They have Rise Of The Planet Of Apes, we have Maa Durga Divya Haathi. They have Bruce the Shark. We have Tuffy.Animal House had different kind of animals and our Nagin movies could beat them all hollow had we not tried to milk the franchise the way we did.

Nagin movies, just as the very successful and long-running Hollywood franchise of Apes have fed our fears for years. Both deal with the savagery of humans. Either the Chimps are caught and experimented upon, or the Cobras killed for fun. Your heart begins to bleed when you see Chimps being put down or the wife of the snake (they mate for life, you see) lament. You are also relieved when a baby chimp is saved and grows up in the house of the scientist.

It's all sweetness and light until you realise that humans are no match against animal instincts. The hunter then become the hunted, and very often, with gory ends. You come away from the cinema theater thanking your stars, because Chimps don't watch cinema, or the idea of taking over the planet might stick in their heads...

Nagin movies are now part of that so-bad-they're-good kind of cult culture and have been analysed for your pleasure here (http://bethlovesbollywood.blogspot.com)

Hamara Tuffy

Man's best friend has rescued movies for years. Lassie, Yellow Dog rescued people stuck in the snow and rain, but Tuffy from Hum Aapke Hain Koun not only played umpire in a game of cricket, but rescued the heroine from a loveless marriage! Beat that Beethoven!

Jackie Shroff's black labrador played a crucial part in the movie and so did Lindsay Lohan's dog in the remake of The Parent Trap. The dogs instinctively know that the gir who came back from camp is not the one who is his master. Dogs are shown to be so human you can almost hear them speak. Seen the film UP! Dogs are thankfully given voice altering devices so we can understand them!

Haathi Mere Saathi

Need we say more?

Godesses and gods have shown up in the homes of their tortured bhakts to save them in many forms, but we shall explore that vast formula some place else, shall we? Here we stick to scenes of elephants sacrificing their lives to save the hero's kid! Or as in Jodhaa Akbar, shown to compare the strength of the prince...

But what is terrifying is the sight of elephants rampaging through everything because they don't forget. Just as scary when Godzilla destroys Manhattan to protect her babies. No one, but no one asks why a creature that lived in the sea needed to lay eggs in the most populated city in the world? Why could it not have chosen a forest or something?

But what's the fun in that? Gojiro is the result of human experiments with the atomic bomb and humans have to be destroyed like ants! That is a formula we shall discuss at length elsewhere. Until then, remember and weep how makers of Water for Elephants want you to believe that elephants can make a distinction between languages...

Cows, Horses And Other Domestic Animals

The bejewelled cat in James Bond is perhaps the most celebrated pet ever. But I love the wry humor on the wicked cat in Stuart Little. Cats have also been shown as the villains in movies like The Truth About Dogs And Cats, and compared unfairly in Must Love Dogs. Thankfully, in 101 Dalmatians and its many remakes and sequels, the bad person is Cruela the woman and not a cat.

Basanti's Dhanno in Sholay, SeaBiscuit, Zorro's trusty steed (and also Dilip Kumar's horse in Aan) have all been celebrated in cinema as having qualities more than speed. Trained horses are all the rage in cinema and even offer comic relief (they dislodge anyone who is not their master) in movies like Princess Of Thieves

Jaya Bhaduri adored her cow in Gaai Aur Goriand so did the heroines/mothers in the social cinema of the late sixties and the seventies where moneylenders forcibly took the cows and bulls away from the debt ridden families. You will recall multiple teary eyed scenes where Laxmi the cow is taken away... Cows have been shown to cry in these movies and their absence have created iconic still shots. What, you don't remember Mother India? And her yoke?

Scary household pets like the taranatula on Home Alone, play a small but significant part in the movies too. And there would be no Spiderman, had one not bitten a shy boy and converted him to web spinning crook catching hero.

Parrots Mynahs and Birds of all Wingspans

Alfred Hitchcock trained one bird and scared generations of people from looking at seagulls in the eye. Or ravens as shown in Omen and its ilk.

Parrots and mynahs have been the subject of many a love song in Hindi movies and pirates have been shown to have a wild bird or two on their shoulder...

(Birds on our list are so vivid and their tales so many, remind us to lock them in a formula soon, please?)

Big Bad Bugs and Small Funny Ones

Imagine how scary an ordinary housewife can be when she unintentionally turns into the 50 foot woman, or that a small town girl turns into the giantess and saves the world from an alien attack. Now imagine if small household bugs turn extra large in movies like Arachnophobia and Infestation! Give me Joe's Apartment any day.

We have but just scratched the surface of animals in cinema (and we have not even stepped into the Disney/Pixar animation territory) but here's your chance of adding your own favorite animal in the movies. Is it Insaniyat (where Dev Anand's pet monkey rescues him from captivity), or Ong Bak (where the boy avenges the death of his elephant friend)? Of course we will revisit the animal theme when Salman Khan shows up on the big screen as Sher Khan (or with him?) Until then let us go back to Babe or Shaggy Dog!

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