What are Balrogs???

Balrogs are fictional demon-like creatures from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. A Balrog (Sindarin for "Demon of Might) was a tall, menacing being in the shape of a Man, having control of both fire and shadow and with a fiery whip of many thongs. They induced great terror in friends and foes alike and could shroud themselves in darkness and shadow. The Fellowship of the Ring encountered a Balrog in the mines of Moria, in The Lord of the Rings (specifically, in Book II, the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring).
The Balrogs were originally Maiar (mythical beings who were involved in the creation of Middle Earth), of the same order as Sauron and Gandalf, but they became seduced by Morgoth (the first Dark Lord), who corrupted them to his service in the days of his splendour before the creation of Arda (Middle Earth). During the First Age, they were among the most feared of Morgoth's forces. When his fortress of Utumno (during the first Great War) was destroyed by the Valar, they fled and lurked in the pits of Angband.
As Maiar, Balrogs would have had the natural ability to change their shape at will, and to move "unclad in the raiment of the world" meaning invisible and without form. As such, their appearance would change according to the will of the Balrog. But there is no evidence of this.
The Balrogs were first encountered by the Elves during the Dagor-nuin-Giliath in the First Age. After the great victory of the Ñoldor over Morgoth's Orcs, Fëanor pressed on towards Angband, but the Balrogs came against him. He was mortally wounded by Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs (the only Balrog known by his name). Though his sons fought off the demons, Fëanor died of his wounds soon after, and his spirit departed for the Halls of Mandos.
Later, in the Fall of Gondolin, two Balrogs fell at the hands of Elves. Ecthelion of the Fountain fought Gothmog in the square of the King, where they both perished. Glorfindel fought a Balrog who waylayed the escape from the fallen Gondolin; they both fell off a mountainside to their deaths.
The Balrogs were nearly all destroyed at the end of the First Age. However, it was later discovered that one had escaped and hidden in Moria. He was nicknamed Durin's Bane, after the unfortunate Dwarf who rediscovered the Balrog's existence.
Eventually, the Fellowship of the Ring also ventured through the mines of Moria and stumbled upon the Balrog. While the Fellowship fled the caves, Gandalf battled the Balrog, and both fell into an abyss. Eventually Gandalf managed to kill it, the last of the Balrogs slain.

Just finished another amazing book by the great Tolkien – the Silmarillion. Its about the First Ages of Middle Earth and starts with its creation. Then it moves on to the coming of the Elves and Men and the first great evil Morgoth. After which comes the advent of Sauron and the first War of the Ring. A very interesting read for those enthralled by the Lord of the Rings.

I'm Baaaaaaack!!

Whhaaaaaaaaht a fortnight!! 14 days of a dead telephone line (that meant no internet!), 5 days of an intense tonsil infection in between (that meant no solid food for 10 days!), a performance at the Heritage Institute of Technology freshers (that meant 6 days of intense practice and regular wading through incessant rain!), three consecutive nights of un-parliamentary behaviour at Someplace Else (that meant smoking, drinking and good music after a loooong time!!) and last but not the least 14 days of SHOOTING my first film! (that meant shouting a lot at lots of people which mainly consisted of whimsical actors and my co-director!!). All this in just 14 days!!! I looooooved it!! I want to do it all over again!! I can barely move now…thoroughly exhausted and weathered! But I loved it so much!!

I come back from my 14 days of seclusion from the civilized blog-world and what do I see? My beloved blog has technical problems!! The genius that I am I fixed it in a blink of an eye and its up and running again! Look forward to a lot of blogs in the following days. I’ll be completely jobless during the next week!

To those who could not believe what they read: YES, I was shooting my first film!! It’s a horror spoof kind of thing with lots of crazy twists and outrageous dialogues! I loved working with Charulata, Don Amal, Sukumar, Maashima, bhootni Shinjini, Vibhuti, Agent Smith and Ashwini my co-director. I am eternally grateful to them for actually listening to our whimsical ideas. I’ll give you an idea: there is this house which is haunted by the ghosts of a couple who committed suicide after reading each other’s poetry, the main character, Charulata, who wears a saree 16th century style, has a brother-in-law who’s a mafia don in Sicily. The best part about making the film was the script. There was none!! No script, outright improvisation before each day’s shooting! It was great! It has come out well too! The film is dedicated to all the intellectual people who make critically acclaimed films which no one understands but claim to like very much because they are made by intellectual people. Hehe!!

Sorry, no pics on this blog, will edit soon...

Absolutist’s Guide to the Universe
Evolution I : A long, long time ago in an unfashionable end of an obscure galaxy there revolved a small yellow planet around a big brown sun. Among the several million species of arthropods and molluscs that inhabited the planet, the most intelligent was a humanoid organism with two brains. One was inside their cranium and the other hidden inside their kneecap. They called themselves the Devourosus. They are the only civilization in the universe who, in their 30 million years of evolution, have done nothing but imagine and implement new ways of cooking shellfish. They have reportedly compiled a great book cataloging 8 billion different shellfish preparations and apparently that great book itself is also in the form of a huge shellfish. The Devourosi have highly imaginative brains, having to compete with millions of others to come up with new recipes. But the brain inside their kneecaps were largely neglected and had atrophied. They were considered vestigial organs, relics of the past. What these were used for nobody knew and as if they cared until one fateful day. The greatest genius on the planet was busy meditating trying to invent a new recipe when he realized that he had reached the furthest limits of his imagination and needed more processing power. He had part of his knee-brain transplanted into his head and voila a whole new revelation dawned on him. He invented a recipe involving dried tropical spider webs! The idea was so radical that all 60 million Devourosi tried out the recipe and in 5 days their entire race was wiped out in a planetary epidemic of flatulence. The shellfish are the dominant species on the planet now and they are thriving in the high-methane-content atmosphere. They spend a lot of their research funding trying to find out the true function of the vestigial knee-brain of the extinct Devourosi. The moral of the story is: never put ketchup in your ‘saute’d dried tropical spider web’ preparation.

Tagged!

Got tagged by Unjustified Insanity to write a 55-word story...so here goes:

The following is the story about how our Universe came into being:

"The great tripeds of Funkunisario had a psychotic curiosity for things big and round. The most brilliant scientists in their universe finally worked out all the metaphysics and concluded that something similar can be produced if a furry Funkleshniss sneezed really loudly into a wormhole. The experiment was a success and the rest is cosmology."

Well, exactly 55 words. A very Brief History of Time! For more information about the Life, Universe and Everything consult the Absolutist's Guide to the Universe.

I tag : crazy mongolian monkeys at www.crazymonmon.blogspot.com
euphoric dreamer at www.euphoricdreamz.blogspot.com
delphic oracle at www.pyramidcorpses.blogspot.com

The Moai

It is one of the most isolated islands in the world but 1300 years ago a double hulled canoe filled with seafarers from a distant culture landed upon its shores. Over the centuries that followed a remarkable society developed in isolation on the island. For reasons still unknown they began carving giant statues out of volcanic rock. These monuments, known as ‘Moai’, are some of the most incredible ancient relics ever discovered.

Easter Island is a tiny speck of land in the South Pacific located between Chile and Tahiti. Roughly triangular and covering only 64 square miles, it was formed when a plume of hot material rose from deep within the Earth’s interior, burned through the crust and erupted onto the surface as lava. There are 70 eruptive centers on the island but none has known activity since the island was colonized 1300 years ago.

It is upon the shores of Anakena, where legends say King Hoto Matua landed in his canoe and began the colonization of the island. The first islanders found a lush land, filled with giant palms which they used for building boats and houses.

Almost everyone has seen the iconic images of the Easter Island statues staring silently out from the hill side. It is unclear why the Easter Islanders turned to statue construction on such a massive scale. Their obsession with it ultimately brought about their downfall as they depleted more and more of the forests for use in the process of moving the giant Moai. While the why is a mystery, where it happened and to a large degree how it happened is fairly clear. Each moai was born from the massive caldera of Rano Raraku.The slopes of Rano Raraku are filled with eyeless Moai – several hundred circle the crater in various stages of construction. Centuries of erosion from the slopes have covered all but the tops of these giants – the largest Moai ever constructed. One of the unfinished Moai completely carved but not removed from the crater wall, is a staggering 70 feet in length.

Ahu Tongariki, on the south coast of Easter Island was the site of one of the largest of the Moai. The large flat plain below Rano Raraku provided easy access to the quarry and as a result the largest of the Moai were erected here. However, in 1960, a massive tidal wave generated by an earthquake off the coast of Chile hit Ahu Tongariki and destroyed the platform and swept the massive Moai hundreds of yards inland.

Built in 1460 Ahu Akivi was one of the later constructions built, probably at a time when the statue cult was beginning to unravel. Unlike other sites, Akivi is inland and has a commanding view of the western part of the island. Its 7 Moai, all about 14 feet tall and approximately 12 metric tons each, are remarkably similar.

Rano Kau is not known for its giant Moai or dramatic ruins but for its natural beauty. It is not until you get to the very top of the trail that you see the view. A giant caldera with glistening lakes and marshes dots the floor of the crater. On the other side the knife edge crater wall drops 1000 feet to the deep blue sea. This was the final setting for Rapa Nui culture. It was here on the crater's rim that they built the village of Orongo. Up until the 1878 the islanders practiced ancient rights and tests of skill. Most famous was the ritual whereby Rapa Nui would scale down the sheer cliffs, swim through shark infested water and then fast on the tiny islets off shore waiting for the first sooty tern to lay her eggs. The winner of the competition had special rights and privileges granted them for the duration of the following year.
The story of the Easter Island Civilisation is a story of resource exploitation and depletion. The trees were cut for lumber for housing, wood for fires, and eventually for the rollers and lever-like devices used to move and erect the Moai. As the deforestation continued the Moai building competition turned into an obsession. The small amount of topsoil quickly washed into the sea. The crops began to fail and the clans turned on one another in a battle for the scarce resources. The symbols of the islanders' power and success, the Moai, were toppled. The violence grew worse and worse. It was said that the victors would eat their dead enemies to gain strength, bones found on the island show evidence of this cannibalism. With the scarce food supplies it may have been a question of hunger as well as being ceremonial. A spooky cave at the southwest corner of the island, Ana Kai Tangata, is translated to "cave where men are eaten." The few survivors of the conflict, perhaps numbering as low as 750, began to pick up the pieces of their culture. One thing they left behind, however, were the Moai...