“The little kid was crying you see!
He did not relent which was looked insane!
Then again what could he do!
The child wanted to fly the plane!”
The other day we were watching a movie called Shaitaan which is actually a remake of a Gujarati movie called Vash! It’s about a stranger who can control another person’s child!
Time and again it has been seen that children listen to people who are not their parents! Did you know the most popular story of a group of children who did not listen to their parents may actually be true? Or that it may be linked to a illness!?
Read on!
For all the intelligence of evolution, we still have to teach little Humans that they should be wary of strangers! Of course even when they get older, children listen or look up to people who are not their parents! It may be because they have seen their parents in their human state!
Every kid would always like his or her fun uncle or aunt! Which is why you like your father’s younger brother or mother’s youngers sisters since they are versions of your parents who are more fun and open! And you listen to your grandparents since they are versions of your parents who seem more wise!
In the movie Shaitaan or Vash though, the antagonist uses black magic to control the child and it is scary! Nothing is more scary for a parent than to see his or her own child listening to a stranger’s words and doing something wrong or harmful!
The family dynamics have changed in most families but mostly the kids listen to the father even if they do not listen to the mother sometimes! Of course they also know subconsciously that the father actually listens to the mother! Now of course when the roles are not clear it is either they listen to both or more commonly, none!
One of the most popular stories which we all have heard in childhood of a group of children who just followed this guy out of town still gives fear to the poor parents!
The story of course is the Pied Piper of Hamelin and to this day Hamelin is still milking the fame of that story!
The story has in fact has survived for a very long time.
Originating as medieval folklore, the story inspired a Goethe verse, Der Rattenfänger; a Grimm Brothers’ legend, The Children of Hamelin; and one of Robert Browning’s best-known poems, The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The theme and plot line is more or less the same;
A Piper was hired by folks of Hamelin to rid the town of its plague of rats. Trailing after the hypnotic notes of the rat-catcher’s magical flute, the rodents politely filed through the city gates to their presumed doom!
They weren’t the only ones lured by his music, though. When the town refused to pay the Piper for his service, the saviour turned into a more satanic seducer and came for Hamelin’s children!
Entranced by the notes of his flute, the transfixed boys and girls followed the Piper out of town and simply vanished!
Although it is a simple fairy tale and actually less macabre than the origins of many other tales; what is scary is that the story may have been true!
The proof is etched on Hamelin’s face itself. An inscribed plaque on the stone facade of the so-called Pied Piper house, has this inscription which reads:
“A.D. 1284 – on the 26th of June – the day of St John and St Paul – 130 children – born in Hamelin – were led out of the town by a piper wearing multi-colored clothes. After passing the Calvary near the Koppenberg they disappeared forever.”
An entry in Hamelin’s town records, dating to 1384, laments that, “It is 100 years since our children left.”
The stained-glass window in the town’s St Nicolai church, destroyed in the 17th Century but described in earlier accounts, reportedly illustrated the figure of the Pied Piper leading several ghostly white children. And the 15th Century Luneburg manuscript, an early German account of the event, along with five historical memory verses, some in Latin and others in Middle Low German, all refer to a similar story of 130 children or young people vanishing on the 26 June 1284, following a pied piper to a place called Calvary or Koppen!
Of course so many theories abound of why or how this happened! One of the theories piqued my interest due to its medical link!
This theory points to the medieval phenomenon of “dancing mania”, driven by a succession of pandemics and natural disasters!
Known as St Vitus’ Dance, the dancing plague is documented surfacing in continental Europe as early as the 11th Century. A form of mass hysteria, the dance could spread from individuals to large groups, all driven by an unshakeable compulsion to dance feverishly, sometimes for weeks, often leaping and singing and sometimes hallucinating to the point of exhaustion and occasionally death, like a top that can’t stop spinning!
And, in fact, one 13th Century outbreak – a literal form of dance fever – occurred south of Hamelin, in the town of Erfurt, where a group of youths were documented as wildly gyrating as they travelled out of town, ending up 20km away in a neighbouring town. Some of the children, one chronicle suggests, expired shortly thereafter, having flat-out danced themselves to death, and those who survived were left with chronic tremors. Perhaps, some theorise, Hamelin witnessed a similar plague, dancing to the figurative tune of the Pipe!
This condition is now known as Sydenham chorea, also known as St. Vitus dance, which is a neuropsychiatric manifestation of rheumatic fever with an incidence varying from 5 to 35%. It may occur alone or concomitantly with other manifestations of rheumatic fever!
Now whether it was Chorea or Korean (ok that was a bad joke but then nothing else rhymes with chorea!) pop to which they were tranced and dancing; the fact of the matter is that children have not listened to elders since time immemorial so it is high time that parents stop trying! Of course parents will be proud when their children do great and are world famous even if they did not listen to them! Just like birthday celebrity Dhanraj Pillay! You do not become one of the highest goal makers in Hockey by simply dancing to everyone’s tunes!
Now put on some nice instrumental tunes and sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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