'Open!' 'Sez Who?!'

Okay so this was a line in one of my favorite Eddie Cantor films about a young film-set and stage-hand called 'Al Babson' who fell asleep on the studio lot one time and then... ...had a dream.

And in the dream of course, there was this talking door, see, and Al Babson sez to it: 'Open!'

And the magic talking door sez back: 'Sez-a 'oo?'

And Al sez: 'Sez-a me!'

And the door opens.

Aladdin in the current Broadway production

Here, a little bit down the page, is the famous door in modern Kerala State in South-Western India, behind which is housed the world's largest horde of treasure of all time - the door is known as the Padmanabhaswamy Temple Door.

And those are not cobras depicted there, so the story that the treasure is protected by cobras is rubbish. 

No one has ever been inside those doors. And there have been age-old court cases between the family that ruled the region in ancient times, and the priests of the temple itself, and all the many 'scientists' and archaeologists, and researchers and so on over the years, especially in recent times - including local state politicians and even the government itself, all of the latter of whom who wanted to use the gold and jewels inside to fund the rising government budgetary needs.

As with so many items of Hindu culture and folklore, the temple doors hold a curse for the individual who even has the 'magical words' that will cause the doors to spring open and grant access to the treasure - namely, that that person will suffer some great calamity leading to their death.

The Padmanabhaswamy 'Forbidden Door'

It's theoretically plausible that behind the doors there might be a treasure of significance, since the rest of the temple is unquestionably the most covered and stocked with gold and jewels of any place anywhere on Earth - it has been authentically valued at trillions of dollars!

We will not be opening those doors physically today. But we do know how to get in, how to have them be magically opened, and how to gain access safely to the treasures within...

And we will be exploring all of that soon...