Thursday, August 31, 2006

Legocy

I'd reckon most kids in middle class background who have had a relative/neighbour/acquaintance visit 'phoren' sometime around the time I was a kid has a 20% chance of having played with Lego sets. I remember my first (and only) Lego set. Our neighboring uncle had visited Australia and had brought back a Lego set for me. This one involved an American astronaut and a moon rover. Marveling at the preciseness and alienness of the small structures, I spent hours creating and recreating them (my other favorite was playing with ‘Hot Wheels’ cars). Eons have passed since. Playing with Lego seems like a thing of the past, and the only set of Hot Wheels are on my 2003 Passat. Just when I had forgotten the phenomenon, a colleague at work popped up one day with a constructed Lego set. A full blown adult with a full blown Lego set. And here’s the bright part: he designed it himself. You can take basic lego parts and construct your design online or buy someone else’s design. Apparently, Lego has moved forward while I have gone nowhere in that world. One look at the Lego site told me how out of touch I was. Gone are the US astronauts. Now you have everything from Batman to Harry Potter to Star Wars. I think that’s smart progress. In the age of the Nintendo DS and other handheld games, you have to work extra hard to maintain your clientele. Anyone else with a Lego story to share or am I the only one here?

P.S> The music of ‘Don’ is out. Anyone familiar with old movie will appreciate the subtleties including the use of the theme music in the title song. Heard it a couple of times. Hasn’t caught on fully yet, but I am sure it will. D2 music should be coming out soon too, followed by Salaam-e-ishq and Umrao Jaan and Guru among others. Can’t remember any recent year with so many big budget movies cramped together.

2 comments:

30in2005 said...

I loved Lego as a child. I had masses of it. Now I know next to nothing about the high tech Lego designs. I do know that the basic lego sets are a hit with nieces/ nephews/ friends kids betwen 3 and 10. It's a gift I give often and they use well.

G Shrivastava said...

I can understand how you felt - my experience with Lego in childhood is quite similar to yours...some months back I went shopping for toys for my nephew and thought I'd check out the Lego sets as well coz he'll soon be old enough for them - and boy was I surprised!!! Like everything else in life, LEgo too has "evolved" ;-)