I have started to learn Welsh (as part of work, we get to do a course for free) and I just finished learning numbers. I cannot help but see the similarities between the pronunciation of those numbers in Welsh and Hindi (even though Hindi ain’t my native language). Here is a table where I list the way the numbers are pronounced in Welsh and Hindi. In Welsh, the vowels are different from English and the actual pronunciation is in the brackets.
Number
Welsh (pronounced as)
Hindi
1
un (een)
ek
2
dau (dai)
dho
3
tri
theen
4
pedwar
chaar
5
pump (pim)
paanch
6
chewch (quekh)
che
7
saith
saath
8
wyth (aith)
aat
9
naw (nau)
nau
10
deg
dhus
Not much different are they? Wonder how they got to be this similar in pronunciation of the numbers. Will I find any more similarities the more I learn the language?
On this Friday evening, when I went to my gym I got the message that the class was cancelled, because the instructor got stuck with some other work. “Idea why not got to a movie then ?”, I asked my friend. So we checked the tickets (never mind that we bunked office and went for a movie just the previous day) and voila! we had tickets ready for ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1‘. We missed the first few minutes of the movie because of the last minute confusion and our other friend running (literally) late to the theater etc etc.
The previous movies of the same series, didn’t quite hit their mark for me, so I was a little hesitant to watch this one. But then I had to because I have to complete the series (and that is how these companies make their money). Especially when this is just the first part of the last book. Why do they break these last books into two series I don’t understand (yeah yeah to make more money and to stretch the story and anticipation a little bit more..but still) Before I go ahead…here it is..Spoiler Alert (both for the movie and Game of Thrones). There now that it is done, let us go to the movie. It does start with Katniss again rejecting any offers to be the ‘mockingjay’ symbol of the revolution and the leaders trying to convince her and all that stuff. They then decide to get her to see the truth of how the things are in other districts, in front of her, would be to allow her to see the destruction for herself and then record her reactions and send the message across to other districts that she is indeed ready to fight for them and with them. Now there is a scene when Katniss enters into the hospital with all those injured and half-dead and she tells them that she can’t do this and finally goes into the hospital looking at the people there and I suddenly had this dejavu moment. Whoa! Doesn’t she resemble Daenerys Targaryean here (and the presence of Natalie Dormer , who is Margery Tyrell in GoT also might have had an impact), who is walking into Yunkai. All it needed was someone calling her Mhysa . Since no one was going to, I shouted ‘Mhysa’ a little louder so that my friends and people just next to them could hear. Since my other two friends have already seen Game of Thrones, they chuckled and asked me to keep quiet. But guess what, as soon as I shouted, someone in the screen said ‘Katniss!!!! you are here’. Yay!!!
I am not going into the movie in depth , but the spoiler alert is here for another reason, which will come later. Katniss is again looking like a deer caught in the headlights and is just torn to save her family vs save Peeta vs save the people from the Capitol. Whenever she sees Peeta and the way he becomes a puppet for the Capitol, asking her to give up on the war, as my friend prompted correctly, we are reminded of Theon Greyjoy. Gosh! What is happening to us, why are we all thinking about GoT characters in Hunger Games ? When I heard Snow say ‘Miss Everdeen, it is the things we love most that destroy us‘, I was like ‘hey, I read that in ASOIAF’ where Mormont says to Jon Snow, “The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.” And the way Peeta appears in every message was like seeing Theon after Ramsay’s torture. Even the final scene was exactly how Theon reacted in the Moat Cailin capture for Ramsay.
There are no games here in this for once, but then the revolution has already started and they did try and break into the Capitol and all, even if they had to make sacrifices. This is just a warm up movie for the final act. Actions, reactions and explosions and a small victory (as they think it is) for the revolutionists. I feel for Katniss sometimes because she is in this as a face and every uses her for their own cause, when all she wants is to have Peeta back and her family safe and be that person who can be invisible in that huge crowd. Not that she can’t prove herself when she needs to. But still. Comic relief comes from one liners especially from Effie and Haymitch. I haven’t read the books so am not sure if it could have been one big movie or if it is worth it to split it into two. If not for anything at least for the wait, I wish they had the last book as one big movie. One last word, I loved that ‘The Hanging Tree’ song.
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