The frog and the princess

1) The Original
(i,e the story I heard long back which I now tried to recollect and compose after storing it in my whacky brain for long years. Don't blame me if the end seems so contrived, 'coz I always fell asleep when a story came to its end.)

Long time ago there used be a king, who was admired by the people and envied by the neighbouring rulers. The king used to treat his subjects like his children. There was happiness everywhere in the country except for the king's castle. It so happened that the king had a daughter, who spent her days gloomily in the garden of eden, which had a pond adjacent to it.

The princess was gloomy because she was eighteen years old and didn't find her loved one. She was introduced to many a handsome gentlemen. Few courted her and some tried to flirt, but alas! the princess didn't find anyone interesting. She waited to find someone who would move her heart. Young princes from neighbouring countries and even from far off places came to woo her, but no one was able to touch her heart. This made the princess depressed and she found herself looking at her own image in the murky water of the pond everyday for hours and hours, when all of a sudden one day a frog jumped out of the pond and started staring at her.

The princess was shocked to see such an ugly creature and began to panic. The frog got worried that the princess might kill her and screamed at her,"Princess don't be in a haste to kill me or call the guards. I appear ugly, but there is a handsome me inside."
Princess revolted, "Ugh!!"
"Well, give me one kiss and find it for yourself," shrugged the frog.
Princess thought about it for something like a nanosecond before she said, "No way!"
Not bestowed with much brain power, the frog decided to do the best it could do. It made a gaint leap to the princess's lips and smacked them.
Well! Surprise...the frog turned into a handsome bloke with whom our princess fell head over heels in love. (err..why didn't she fall in love with any of those handsome chaps earlier? Why NOW. Maybe she loved the long leeeeeeeeeap.)
So..they got married and lived happily ever after.

--
Now comes the interesting twist to the tale. It was such a cool story, many people wanted to make a movie out of it. Of course, if Cindrella and Snow White became widescreen experiences, why not our rustic love story between the frog and the princess? How romantic, isn't it. So varied people made various versions adopting it to suit their genres...

2) Hollywood Studios:
Big sets of the pond and the garden were created. As a matter of general principle, they decided not to shoot outdoors, though it would have cost them less. The movie was made three long hours. It had 7 Ball dance sequences, 17 songs. The frog had a bald head. The princess was very pretty. The kiss scene too boring. The end too melodramatic.

3) French New Wave:
The king was shown, the queen was shown, the king's retinue was shown, the people of the country were shown. Their births were shown, their lives were shown, and their deaths were shown. Everything was shown but the princess's gloom wasn't. Then suddenly the princess cried. Then a frog jumped out of the pond and the movie ended. No story was shown. No end was given.

4) Film Noir:
Seeing the princess gloomy, the king hired a detective. He started spying on her and he fell in love with her. One day trying to hide from her, he fell in the water. When he came out of the pond, the princess screamed seeing him all covered in muddy water and weeds. The spy kissed her and wiped out the dirt from his face. Bad luck for him, the princess had multiple personality disorder. The baddie came out and killed the spy. The good girl came out and wept.

5) Westerns:
There was no place for a lovestory! Instead they made 'the good, the bad and the ugly'

6) Hollywood horror:
The princess was acting weird. She would always stay in the garden and stare into the pond. Every night a frog would come and seduce her. The exorcist was called, but he failed. Then one day, the king thought the water in the pond was too dirty. He dried the pond and the frog died, and the daemon left the princess's body! Well, you are mistaken. The frog was now sharing the princess's body. Film ended. Time for part two.

7) Hollywood Sci-Fi:
The princess was gloomy and always sat by the pond. The pond was the gateway to all the aliens who took the shapes of frogs to come into this planet. The princess fell in love with one such frog. But no one would agree. She started hiding the little frog in her room. Eventually, she realised the frog was dying and let it go. Then new technology came and the frog came back to live with the princess. Well! it's another thing, the princess had another boyfriend now. The frog went back and then there was a war. The king declared an independence day and wiped out all the frogs! The people lived happily ever after, without frogs and without aliens.

8) Hollywood Romance/Action:
The princess was gloomy. The neighbouring king declared war. The neighbouring prince decided to sneak in the castle thro' the secret passage and came out of the pond. The girl saw him and both fell in love. Now they both wanted to stop the war but the war continued. The prince's elder brother was killed and the boy had to fight. The princess's father was killed in the war and she too joined the battle. There was war, war and more war in the day. Love, love, more love in the night. After we had enough, the film ended.


9) Bollywood istyle:
The hero refused to act in a deglamourised role as a frog. The story was changed to 'the stallion and the princess.' Our hero was also not happy why anyone would refuse to love him? So the princess fell in love with the stallion. The hero was also not happy with having only one heroine. So now there was a sister to the princess. Both loved our hero who was a stallion by day and a man with a paunch in the night (well..our hero is 50 years old you see) Then six songs were shot in foreign locations. All were done on roads with fantastic cars as the background. Well..they were all dream songs and our chaps dreamt the future! Anyway, the story went on and on. Thankfully it ended. Our hero married the two girls, became the king and lived happily. He was still a stallion, but now by the night!


PS: Coming soon, what various directors would have done with the story.