Summing practicality in fiction

Recently, I was watching a documentary on BBC, "triumph and tragedy" which was based on the NASA experiments. It showed all the achievements and failures of NASA, from landing on the moon to orbiting the earth in a space shuttle.

It focussed on the challenges and efforts of making a space shuttle, which can be reused to save millions of dollars. The process of getting out of the earth's orbit needs tonnes of fuel and re-entering suffers tonnes of heat. So tiling the space shuttle with heat resistant tiles was essential. The last tragedy in 2004 when, the crew on board the space shuttle, including the legendary Indian woman, Kalpana Chawla, in NASA's reusable space shuttle fell prey to the excessive heat which entered the space shuttle through a broken tile and destroyed it, including the crew, into hundreds of pieces. That was a big tragedy.

While watching the documentary, an abrupt thought struck my mind. What if superman was in real! Now you would think that I'd say that for saving the space shuttle. NO! I thought, he was resistant to almost everything, including fire, but his clothes? I suspect: no! We have seen him going out and entering the earth's orbit a thousand times, in the repeat telecasts of his movies on HBO. So, my point of concern is, if he was real, then he would require new clothes every time he entered the earth's atmosphere, as those would turn into ashes in the 1500 Degrees of soaring heat. He's resistant even to sun, so even his pubic hair would remain cool as the Himalayan ice, but his clothes? This is the question!

What if, Iron man was here working on the development of his latest suit? NASA wouldn't be there, because, Mr. Tony Stark would reach even the sun, with his astonishing, high speed, one manned, universal shuttle. Though, he would certainly need a space caravan behind him to rest and store his food and supplies.

Ok, lets forget about the western super heroes, and think about our own, "Shaktimaan." Though, he's a colour Xerox copy of Superman, with some spicy addition of ancient, Indian spirituality lessons, like attaining 'siddhis' with meditation, and enduring the supernatural powers, and a spin travel, rather than going in a normal and straight way. He would've obviously fainted a hundred times if he was in real. He has orbited the earth for a thousand times, almost in all his episodes. In his case of re-entering the earth's atmosphere, he would also need a couple of thousand costumes, to start his work without any delay, and a towel to hide his sensory organs immediately after he reaches the earth's atmosphere.

To make the lives of these super heroes simple, I would've suggested them to tile their clothes, with those resistant tiles used in the space shuttle by NASA, or make a towel out of them, to hide in till they dress up with their original costumes after getting home.

"वादळा पुर्वीची शांतता", PRE STORM SILENCE

I am NOT forecasting any weather or disastrous circumstances! I discovered that this phrase we usually use in marathi is derived from HOLLYWOOD! I'll explain how...

Basically, I wanted a topic to write on. So, while I was having my dinner yesterday night, with the TV on, while watching some thriller movie named Dr. Who. The movie casted a doctor, supposedly mutated into a monster by typically mixing some green and pink coloured chemicals, having clouds coming out of tubes, putting them in a microwave like instrument and drinking the so formed compounded chemical. One thing I don't know about these movies, why do these doctors, scientists, heroes, destroy almost everything, with majority of glass materials, in their labs to show the reaction of chemicals consumed? Although this was just a supposition from my si-fi Hollywood movie knowledge, I wondered why don't they use a different room to conduct the experiment?

Moving ahead, there was a scene in which the hero - I suppose, as he was the lone combatant against the demon - as well as the monster get silent for a couple of seconds. They both are on either sides of a closed passage divided by a firm door. Hero, his girlfriend, her mother and some side actor (an intern I suppose) were on one side, and the monster on the other. The hero has strength, courage, and all wit to combat the monster even if it contradicts the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. He asks the ladies and the guy around to calm down, keep complete silence and face the situation. Both the sides calm down for a couple of minutes, may be building up strategies, coming up with plans to either destroy the opponent or fly off from the spot somehow. I can understand about the humans, but why does the monster need to think or stop suddenly? In the next instance, the hero and the demon try to hear noise on either sides at the same time. Hero hears a silent roar of the monster and feels him moving backward. Then there is a complete silence - pin drop silence as our teachers used to scream in school - and everything goes numb as if things have frozen. This lasts until the monster blasts again breaking the silence, giving the hero an opportunity to impress the lady's mother, by of course fighting with the monster.

Then, when I thought of silence, the marathi phrase, "वदळा पुर्वीची शांतता", came in my mind. Then I made a conclusion that the phrase, is derived from Hollywood action movie sequences. We can take examples of hundreds of action packed thrillers from Hollywood, like the matrix trilogy, Harry potter, Bond movies, etc. who work on the principle of "PRE STORM SILENCE", incorporating a huge piece of silence before an attack and then an explosive, reverberating sound, almost tearing our eardrums . This is called a storm.

I switched off the TV before the climax scene, because as soon as the silence began to rise my food got empty. End of my day wasn't as climactic as the movie, it had washing of dishes, utensils than kissing a girl, which usually concludes any movie's climax.