Will my Ireland travel video make me a videographer in Dublin?

From the time I started to live in Dublin, the capital city of the Republic of Ireland, I found my new environment as soothing and scenic. Nature is green and colourful everywhere, especially in summer and in autumn. The autumn, which falls in August, September and October months, may be the most beautiful season of all, and the following three months, November, December and January are part of the winter season as per the Irish Calendar (Gaelic Calendar).

Apart from the nature, Ireland is also home to several Victorian constructions and buildings, all remind us of the majesty of Gothic architecture. During my stay here, I could travel to several destinations in and around Dublin. Ireland’s second city Cork, Waterford, Swords (the place I live), Malahide, Howth Harbour, are some of the places I visited.

Wherever I travelled, I carried my small camera along with me and took pictures and videos. I edited the videos into a single video, and posted on my YouTube channel with the name ‘Dublin Delights – in a cut N’ Paste Nutshell’. Apart from the above destination clips, the parade took place as part of Irish National festival St Patrick’s Day Celebrations in a small town called Cappoquin, and the events held in connection with Ireland’s 100 years of Independence (RTE – Reflecting the Rising), are also given a place in the video. The short video mostly covers winter sights.

Dublin Delights – in a cut N’ Paste Nutshell




I happened to notice that Dublin is home to several small companies that offer videography and photography services. There are many production companies in Dublin, with skilled photographers and videographers. Many of such corporate video production companies might be offering wedding videos and photographs as a parallel service. So, I am repeating what I told in the beginning of this article, in a rather sceptic tone, will my Ireland travel video make me a videographer in Dublin?

My false memory associated with ten-pin bowling games

You might have heard the term ‘confabulation’ or ‘false memory’ if you are someone who takes an interest in psychological studies and topics related to mental conditions. I am not a professional in these disciplines, but my amateur interest in learning more about subjects that lack strong scientific support (Pseudo-sciences), have made me occasionally browse through internet grazing related knowledge.

False Memory (Confabulation), representational image

False memory is an occurrence when someone recalls an event which actually did not happen in their life, or when they recollect it in a false manner. Such disturbed memory is called Confabulation in medical terms, which require treatment in case it occurs in an individual more frequently.

That’s some technical and complex data I have given in the above two paragraphs; so let’s keep them aside, and be ready to listen to a story from my repository of personal memories. That means I wish to share a false memory example from my life, though it may not be quite the case.

Kerala’s golden city Kochi (Cochin) is now in a booming state, economically and in terms of infrastructure. More and more industrial hubs, big shopping malls (Lulu, Gold Souk, Central Mall, Nucleus Mall, and much more), and advanced travel options facilitated by metro rail project are now coming to Ernakulam. The shopping malls offer a great variety of opportunities to spend time and money lavishly.

Once I went to a shopping mall in Kochi. My memory does not say which mall was it, but I have a faint idea that I was accompanied by friends. While walking through luxurious corridors, I happened to notice a game zone, where different play areas were set with appropriate utilities. Some of the games featured virtual reality, mainly for kids to do a bike ride through untraveled scenarios and terrains using joysticks and video walls. There was a different area for bowling alley game, especially for the youngsters and adults to indulge in some physically engaging act.

This bowling game, which is also called the Ten-pin bowling, is a game in which the player throws, or rather rolls a bowling ball through a lane towards ten pins positioned at the end of the lane. I am not explaining the rules of the game here because you can see the bowling videos by simply googling. Probably, you may also be able to play free bowling games online, if you have a curious penchant for virtual games.

Bowling Alley Game

Seeing the bowling alley setup, I immediately jumped on to the bowling platform. Getting hold of the mighty balls, I started bowling aiming the ten targets those were automatically placed by the bowling game machine. My memory says, I enjoyed the game, and I left the area with my friends only after getting exhausted totally.

I have a slightly altered version of the above incident. If you have time enough, I suggest you better read the altered version also, since I need to do justice to the topic of this post as suggested in its title.

The incident on which the memory is routed is a few years old. It was very recently the memory of my bowling game experience stuck my conscience so sudden as if in the manner of lighting. Though my false memory says I played the bowling game, my intelligence says that the chance for the occurrence of my ten-pin bowling game experience is little. Especially since I am public shy, I might not have attempted anything that would have brought me attention in a crowded gaming zone of a shopping mall in Kochi.

Ten-pin Bowling (Skittles)

I immersed into my thoughts again, and I went through the hidden dark corners of my memories, taking deep breaths, I swam through the whirl of obsolete remembrances, and saw a faint impression of the bowling event, somewhere in the uncared and cobwebbed corners of my subconscious. I saw in the bowling alley area two or three young smart boys playing the game very actively and energetically. They threw the ball, rolled the ball through the bowling lane; they played the game one by one, by altering chances, until they fully capture the ten pins. Some of them achieved the ten pins in a single chance, and some of them took three or more chances to be successful, whereas one boy or two wasn’t successful at the end.

 I can’t still say this is the correct version of the event. But still, my practical intelligence says, this could be the probable one, especially since you needed to pay a certain amount to participate in games in the gaming zone. I might have stood there watching the boys playing the ten-pin bowling game. Years later, when I tried to recall this incident, my game watching experience coupled with my desire to play the game might have created a false memory in which I played the game.

Yesterday I dreamt a Black Hole!

Scientists speculated about the existence of black holes over a century ago. Nowadays it is commonly accepted that every galaxy in the universe has a black hole at its centre. And what is a black hole? A black hole is a region in the universe with gargantuan mass and high gravitational pull. The mass and gravity of such area exceed several times that of a common star like the Sun. Due its gravity, nothing can escape from a black hole, even the light rays, once they are caught inside by its borderline, called the event horizon. Since no light rays can come out of it, black holes always appear blank. They are invisible black areas in the universe which can be detected only by its interaction with nearby space, time and other matter in the vicinity.

A common visual representation of a black hole

Imagine a black hole as something like a water-well on our earth. Assume that, the well has some sort of magnetic capacity which will attract everything that goes above. If you try to peep into it, you are definitely pulled in, even if you are standing a bit away from its edge. And you can never ever escape. Whatever kinds of rescue devices are brought to this place, and whichever human of Supermanic abilities offered help, the recovery is impossible. Any such retrieval measures is suicidal; they will be killing themselves. The fate of something that goes into the well is uncertain, as nobody has so far returned, once went into the well…

…that was how a black hole appeared in my last night’s dream!

In the dream, I and my friend wished to go to someplace, and we had to go through the dreadful place where this well-like black hole existed. My friend was in haste, so he left first, and I agreed to go after him. I never imagined that my friend would have shown that condemnable courage to offer a furtive look into the black hole. But, fatal things happen sans any procrastination, though happiness always comes delayed.

Water well

That was shocking! I never guessed my friend would have even dared to go close to the well. How could he act so stupidly? So what I do next? I have another friend, a trusted one. I can rely on him, though I am unsure about his capabilities. We both decided to go to the black hole for a sneaky inspection. We found the black hole has a circular sidewall apart from the concrete bar overhead supported on two vertical columns.

Though we both were hesitant a bit to approach the black hole, we decided to offer a cautious glance, doing away with our fear. We went close and tried to look into the well, by clutching firmly on the sidewalls. Everything is dark inside the wall. Darkness gushes upwards in a continuous manner from the depth of the well and comes to a halt at the edges of the sidewalls. Is there something attracting us smoothly? We leant a little more towards the mouth of the water well. And yeah, that is true! There is a sort of magnetic pull coming from the depth of the chasm. We withdrew ourselves back. So, it is true! Our friend has done what he shouldn’t have attempted.

A problem! My friend couldn’t have gone inside by simply looking into it. Because as we experienced, the magnetic attraction was not so great that it did not pull us while standing close to it. My reliable friend came with a solution. As we are close to the black hole, we could have controlled the time. Yes, the time! According to Physics, the time in the surroundings of a black hole runs slower than on earth due to gravity. By the way, do you remember Interstellar (2014), the film by Christopher Nolan? We can’t be sure if my friend is completely lost forever in space-time, or whether he is experiencing the pleasant state of timelessness in the web of the black hole.

My reliable friend tried to do something that I couldn’t have done. He manipulated the time, and we both went back to a time phase in the past. We found ourselves exactly a few hours back from the present. We saw my former friend standing at the tip of the black hole. What is he doing there?

We saw him climbing on a nearby tree, and jumping down in such a way that he would not have fallen directly into the well. I understood! He is testing the magnetic power of the well. Would he be pulled in by the black hole, if he let him fall from the tree above, by narrowly missing the mouth of the well? That’s what he is testing. Having such an idiotic curiosity is surely poisonous. We saw him falling straightly into the black hole while jumping down from the tree slightly allowing his body parts to be at the magnetic field of the black hole that extends infinitely upwards. Having witnessed the mishap, my reliable friend brought both of us back to the present time.

After waking up from the dream, I soon recollected that all the history of the entire universe is recorded in a mixed language of English and Mathematics on the inner walls of the well. The inner walls were imprinted by amber coloured digital figures all the way from the top, and that writings extended infinitesimally towards a bottom that existed somewhere in the far ends of the universe. 

It seems that reading hypothetical scenarios in Quora makes me watch such weird dreams nowadays.

Kashmiri Dolls - A Whodunnit Short Film

Many of my long time readers might remember the advances I made in writing fiction related to the genres like suspense thriller, horror, and detective in this blog. As part of my stints in short film making, a work dealing with detective fiction was made in 2014 and was circulated via YouTube, apart from screening in some reputed festivals in Kerala.

The short film is titled 'Kashmiri Dolls'. But ironically it has nothing to with Kashmir, but it is related to dolls a lot. As we know, kids love dolls. In this story there are plenty of dolls in a house, and the kid in the house likes to play with them. But, what if she notices something irregular in the dolls? She will be worried right? In our short film, everyone in the family rather got scared.

I am not spoiling the suspense of the story, I suggest you watch it yourself, and let me know your comments. Apart from handling the story, screenplay, and direction departments, I have done the lead role, that is of a brainy but lazy character. I think I have done justice to the character in portraying him as an amateur detective, to a certain favorable extent. Up to you.