From: ngopalas@ha14.eng.ua.edu (Nath S. Gopalaswamy)
Subject: Re: Coming soon: American West (was: Olympics Opening Ceremony)
Organization: The University of Alabama
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:28:18 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.231910.12837@news2.cis.umn.edu>, crick@tsp.med.umn.edu (Ed Crick (CD)) writes:
|> 
|> You've seen this 4-5 times?  Does you Alzheimers disease cause you to forget
|> things you've done once or twice?  Who teaches you anew each day to tie your
|> shoelaces?
|> 

You listen to a record 4-5 times? Or more? I saw it more than once because I liked
it. Now this poor ol' human ain't equipped with your powerful memory, which
remembers everything you see or hear. So if I like a song, I gotta hear it more than
once, I like a movie, I gotta see it more than once, you dig? :)

|> Since you are in the late stages of this neurodegenerative disease you would
|> also say that "Sholay" bears no resemblence to "The Magnificent Seven" (granted
|> this was itself a copy of another movie)  Instead of wasting so much time
|> seeing one movie over and over again try viewing "The Magnificent Seven," a 
|> western in which some gunslingers arrive in a rural Mexican village to protect
|> them from bandits (sound familiar?)  "Sholay" is what Rushdie was referring to
|> when he wrote in "Satanic Verses" that every Indian actor must remake "The
|> Magnificent Seven."  This may not help you anyway, since you would forget it
|> immediately after reading it.
|> 

Well, I do not know about others, but most Western movies I have seen usually have
the customary cowboy-Indian confrontation, in which of course the native is humbled
or some native hordes are killed while attacking without any reason ( I guess tres-
passing laws had not been passed then). And as far as this simple memory can remember
there were no such cowboy-Indian confrontations in Sholay. Indiana Jones on the other
hand explicitly mentioned India, attributed fanciful customs to its people, and was
probably shot in India too. Sholay was shot in India, did not mention America in any
place, and had a realistic setting in the typical dacoit infested Central India, and
no natives were exterminated. It may be a remake but the whole movie had its Indian 
flavour.
If your powerful memory can recollect, your statement that we got our views about
the American West from Sholay was in response to the statement that you got your 
views from the Indiana Jones movie. The comparison was laughable but I took the time
and trouble to give a straight-faced reply and in return I get branded as an
Alzheimer disease patient, look at the thanks I get :). Sigh. I think the weather must
be unusually warm up there, a lot of tempers are getting frayed nowadays.

|> One more suggestion to help you in your senility, whenever you go to a movie,
|> save the ticket stub so that you will know you have seen it once; but real-
|> istically, I don't expect you to remember that helpful hint.
|> 
|> Ed
|> 

I know you mean well, but I was not able to do that. You see, I saw it on home video.
But I *will* save all movie theater stubs in the future. Now I think this poor ol' memory
just might be able to handle that :). 
Xref: sparky soc.culture.indian:25948 soc.culture.pakistan:12756