Waxy Sojourn
"Smile Please !...",
.... i ordered for the nth time, asking my friend to stand closer to Beyonce and smile, instead of the 1 mile gap that he had created between them, while he tried hard to stay as cool and composed as a pillar. Meeting Beyonce made him look nervous, even though she was smiling and posing for several photo ops so I could get that perfect shot. A few crazy girls nearby were ogling at a famous base ball player whose name I cannot recollect.
"31$ is your bill, sir...and Welcome to Madame Tussauds, New York" beamed the lady at the counter, handing me the ticket, waking me up momentarily from my trance.
Madame Tussauds, a High point of my trip to New York, also made me look like a goofy by the time i was out, fooled at every step I took at the 4 floor museum.
With only a working knowledge of celebrities in the west, and a goofy group fooling around for company, it felt like an empty coconut shell had commissioned itself between my ears. for the next 30 minutes, we posed, without fear or rebuke from anyone, next to wax models of Elle McPherson, Shakira, Jennifer lopez, Salma Hayek and a few more, leaving the male wax models standing like flag posts without care or concern. Vivek almost tripped over himself in his attempt to pacify Madonna, who was rather grim and looked forsaken, while Suneel was having problems with his ponch, trying hard to look less than twice the size of Julia roberts.
By the time we were done with the first floor, we had practised enough killer moves and poses, and by now were suspended in air one feet above the ground.
A rather dingy board read "house of horror - photography not allowed". Pitch darkness, as we entered a narrow lane unaware of anything that was in store.
"....yeno isht kathlu illi !".... (why is it so dark in here !)
....and WHAM !!!...the door on our left closed and opened again, with a white faced ghost materlializing in front of the door. It was enough to get the daylights out of all of us, with me shivering peculiarly, trying to stand and run at the same time. The next thing we knew, we were all as white-faced as the door-side ghost.
Kiran being the bully, pushed suneel to the fore, while we followed him ponch first, and our hair all straightened up like a glorified cactus. It would have looked very funny for that ghost, but we were praying our heads out that the ghosts in the otherwise dark room would be happy with Suneel and leave us alone.
Kiran pacifying suneel, was more like "Suneel, this is the time when that fat in your ponch can be put to good use !".. Accustomed to being tormented by kiran, he didn't think the ghosts could do better. Good for us.
All our heavenly sojourn back in the celebrity room was washed away, and we were dying to get out of this shady room.
BOOM !!!! ....a huge sound from the floor and a gush of chill air swept across our feet, almost toppling us backwards...suneel recovered fast and started to speed ahead of us, while we still lingered around to see the fate of the goat that went ahead. A screeching voice, and a broom stick tap, and voila !, a ghost in a Black suit came thumping ahead to scare the slightly piqued Suneel.
Giving the ghost a look of "ok, am i to get afraid or were you born that way ?", Suneel shouted back "yaako Gubald !"....The American Ghost was taken aback and didnt know whether to take Suneel away with it for his offensive language, or just escape for good. It chose the latter. Our faces white with fear until now had now turned into a unplottable laugh, guffaw actually....patting him on his back, we ran towards the exit, shouting like hungry mongrels, while another ghost in the attic tried pathetically hard to chase us.
Leaving behind us the gory wax models, we were relieved to see the exit sign, and made towards the next exhibit hall. As we moved around, to cross another entrance, we saw a lady taking a photograph of a group of wax models which i thought was of a famous band group. The chinese lady was all focused and still, concentrating hard on the subjects she was about to capture. Being the gentlemen that we are, we thought not to disturb her and wait for her to finish, before we passed between them. While we focused hard on the wax models and appreciated them, we ignored the chinese lady completely.
1 minute up.....we were all still blinking at that group, waiting for the photograph session to finish...as though they would just move away after that !
2 minute up.....now we started getting doubts like "what is this lady doing, is she taking a photograph or has she turned into one of those dumb wax models!"....and turned around to see if she was done...and By Golly !! she was a wax model herself !!....madame tussaud made us wait like morons in between those wax models !...Grrrr...
After being fooled by many wax models that were strategically placed, to make us think that they were real people, our brains were working full throttle to overcome the visual situation. As we passed a few models, we came across "The Rock" Hero Johnson's wax model. vivek and kiran wanted a snap with him, while Suneel began clicking furiously. Meanwhile, i saw two wax models, a young lady looking down towards her camera and a man in a suit, both non-celebrities. The wax models were two feet apart, and so i shouted "Oi Vivek, get me a photo with these two wax models, i'll look like i am standing between two people i do not know, and i can fool everyone, heheheehe"...with that silly grin i went and stood right in between the two wax models. To my horror, both wax models turned towards me !!!...
...they were not wax models, but visitors like myself !....i had done enough damage that i could have actually given them a cellphone to call 911 !
After a quick run through of the other models on display(Jennifer Aniston was ravishing, and so was Princess Diana), we ran towards the exit, to finally be freed from the place. In the next one hour that we roamed New York, all of us were in a trance, feeling like there were wax models everywhere in city. Apparentely, this is the feeling that most of them usually experience after visiting Madame Tussauds, leaving people to move around in drunken stupor.
The whole event left me wondering about the amazing talent of the artists who were involved in the creation of these masterpieces, compared to the textboxes and buttons that i am usually seen moving around on my Web Application.
.... i ordered for the nth time, asking my friend to stand closer to Beyonce and smile, instead of the 1 mile gap that he had created between them, while he tried hard to stay as cool and composed as a pillar. Meeting Beyonce made him look nervous, even though she was smiling and posing for several photo ops so I could get that perfect shot. A few crazy girls nearby were ogling at a famous base ball player whose name I cannot recollect.
"31$ is your bill, sir...and Welcome to Madame Tussauds, New York" beamed the lady at the counter, handing me the ticket, waking me up momentarily from my trance.
Madame Tussauds, a High point of my trip to New York, also made me look like a goofy by the time i was out, fooled at every step I took at the 4 floor museum.With only a working knowledge of celebrities in the west, and a goofy group fooling around for company, it felt like an empty coconut shell had commissioned itself between my ears. for the next 30 minutes, we posed, without fear or rebuke from anyone, next to wax models of Elle McPherson, Shakira, Jennifer lopez, Salma Hayek and a few more, leaving the male wax models standing like flag posts without care or concern. Vivek almost tripped over himself in his attempt to pacify Madonna, who was rather grim and looked forsaken, while Suneel was having problems with his ponch, trying hard to look less than twice the size of Julia roberts.
By the time we were done with the first floor, we had practised enough killer moves and poses, and by now were suspended in air one feet above the ground.
A rather dingy board read "house of horror - photography not allowed". Pitch darkness, as we entered a narrow lane unaware of anything that was in store.
"....yeno isht kathlu illi !".... (why is it so dark in here !)
....and WHAM !!!...the door on our left closed and opened again, with a white faced ghost materlializing in front of the door. It was enough to get the daylights out of all of us, with me shivering peculiarly, trying to stand and run at the same time. The next thing we knew, we were all as white-faced as the door-side ghost.
Kiran being the bully, pushed suneel to the fore, while we followed him ponch first, and our hair all straightened up like a glorified cactus. It would have looked very funny for that ghost, but we were praying our heads out that the ghosts in the otherwise dark room would be happy with Suneel and leave us alone.
Kiran pacifying suneel, was more like "Suneel, this is the time when that fat in your ponch can be put to good use !".. Accustomed to being tormented by kiran, he didn't think the ghosts could do better. Good for us.
All our heavenly sojourn back in the celebrity room was washed away, and we were dying to get out of this shady room.
BOOM !!!! ....a huge sound from the floor and a gush of chill air swept across our feet, almost toppling us backwards...suneel recovered fast and started to speed ahead of us, while we still lingered around to see the fate of the goat that went ahead. A screeching voice, and a broom stick tap, and voila !, a ghost in a Black suit came thumping ahead to scare the slightly piqued Suneel.
Giving the ghost a look of "ok, am i to get afraid or were you born that way ?", Suneel shouted back "yaako Gubald !"....The American Ghost was taken aback and didnt know whether to take Suneel away with it for his offensive language, or just escape for good. It chose the latter. Our faces white with fear until now had now turned into a unplottable laugh, guffaw actually....patting him on his back, we ran towards the exit, shouting like hungry mongrels, while another ghost in the attic tried pathetically hard to chase us.
Leaving behind us the gory wax models, we were relieved to see the exit sign, and made towards the next exhibit hall. As we moved around, to cross another entrance, we saw a lady taking a photograph of a group of wax models which i thought was of a famous band group. The chinese lady was all focused and still, concentrating hard on the subjects she was about to capture. Being the gentlemen that we are, we thought not to disturb her and wait for her to finish, before we passed between them. While we focused hard on the wax models and appreciated them, we ignored the chinese lady completely.
1 minute up.....we were all still blinking at that group, waiting for the photograph session to finish...as though they would just move away after that !
2 minute up.....now we started getting doubts like "what is this lady doing, is she taking a photograph or has she turned into one of those dumb wax models!"....and turned around to see if she was done...and By Golly !! she was a wax model herself !!....madame tussaud made us wait like morons in between those wax models !...Grrrr...
After being fooled by many wax models that were strategically placed, to make us think that they were real people, our brains were working full throttle to overcome the visual situation. As we passed a few models, we came across "The Rock" Hero Johnson's wax model. vivek and kiran wanted a snap with him, while Suneel began clicking furiously. Meanwhile, i saw two wax models, a young lady looking down towards her camera and a man in a suit, both non-celebrities. The wax models were two feet apart, and so i shouted "Oi Vivek, get me a photo with these two wax models, i'll look like i am standing between two people i do not know, and i can fool everyone, heheheehe"...with that silly grin i went and stood right in between the two wax models. To my horror, both wax models turned towards me !!!...
...they were not wax models, but visitors like myself !....i had done enough damage that i could have actually given them a cellphone to call 911 !
After a quick run through of the other models on display(Jennifer Aniston was ravishing, and so was Princess Diana), we ran towards the exit, to finally be freed from the place. In the next one hour that we roamed New York, all of us were in a trance, feeling like there were wax models everywhere in city. Apparentely, this is the feeling that most of them usually experience after visiting Madame Tussauds, leaving people to move around in drunken stupor.
The whole event left me wondering about the amazing talent of the artists who were involved in the creation of these masterpieces, compared to the textboxes and buttons that i am usually seen moving around on my Web Application.
posted by Jagadish at 2:06 PM
8 Comments:
Very well written !
You forgot the part where the ghost almost freaked out after watching us .Thanks to the SCREAMS FROM SUNEEL ,U and VIVEK!!
Keep writing
/Kiran
hehehe, thanks and yeah most of the ghosts there were not very accustomed to our kind of screams :D... lo kiran, even you were screaming your head out :D...like we all were :)...
No man ..i was laughing my way to glory...Infact i was about to give the ghost some nice kicks ,but later i realised that they were not real ghosts and decided to let them go and make a living.
/Kiran
Hmmmmmmmmm interesting post!! But I heard that the London branch has better exhibits especially of asians. What is a visit to Madam Taussad's without a snap next to the BIG B? Just my opinion. Enjoy!!
Juggs,
Very true kano - Tussad's was a technological marvel! Our experience at London Tussad's was not too different from this.
For me, the best thing about Tussad's was that things do what they're supposed to do - the Chamber scares you, the divas turn you on and Einstein inspires you ;-)
NY must be rocking alveno? Finally got a chance to meet your pals!
am not particularly a big fan of london Mdm Tussad's or the concept.
thou regarding the chinese, in ur post, 'chinese-copy' seems to be a bigger concept that i thot it is. when a group of 10s of them tour out, when one of them takes a pic under a tree with no background, all the members in the team tend to take the same photo with them in it - simply - for fun. all 200 of them wait for the rest. it's like a traditional ceremony or something. and their poses are funny! most often photographer himself poses too. Indian readers may now laugh.
anyway in one of my ganga Indian frnds were a few nice ppl who had a craze to take pics at the same spot as single, as a pair with each other pal in the gang, as a gang, as single without jacket, as single with cap, and as combinations of all these - at the same bloddy place! so chinese readers may now laugh.
so on and so forth...
k!
I still remember that ghost who was about catch my neck... It was a nightmare to me...
I should have accompanied my friends in Universal studios which had similar kind. Everything starts as first time.
Well, about kiran (Shunti), I dont want to tell all his weakness... he better write a blog about it.
Big B, they say, isn't that realistic looking, not sure :)
Supreeth, yeah true, i was watching a program on discovery about how these wax models are created, and its fascinating. It's a lengthy process, and a lot of measurements and calulations go into making this model. The eyes they say is the toughest of all.
pj, adu yen helidiyo ? ondu artha aaglilla :D...
suneel, you bet it was scary, kiran was as scared as us, no matter whether he agrees or not :D
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