage somewhere in the middle of a jungle.The essence of the poem will flow out then.Stories of the master of horror H.P.Lovecraft I have read a few.His creation Cthulhu has become an Internet sensation lately.I still have to read a lot of his stories.
        And then there are stories whose moments got imprinted in my mind but I don't remember the name of the story or the author.Like the one about a young man and his young lady friend he makes across the street.The twist in the ending is one of the best I have read.This particular story was a big hit at many storytelling sessions we used to have back in our school days.And the one about a hunting expedition gone wrong due to a supernatural sighting in an abandoned hunting lodge.Or the one about an out of the world object found in the ruins of a house in the jungles of Burma.I am still trying to find these stories.I hope to find the names someday.
My interest has not subsided even now and am still reading horror stories.

Apart from the above mentioned stories the following are some of my favourite stories
-'The monkeys Paw' by WW Jacobs
-'The most dangerous game' by Richard Donnel
-'The country of the blind' by HG Wells
-'The Signal Man' by Charles Dickens
-'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' by Ambrose Bierce
-'The Willows' by Algernon Blackwood.

Look out for my next posts on Horror movies and Horror story telling sessions we used to have.

My Top Ten Food Experiences

I am not much of a foodie but once in a while I get to experience something that makes the whole eating experience an important point of the whole trip.The factors that I have taken into account here are the ambience,the taste and the location.Without any particular order Here goes the list

1- Fish Curry in Agartala,Tripura
2- Andhra Meals in a quaint hotel somewhere in between Hyderabad and Bidar,Karnataka
3- Chocolate bars in Ooty,Tamil Nadu
4- Prawns in Puri,Odisha
5- Momos in a Tibetan Restaurant in Mainpat,Chhattisgarh
6- Parsi food in Jamshedpur,Jharkhand
7- Bread omlette in Srinagar,Jammu and Kashmir
8- Fried Fish dishes in Kolkata,West Bengal
9- Pani Puri in Mumbai,Maharshtra
10-Squashed Potato while trekking in Uttarakhand

Power Engineers.The Unsung Heroes.

Its 2 am in the night. A group of engineers are looking intently on the monitors in front of them. Their faces, tense. Everything must go according to the procedure. No deviations. No mistakes allowed. The plant is being started, technically called a light up and should be done according to the schedule. The shift in charge is yelling instructions. There is constant ringing of the desk phones. To an outsider it is utter chaos.

               Power engineers are one of the most underappreciated engineers. Barely anyone outside the industry ever hears of them. The dedication and work they do goes unnoticed.

               In a power plant there are various departments like operation, Control and Instrumentation, Maintenance, Chemistry etc. A plant runs with the cooperation of all the departments. But it is the operation Department which oversees the day to day running of the plant. Operation engineers work in shifts. There are three shifts including night shifts. That in itself is quite difficult for the human body to adapt. Then there is the matter of responsibility of running huge machines like turbines, pumps and compressors. The biggest pump, for example, in a 600MW unit is a Boiler Feed Pump which is a 12MW machine. That means, it is of the same power as of 150 hatchback cars of 100Horsepower.Also it is equal to the power capacity of 6 locomotive engines. One can imagine the might of this machine and the responsibility attached to running it.

    With huge machines come maintenance problems. Giving permission, technically called a permit, to other Departments for resolving issues is a very critical task. The permit giver who is an Operation engineer must ensure that the concerned machine is isolated and won’t affect other machines, processes and most importantly the personnel involved in the maintenance. Apart from all these there are hundreds of parameters to keep an eye on. The operation engineer should know the range of these parameters, he/she should know what is an abnormal value, at what value the machine stops (technically called a trip) and at what value it is harmful for the machine.

    Running a plant of 600MW is no small task. If the plant trips then 600MW is being suddenly removed from the grid. A grid is nothing but a network of power generators and consumers of electricity. So when 600MW is suddenly removed the whole grid is shaken up. So utmost care has to be taken to avoid tripping of a running plant.

  As can be seen from the above examples Operation Engineers have a very responsible job and it involves split second decision making. They deserve much more recognition than what the society gives them.