Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Not automated but definitely optimized - The Indian Haunted House.

I took the kids to a movie theater in the mall to watch Megamind. I had checked the timing many times on their website but two Bollywood movies had been launched that day so my show had been ‘replaced’ by the time we reached there. I was disappointed but my kids have become way more resilient and opportunistic than ever since we move to India. Ashvin asked for ice cream while Ankit teamed up with his friend Malavika and cajoled me into getting tickets for the mall’s “haunted house”

I was skeptical about the haunted house - as I am of most things in a mall - but went along. Ankit’s friend was a screaming 15 year old girl (for real – not just a figure of speech) and screamed at everything. I started to enjoy myself, looking past the extremely plasticky skeletons and sad attempts at dusty old corpses. We finally screamed our way into a corridor of “body bags”. Malavika - hysterically screaming – refused to walk through it. I stood there trying to push her through when a dark man in a blond wig appeared. I freaked out for a bit before he told us to hurry up. This is a busy country and we were holding up the flow through the haunted house.

Yes, the ending included a bunch of people dressed in wigs and costume ready to scare the craziezzes out of you. Their gig included grabbing you if you were not scared or at least freaked out by the sheer sight of very Indian guys in a very blond wigs. And they doubled as security pushing the slowbiess out of the house. Talk about optimizing cheap manual labour.

4 comments:

  1. Totally enjoyed reading this, you come with such fresh energy, mostly I like the fact that you just take things as they come. I wish I could be more like that :)I guess it is not just the fact that you just moved from Seattle, but I am sure when you moved to Seattle from India you must have been equally adventurous. Thats what I like, the mostly enjoying life part :)) hugs, keep writing.

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  2. Love the story. I can so imagine you screaming!!

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  3. " This is a busy country and we were holding up the flow through the haunted house."

    Only in India would you see that sentence.

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  4. Same goes for the temples. No matter how long the deeply devotional devotees stand in lines (height of patience), the end result at the sight of the God, is just getting yelled at & kicked out asap.

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