slide show

a parrot riding on a monkey sitting on a cart pulled by a labrador. this strange menagerie working with such symbiosis is rarely spotted in nature. i spotted it in an awesome movie called durga a long while ago(and yes i watched it more than once to be sure). however this one is not about any of these species because there is one creature that above all is revered in the indian movie industry. it appeared in this movie too but i dont think it had a license or it would have also driven something.

if one were to slice the tamil/telugu movie industry pie based on species ( omitting homo sapien sapiens to avoid statistical skew and the use of mathematical terms), you will see that nearly the whole pie is taken up by the hisstrionics of various snakes (sorry abt the typo heh heh). there is a thin sliver that is occupied by the monkeys, parrots, dogs (all of whom were at one time or another called ramu) and the lone camel that bit goundamani in indian but i dont think they emote as well or contribute as much to a story as our reptilian friends do. u can watch any movie whose title has the 3 letter code 'nag' embedded in it and be assured of learning nothing about the reptilian life cycle. pretty much the only take home message from these movies is dont mess with snakes in heat. also beware of women wearing light colored contact lenses and forked tongues who love milk and steer you away from the mongoose cage at the zoo.

snakes have also appeared in several non-NAG movies. they would often play wingman to the heroes - frightening their lady loves and enabling the heroes to step in and display their courage. wont work as well if a cow or say a bunny were trying to scare the lady. they also play able henchmen helping villains to swiftly eliminate foes. there are very few folks who'd be scared of a villain with a monkey on his shoulder, unless it were a gorilla that is. you get where i am going. snakes are indispensable to a good movie.the ultimate movie however would pit a viciously venomous viper against the courageous captain. snake after snake would bite the captain and fall down dead while the captain would grin and say "paambu enna kadicha saak adichu sethu poidun" . would make the dog and monkey act look like a street act, i tell ya.