Are we there yet?

Looks like the generation that enjoyed the “are we there yet?” clip from Shrek 2! are all grown up. Now that they are cooped up in lockdown, they complain that they are bored. They keep whining when the movement control order will end.

This is the generation that could not be left to themselves to interact and create games among themselves. Their parents had to arrange party games to keep them occupied. Some caregivers kept their kids glued to the TV for babysitting or kept them busy nibbling on junk food and gulping soda.

As if that the whole Universe was conspiring against them, in rolled the gaming devices and the world wide web network to quench the desire for instant gratification. Their wants, desires or any kind of squirms were met with a wave of fingers which almost looked like a sleight of hand.

The opposing forces of Nature, it seems, are fighting back. They want to impress upon the millennials that not everything can be fixed by their soccer mums. It is what it is. Even though satisfied that they would be left uninterrupted to their own digital devices, they yearn to hang around idly at the overpriced and overhyped eateries. 

The elders can tell them that it is a form of national service for them; that it is nothing compared to their grandparents who had to don military fatigues bearing artillery to scourge the tropical hinterland, it is all fairy tales to them.

They can be told of the single year without a summer in 1816 when Europe was frozen and how that misadventure created a brand-new genre which is incidentally one of their favourites. Without Frankenstein and Vampyre, their idol Robert Pattinson and Twilight would not have had their breaks. 

Meanwhile, are we there yet? Have we traversed the peak and descending path of the standard distribution curve of the Gaussian graph?

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Dracula in the 21st century!

Dracula (2020)

Miniseries (Season1, Ep 1-3)

Bram Stoker was a business manager at Lyceum Theatre where he used to write short stories to supplement his income. The book 'Dracula' (Son of a Dragon) is by no means a pioneer work. Stories of that genre had been around since the 1880s. His book came out in 1897, but it was not a bestseller. In fact, in the last years of his life, Bram was so immersed in poverty that he had to live on charity. For sustenance, his widow had to auction off his notes of the novel for a little over £2. Then came an authorised silent German movie 'Nosferatu' based on the story. Stoker's widow sued the film company, after which this book gained popularity.

'The year without a summer', 1816, is often attributed to the genesis of the science fiction genre and Mary Shelley for writing "Frankenstein' when Lake Geneva froze over in summer, one of the party in Shelley's group, John Polidori, started writing a short story named 'Vampyres'.

My lecturers told me that Count Dracula's condition could be a dramatised narration of a sufferer of a real medical condition - acute intermittent porphyria. In a variant of this disease, the inflicted person, through genetic means, suffers from photosensitivity and chronic anaemia from rupturing of blood cell walls. Hence, Dracula has an eversion to sunlight and has suck on his victim's blood to stay alive. Garlic could be an agent that could trigger hemolysis.

Others propose that Dracula could have been inflicted with rabies or pellagra (Niacin, B3 deficiency). Folklore or medical condition, words get altered as it goes from ear to ear, and it gets magnified or exaggerated.

The legend of Dracula and vampires have been told and retold many times over. Naturally, to capture the fancy of the viewers (or readers), it has been altered and spiced up. In this particular offering, the name of the characters are mostly maintained, and the basic plot is kept, the storytellers had decided to bring the Count to the present-day when Demetre (his ship that was travelling to England burned down. Dracula was preserved in his Transylvania soil infused coffin on the ocean floor, only to be 'brought to life' by scientists 123 years later.

Professor Abraham Von Helsing, the nemesis of Dracula in the original story is now a Catholic Nun, Agatha Von Helsing, and in spirit as her granddaughter, a scientist.

An interesting offering. It is exciting to see how the story is twisted around to give it the compelling feel, yet centred around the same theme and infusing present-day environment to it.

(P.S. Dracula's fear of the Cross has nothing to do with the divine qualities of the Cross. It is the strong reflection of light upon it and the constant hint of death to the Count. The crucifixion is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus to mankind, continually reminding him of his failure to be in the frontline of the battlefield as it was in his family tradition.)

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1816, the year without a summer

Chichester Canal by J. M. W. Turner (1828) [Wiki] 

In 1816, whilst Reverend Hutchings was busy organising things in his selfless deed to set up facilities for English education, free from encumbrances of religion, race, creed and socioeconomic statuses, for natives on a small idyllic island of Penang, Europe and the rest of the 'civilised' world including North America were undergoing turmoils of their own kind.
In April the year before, the volcanic mountain, Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia after building up energy over the years, decided enough was enough. It spewed lava, magma, shock waves and dust of such devastation estimated to have had volcanic eruption scale of 7. It is said to be the most massive volcanic eruption in human history and is dubbed 'Pompeii of the East'. The devastation that it left can also be described as callosal. Not only was the immediate human and property loss was immense, but the ash from the outburst also lingered on in the stratosphere long enough to affect climate the following year. As is generally accepted, weather changes affect economic activities and indirectly be a cause of social turmoil.

It is puzzling how an event occurring at one end of the world has such a profound effect on the opposite end of the world. Globalisation is not a new construct.

The lingering ash provided a picturesque view of nature. The view of the sunset with its exaggerated orangy hue had never been better. The snow, on the other hand, was tinged yellow. The presence of high sulphur content in the rain and a wet, cold summer devastated food cultivation for a couple of years to come. It was the nidus of famines to come.

Hong Kong sunset circa 1992
after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo [Wiki]

In the present area surrounding Myanmar, rice cultivation failed. Farmers eventually discovered opium to grow well during those colder climates. By the time regular weather patterns returned three years later, they had abandoned their ancestral vocation but pursued with the new more lucrative crop. This must have started the notorious drug route.

In New England of Northen America, failure of crop forced farmers to migrate west. This must have eventually opened the Western frontier, the mad Gold Rush, spurred genocide of the Natives, starting of fringe Christian societies like the Mormons and just perhaps the idea of the abolishment of slavery must have taken root.

Over the literary side of things, it is said that the cold summers of London forced a group of writers to stay on the icy lakes of Switzerland to write scary stories with dark, nihilistic themes. This later evolved to Frankenstein and Dracula storylines. A new revolution in writing had started. Human imagination had never been the same since.

It is intriguing how a single event can give such seismic shift in the direction of the path of mankind. With the rapidly and unpredictably changing weather patterns of late, I wonder what awaits the human race? Is it going to be all doom and gloom and are we just going to take a detour and head in another direction? Just like how we have done so many times.

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