Kya Chootiyap Hai?

December 30th 2008, Tuesday

1952hrs , Home

Suchit : Kya Chootiyap Hai??

Vanga : Gaana Hai Yaar….

Shanty : Kya Gaana Hai Yaar!!

Avinash: Yeh Kahaan Hai? South America? Chile?

Ranajay : Middle East Hai Shayad…..

Deepak : I think its North Africa….kyun?

Avinash : Hmmm…shaayad…

Woke up at 7 am today and watched Aussies lose to Saffers. After that made some effort(workout) to achieve the golden-ratio. Re-Posted the psycho-analytical review of Ghajini on my blog. The first thing that came to my mind when I posted the review was the above conversation which we had while watching the movie. The talking point was this:

The stunning locations of this song are out of the world and featured in my dreams that night after the movie. Today I finally got time to research (nothing better to do) and find out more about that place, the place I would really want to go some day. Anyhow I thought maybe you would also be interested to find out more about the place..so here you go…….

Dead Vlei. This is what the place is called. As evident from the white surface of the place it is a clay pan located near the Sossusvlei Salt Pan, Namibia. It is part of the famous Namib Desert.

If you remember the song (or see picture on the left) you must remember the huge sand dunes ,where Aamir walks showing off his eight-pack. What were more stunning is a personal opinion (Vanga was drooling over the eight pack as far as I remember). Anyways those sand dunes are the highest sand dunes in the world. Some are as high as 300 metres.

Long long ago, believe it or not this place used to be flooded with water. Actually that is the reason for its current state. The clay pan was formed after rainfall, when the Tsauchab river flooded, creating temporary shallow pools where the abundance of water allowed camel thorn trees to grow. When the climate changed, drought hit the area, and sand dunes encroached on the pan, which blocked the river from the area. Soon there was no more water and the trees died. When you look at the  video or see pictures of those trees they appear like sets of tortured souls in the middle of nowhere. It must surely be an eerie feeling visitng the place.

You must be thinking that if the trees died so long ago, how come they are still there and didnt decompose like all organic matter usually does. The wood there does not decompose because it is too dry. What we see now are the skeletons of the trees, the trees which died about 900 years ago. They are now black because the intense sun has scorched them over hundreds of years.

If you might have noticed there are some species of plants remaining. These plants adapted to surviving off of the morning mist and very rare rainfall. It is rumoured that Aamir had insisted the director to find a unique beautiful place which was never used as location for filming. He said,” You find me such a place, you will get your eight pack.” Well the rest as they say is history.

Whoever named this place though had some liking for irony. He named it Dead Vlei.

Anagram : Dead Live.

Hmmm…

2055hrs

30th December 2008.