My Second Coming !!

It was today, thirty eight years ago ! The sound of a gunshot is more like a loud cracker than a resounding boom one hears in the movies. And barring Rajinikant no one can escape a 158 gram bullet fired from a .38 caliber revolver and heading towards you at 755 feet per second. In any case I was sitting on a bike and there wasn’t a chance in hell that I could adjust my position by even an inch. The slug entered my left flank, tore through my intestines and made a neat exit from the right. The bike fell and I slumped on the concrete pavement. A few more gunshots flew in the air and a lot of expletive laden shouts followed. Surprisingly there was no pain at first. The bullet felt like a sting and since it had not hit any bone there wasn’t a great impact either. I touched my side and saw my new blue shirt darkening with blood stains. I tried to get up but fell down instantly. The violence around me was over in five minutes. Two of my friends came and took me to the hospital, me again sitting on the bike sandwiched between them.

The trauma ward of a hospital is a little like a busy railway station and the one at PGI was among the biggest and busiest of them all. It caters to five neighboring states and unlike the referral institution it was envisaged to be it has willy nilly acquired the character of a big civil hospital with ever burgeoning OPDs and overcrowded wards. The trauma centre is a round the clock mad house teeming with hundreds of failed hearts, broken limbs and dysfunctional organs. Each agonized entrant deems his problem as the severest in the world and wants the doctors on duty attending to him before anyone else. It’s left to the harried residents, lowest in the hierarchy of the doctors, to quickly assess the severity of the problem and prioritize the order in which medical care needs to be given. If need be, a reference is made to the senior resident who decides the course of immediate treatment and further management. For the most serious ones a call is made to the Consultants. They waltz into the mad house, give a few withering glances to the cowering Residents, decide what to do with the patient who would be mercifully unaware of what is going to happen to his insides within a short while. But all that was for ordinary mortals, not me.

A little background is in order here. Politics has always been and forever will be an integral part of educational institutions until it is banned by law which in a democratic country is unlikely to happen. Hence in our University there were different political outfits which were different not because of their ideologies but because of groups headed by strong headed individuals who would never bow to anyone else. All of us were convinced by our respective affiliations and regarded the others as pretenders and self seekers. Loyalties were fierce and anyone who left the fold was condemned for life as a traitor who would burn in the purgatory for eternity. I was drawn to the university politics from day I took admission in the Law department and found my way to a group which was, at the time, the principal opposition to the ruling group. The measure of political success in the University was the result of the elections to the Students' Council which was the recognized body representing the students in the affairs of the University. The ruling group had been in power for many years and it was in 1980 that they faced some serious opposition. Over the next two years our group made steady progress and then in 1982, thanks to some unavoidable circumstances, it fell upon me to contest the election of General Secretary of the Council. We swept the elections. The victory however came at a cost. Rivalries became more intense, often resulting into avoidable violence which eventually claimed a few lives. There were others, including me, who would be scarred for life. Hence it was a known student leader (so much for modesty) and not an ordinary gunshot victim who was wheeled into the hospital.

On reaching there I was immediately put on a steel stretcher and wheeled in. Gunshot injury received an immediate response from the medical staff. My shirt was taken off and pressure bandages put on both sides of my abdomen to stem the flow of blood which to my surprise was very little. A sweet little nurse came and jammed a few needles in me. I was still on the stretcher and the pain was now beginning to test my resolve. Much to my surprise the pain was emanating from my back rather than my punctured abdomen. I was still waiting for the doctors to come and start doing something when the first of my well wishers started filtering in. Now mind you, the emergency ward is an area where the entry is severely restricted but my intrepid friends and well wishers scoured every nook and corner of the hospital and gained access to the forbidden area. It soon became a security issue for the hospital authorities until they were requested to leave by my close friends.

Another cute nurse came and started to shove a tube up my nose. I muttered...Sister, careful..my nose is very sensitive. Sweetly she chimed..don't worry, everyone's nose is like this only. I had little choice except to surrender. Soon I was wheeled to the operation theatre and I woke up a few hours later in the recovery room. I must have looked like an alien lying on a bed. From behind the oxygen mask I could see a glucose cum medicine drip in my arm apart from the draining tubes, three on each side of my abdomen and a large bandage on my then deflated tummy and of course that horrible Ryle's Tube jutting out of my nose. The recovery room is perhaps least conducive to the well being, mental at least, of any patient. There were groans and cries of pain all around me. Now I was in a lot of pain too, again in my back. I kept wondering what was wrong with it. Mercifully after a while someone came, gave me an intravenous pain killer and I drifted off to sleep. The next few days I kept hovering between different degrees of consciousness. I have faint recollections of hordes of students trying to sneak in a look and being scolded by the security staff. My younger sister and a few close friends kept a round the clock vigil by my side.

About ten days later when it was deemed that I was stable enough I was shifted to a private ward. It was there I learnt the extent of the damage to my insides. Miraculously none of the vital organs were affected but my intestines had suffered considerable damage which was taken care of by the surgeons. The doctors insisted that I walk around a bit to avoid accumulation of gas inside but the moment I took a few steps I would be racked by a severe pain and would collapse in the arms of my attendants. The next two weeks were sheer torture. I kept complaining of pain and the surgeons kept ignoring me thinking that being a VIP patient (in their opinion) I was just being difficult. I would go into spasms of pain and apart from the routine pain killers there was no other relief. Redemption came in the form of a friend who was doing his masters in orthopedics but had been on leave all this while. He examined me and found that something was wrong with my vertebrae. A call was sent to the ortho guys and I was finally relieved of the pain thanks to some skillful manipulation of the spine by an expert.

I spent three months in the hospital with a small interval between the two stays and another operation to kind of wind up what had been done in the first one (I'll spare you the gory details). What has stayed with me all the succeeding years is not the pain and the discomfort that I suffered but redeeming qualities of individuals who stood with me in the time of my crisis. My younger sis was there 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout my incarceration. As were some close friends, all of whom took turns to ensure that I was never without a loved one by my side. So many of others came so frequently that I was constantly scolded by the doctors and nurses on the risk of infection but who was listening ! And then there were the "High Spirits", a group of four young ladies who were so christened so because the in house mafia that I was constantly surrounded with concluded that my otherwise low spirits took a northward leap every time they came into my room, high heels making the appropriate sounds of their arrival They were always a delight to be with. And of course another dear friend who came everyday and brought a different greeting card with her. I still have all of them.

 
Just before I was wheeled into the operation theatre I had asked my sister to send a telegram to Chammak Challo who was still in medical college. She wrote a letter instead which CC received two weeks later. The contents were enough to make CC board a train immediately and reach Chandigarh. She did not know in which ward/room I was in but still managed to find out, walk past the security and barge into the room where I was writhing in pain. It was for the first time my father came to know that I too had someone in my life and the moment he came to know that she was a doctor to be, he made up his mind that this was the daughter in law he wanted. And we had still not made any kind of commitment to each other yet.

 
There is this friend of mine from the University days (aren't they all from that era?) who has been wishing me a "Happy Birthday" every year on the 3rd September. It's a reminder of the benevolence of God who steered me away just a few inches from death and granted me a second shot at life. It also reminds me to count my blessings which came in form of friends and family who cared and continue to do so till date.
x

Guddo's Wait

It was time, wasn't it? She craned her neck towards the ancient clock hanging precariously from the crumbling wall behind her. Damn this train, she thought. Is it ever going to arrive on time? Her hand moved towards the cloth bundle in which she was carrying freshly cut cucumbers lovingly peppered with black salt. She knew Daar ji loved to nibble on them as much as he would do to her ears which now turned red at the thought. She quickly checked if in her reverie the thermos of lassi hadn't tipped over. Phew, it's fine but why the hell is the train so late?

The sun was blazing down on her and yet she refused to move towards the shade of the tree. She had to be the first one to greet Daar ji as he alighted from the steps of the compartment. Gulab Singh was a tall strapping young man with a long and flowing beard. His eyes always glittered with mischief every time he would gaze at her and twirl his moustache and she would invariably go weak in the knees as  he would walk purposefully towards her. I know, she thought, tonight is the night when Daar ji will once again sweep her from her feet and hold her close to his chest. And this time I am not letting him go away ever again.

Although one never realizes it but an ageing body responds differently to the elements. There were times when she would jump and walk under the blistering sun and yet be back home fresh as a morning jasmine. Now the warm wind and the prolonged wait made her sleepy and hard as she fought it her head slowly slumped forward and immediately carried her into that beautiful evening when  they had been crooning in each other's ears. His gentle words serenading her beauty almost never failed to amaze her. He was after all "Matric Pass" and could always dip from a vast reservoir of Urdu and Punjabi poetry. He could instinctively demonstrate his affection by words, gestures and touch. She would gasp as he held her hand and tremble when his fingers walked up to her slender shoulders. The world around her would cease to exist and all she saw was this rapidly moving flow of a stream of myriad colours which would so often explode with bursting stars. She was in love and hopelessly so. Daar Ji and Guddo ! Did a world exist outside their embrace? What was this distant rumble, she thought?

A quiet laid back village was unaccustomed to loud sounds. The rumble turned to a roar and rudely interrupted their moment. Gulab quickly went out to see what has happening and almost immediately rushed back into the room. Wide eyed, his face was flushed. What's happening, she asked? He reached for the sword under the bed and rasped at her "Lock the door and do not come out. Mirza and his family are in danger and I can't leave them at the mercy of the rioters". Mirza was a childhood friend of Gulab and the two shared a bond that sometimes even biological siblings are not blessed with. Despite Gulab's warning Guddo ran after him towards Mirza's house. He shouted "Go back" but she didn't listen. Resigned to her stubbornness he quickly asked her to fetch  Mirza's wife and daughter while he himself ran towards the rice field next to the house where Mirza normally used to be. Almost immediately he slipped in the cow dung spread next to the field. The squish squash sound of dung and water brought Mirza out of the field. He too had heard the sound of violence heading towards them.  

Run Mirza, roared a breathless Gulab.

"My child?..Sukham....she is in the hut with Nahid.

Shut up, shouted Gulab, they are with Guddo. Run as fast as you can..we have to reach the Railway Station before the rioters catch up. But, Daar Ji, what have I or my family done? Why should  I run? Gulab was stopped short in his run. For all of a second he paused to reflect on what was happening and what he should tell his friend.  He didn't have the time to explain the politics which was tearing their nation apart. Their mundane lives were about to be overtaken by the storm that had brewed from the coffee tables of self seekers. Ordinary lives are and have always been subservient to grand designs of rulers and wannabe greats.

Come my friend, whispered Gulab...the train to Layallpur is about to pass through the station. You must try and board it.. none of you are safe here. There will be an army guard on the train and you will be protected. Mirza understood and quickened his pace. Parallel across the field they saw Guddo and Mirza's family running towards the railway station too. Run run...faster.

Jo bole, so nihaal, rang out the battle cry from the frenzied mob which was now less than a hundred metres away. They had seen and sensed their quarry and like a crazed hunter were bent upon to satiate their blood lust. The soul brothers  and their families reached the edge of the railway station just as the train slowly chugged towards the platform. Looking for the armed British guards Gulab shouted, sahib sahib bacha lo ! There was no response. Gulab jumped on to a compartment and recoiled in horror. All he could see was lifeless, butchered bodies. He jumped out and shouted..next compartment...quick. The train was now picking up pace and the mob was closing in from behind. Run, run Mirza..next compartment..jump in it and pull up the girls. Mirza lunged at the door of the next compartment and reached out to his daughter. Sukham held her father's hand and was yanked into the train. As he reached out for Nahid two gunshots rang out. One hit Mirza on the shoulder. He immediately lost his grip and Nahid fell on the gravel. Gulab picked her up quickly and ran with her. The train was gaining speed and the mob was less than fifty yards behind them.  Nahid had tired and was falling back. Gulab's lungs were almost bursting but with strength which comes in extraordinary situations he lifted Nahid and ran faster towards the door of the compartment where Mirza was waiting with his good arm stretched out.

Guddo, exhausted as she was, tried to match the stamina of her Daar ji but fell behind. She was confident that Daar ji would be able to push Nahid to the safety of the train and now he was almost there. And then she was hit on the back of her head with an iron rod flung at her. Her eyes clouded as she clutched at her head. The last thing she saw was Daar Ji grabbing the door handle with one hand while lifting Nahid with the other. More gun shots, the roar of the train, a few kicks to her body and Guddo lost consciousness.

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The Station Master bellowed "Bibi..o Bibi..get up ! You slept off again ? Go home now".  Guddo whispered "Daar ji?"  He hasn't come..probably the next train. I'll tell you when he does. The old lady let out a sigh and with leaden steps walked back home.  Who is she, an onlooker asked? Pagal hai, the Station master replied. She has been coming here every week for the past fifty odd years thinking her husband will come back.

Twenty kilometres across the border an old man with arthritic legs trudged towards the local cemetery with his wife and  daughter and lit a lamp on an unmarked grave.  Mirza sat down and said a silent prayer for Gulab, his soul brother. The rioters had made the last shots count.

Chammak Challo was muttering angrily under her breath which always sets alarm bells ringing. “Yo girl, what’s eatin ya” me asked. “All work and no pikcha makes me an angry babe” she repartees gangham style. It suddenly occurred to me that we had been ignoring one of our prime duties of patronizing Bollywood fables, may they be good, bad or downright stupid. Mattroo Bijli sounded delightfully off beat and so the babe and babe’s friend Ranu and babe’s friend’s friend..me.. muttered..oops motored off to nearest PVR hangout. The first thing that put me off was that from being a nice bright round Mattrroo, Ranu is on a serious diet and slowly turning into a pea. I kept tempting her with the various goodies on the display counter but she wouldn’t budge from her resolve. Very strict disciplinarian she is and her big eye look can stop the Shatabdi Express anytime. What is going to happen with the likes of me who never succumb to anything except temptation? Never the mind, I said to myself, and armed with a pop corn and a hot dog and a cola we went inside the hall for the shenanigans of the real Mattroo.

Much before the ilk of Ektaa Kapoor and company captured the idiot box with their moronic serials with their triple repeat style of dialogues of dumb bahus and scheming mater-in-laws, the much maligned Doordarshan sparkled with some iconic serials the content quality of which still remains unsurpassed. And the show that stole my heart was the comedy classic “Philips Top 10” hosted by the talented twosome Satish Kaushik & Pankaj Kapur. The bunny dunny exchange of barbs and humour had most of us potatoes falling out of our couches. Ever since I have been a regular fan of Pankaj Kapur and he has never failed to disappoint. But quirky as most passionate artists are he apparently took a long sabbatical and is now back with a super bang.

After the dark dramas based on Shakespeare’s stories Vishal Bhardwaj has dished out a comedy which is perhaps best suited to Punju tastes and the three of us laughed our guts out. The story is supposed to be set in the Haryana country side which is hardly distinctive apart from occasional usage of the Haryanvi slang. Pankaj Kapur plays Mandola, a millionaire alcoholic who shuttles from being a ruthless land grabber with concrete jungles in his eyes to a whacky nut case (sigh, so close to my heart) depending upon the number of liters of Gulabo (country liquor for the uninitiated) he has imbibed. Imran Khan, the Matroo, is his JNU educated man Friday and partner in crime who also moonlights as a desi revolutionary. The crazy trio is completed by Anoushka “Bijli” Sharma who takes her own sweet time in deciding where her heart lies and there are no prizes for guessing the right answer. After a long time one also has the pleasure of seeing Shabhana Azmi as a symbol of the corrupt builder politico nexus. She charms in her evil avatar.

The story dwells upon the attempt to usurp the mortgaged land of the poor villagers which is sought to be executed while Mr. Mandola is sober who promptly gently slips into his alter ego of a naughty buffoon do-gooder after a bout with bacchanalian debauchery. Not a very encouraging advertisement for the Alcoholic Anonymous but he manages to buckle you to your seats. His miserable attempts at sobriety only make him delusional to the point of paranoia prompting him to hit the bottle again. The rural back drop and the liberal usage of the colorful language which seems so in tandem with the dialogue only accentuates the basic gentility of the characters. (My dear friend Priyam, of course. would strongly disagree with that). The inter play of the corrupt politician, the inept bureaucracy, the classic one liners of the villagers and the roles of the principal players keep the narrative from slipping into boredom. The movie however totally rests on Pankaj Kapur’s ageing shoulders and the man has borne the burden with chutzpah. He is every bit the consummate charmer that I found him to be twenty five years back.  I wouldn’t rate the film as Vishal Bhardwaj’s best but it’s a terrific attempt and without Pankaj Kapoor’s powerhouse performance it would have fallen flat. However a great one time watch J

It takes a brave man to attempt to make features on issues which are sore points with a nation and where much could be argued for and against. It’s a given that where the issue per se is concerned the movie maker will rarely be able to make everyone happy, so the next best thing is to portray it in the most dramatic way possible. It’s easier to make movies on terror where Pakistan is the adversary since every one can readily identify the enemy. But what happens when the enemy is within? The boundaries between the perceived right and wrong get increasingly blurred as emotions will get invariably involved. Excesses occur on both sides and more often than not the sight of the original issue gets lost. The aggressor and the defender exist on both sides and each carries the sword of conviction which more often than not obliterates the defenseless and the ordinary individual. Violent cataclysmic changes in the existing order have had a long presence in the history of mankind but do not find favor in the post industrialized modern world. Hence no matter what the initial justification, all agents of change wrought through violence will have to face the wrath of the state. After a decade of bloodletting in Punjab, the nation faces its most serious challenge from the Maoists.

Although it fails as a telling commentary on a boiling issue but as a simple celluloid narrative of a series of events in the zone of conflict, the movie is racy and riveting and acquits itself pretty well. The story is loosely based upon a series of true events, as is claimed in the beginning but there is an obvious bias against the state where all politicians and businessmen are supposedly crooks and scoundrels. With the exception of the conscientious SSP, the policemen too are either spineless or a little better than criminals which I thought was a wee bit caricaturized. Even the DGP of the state police is portrayed more like a junior flunky. These guys are in a dire need of a lesson in conduct from the current chief of Punjab Police. However the SSP, creditably played by Arjun Rampal, redeems the image of the police by a professional approach to his job despite the fact that he frequently tries to shoot the entire MCC cadre all by himself and more than once tries to engage the enemy by charging in a huge group reminiscent of the Charge of The Light Brigade and rendering themselves as sitting ducks. The intelligence on the movement of the enemy is confirmed by a profoundly searching question “Khabar pakki hai?”. No wonder our boys in khaki keep getting knocked off at sickeningly frequent intervals.

Since the movie is based on the Maoist movement it is but natural that they be shown in a kinder and romanticized light. So you have a western educated ideologue in a kurta pajama, sentimental revolutionaries and wronged women all of whom exchange the red salute at the drop of the hat. Thrown in for a good measure is a profiteer among their ranks who meets with a predictable end. The focal point of the plot is the Trojan thrown in by the SSP who decides to switch loyalties after his lover to be is arrested. It’s a powerful combo and it works for the movie.

Despite the forgettable music I had no problem with the entertainment factor of the movie. You will enjoy all the action which is ridiculous at times but then Hindi movies are known for that. But by adding a song on the exploitation by big business houses and mouthing a soliloquy at the end of the movie why try and pontificate when you really have no position on the issue? Leave it open ended and let the viewer figure it out.

English Vinglish: A Reality Check

I had a friend in the University, an ex Air Force chap, who was some thirty plus and still not married. Whenever we would ask him about his marriage plans he would evade the issue but one day in a weaker moment he confessed that his choice of the ideal girl wasn’t meeting with the approval of his parents. And what was his vision of Miss Right? She had to be fair and beautiful of course, the logic for which was that if you didn’t know a person (as in an arranged marriage) you could at least exercise the choice regarding the looks. She had to be from a village, so that she is untouched by the bad influences of the cities which wasn’t so difficult then since village belles were more or less a cloistered lot (in a manner of speaking) and satellite television hadn’t invaded their lives and taught them how Saas and Bahus ought to be. And, amazingly, she should be illiterate. One may or may not agree with the first two conditions but illiterate? I had to ask why? The gentleman’s plan was to marry a piece of clay that he could mould to suit his concept of a wife. Irrespective of the pros and cons it sounded radical and hence interesting.


It left me wondering about the man woman equation which only got more complicated as one got into relationships, fell in love, got older, mature, married and not necessarily in that order. Most of us have had two decades or more of married life or relationships behind us and I am sure some us would have, at some stage, taken a stock check of what it means to us. What makes it work? What creates the magic? How does that chemistry come into being? Some are lucky to find compatibility while others struggle all their lives to find a meaning in it. Pretensions of married bliss are oh so common and yet the truth unveils itself in unguarded moments. The most frequent pearl of wisdom (a lament more likely) that is bandied about is that it’s all about adjustment. And who does that most of the time? An honest introspection would be interesting but the real question is why it should be more or less for either sex. And more importantly do we honestly assess and appreciate this so called adjustment of the spouse. Like my friend had sought to do somehow it always boils down to what you want the other person to be rather than appreciate what that person is and that to my mind is the root of frustration in married couples. Unfortunately the ‘adjustment’ reigns supreme and millions live on with their unrealized potential, suppressed emotions and fatalistic resignation to fate.

English Vinglish is an attempt by a woman to break that mould. A loving wife, a devoted mother and a proficient cook (the three ingredients desired by the seekers of the perfect wife) she is nevertheless the classic victim of a country obsessed with proficiency in the Queens language. Her comfort zone is shattered when she is required to fly alone to Uncle Sam to assist in her niece’s marriage. An alien environment heightens her insecurity but her desire to fight back leads her to train herself in the language. Her class mates are people with a similar quest but for different reasons. However she finds acceptance and appreciation for her abilities which results in redemption for herself in her as well as her skeptical family’s eyes. A simple story is brilliantly played out with a powerful message. Do NOT take you loved one for granted. Although the main protagonist is a female the lesson is for all to perceive. It is not enough to accept. It is not enough to adjust. It’s important to realize who you are but it’s equally important to let the other person be what he or she wants to be. The dynamics of life are never going to let it remain unchanged and therefore it’s vital that we grow together and in our respective spaces. Sri Devi has excelled as the demure, scared, insecure and yet a determined woman bent upon correcting what is perceived as a shortcoming by her family. Age may have marginally lined her face but she remains a fine actor. It’s totally her show and worth a serious watch. And of course, one could do with a revised reality check with oneself too.

Mughal-E-Azam Redux

This is the story of Cassius Clay, oops, Jalal-ud-din Mohammad Akbar whose name was changed to Mughal-e-Azam. He was always busy in conquering the country, marrying Rajput princesses and listening to Santa-Banta jokes of Birbal as result of which he was unable (despite his best efforts I am told) to sire an heir to the sprawling empire. On royal command an email was sent to the mandarins of Aastha Channel who deputed a full time mumbo jumbo man to invoke divine intervention. Finally, the joint and/or several efforts of royal exertions, mumbo jumbo man’s incantations, Vicky Donor’s ancestors bore fruit and a dude was born. My extensive knowledge of Hindi movies bears me out that this Salim dude took his royal privileges very seriously and had a keen eye for birds. The feathered kinds went into the cooking pot and the others moved to his boudoir. Then on a fateful day he saw one that refused to move or date him and like countless idiots since then who fall in love with the first girl who refuses to play ball, he too succumbed to her nubile charms. What’s your name babe, he asked? With a flick of her finger in her hair she pouted, I am Miss Pomegranate Bud and I don’t dance. The dude’s knees buckled and his pajama fell on the marble floor and with his tongue hanging out he panted his way to his dad’s study and blurted his wish to get married. The great Mughal gave an imperious look at his horny progeny and thacchhack, one tight slap landed on the royal left cheek. Salim’s undies joined his pajama on the floor. Salim wailed, I want Bomegranate Pud… I mean Stun Grenade..I mean the Puddy Bomb !! The King gave another suspicious look and thought; what kind of name is that? Looks like westerners have made an entry into India before they were supposed to. However seeing his little one’s ardour the father softened a bit and asked “How can you jump into bed with a gal with an unpronounceable name”. Salim quickly adjusted his undies and flashed his iPhone 10 (oh yes, everybody knows we were far more advanced in ancient days) and with tears of happiness reported “Jahanpanah, Google translator says it means Anarkali”. Thank God, Mughal-e-Azam thought, at least now I know whom I am going to bury alive. So, what’s it gonna be, Salim queried? Do I get the chic or shall I join Che Guvera? Akbar blinked, Che who? You know, the bearded rebel dude whose face is on everyone’s dress! ‘Bagaawat’ the King thundered, ‘are you going to defy I, me and myself for a roll in the hay’?

Salim crooned “She is beautiful and therefore to be wooed. She is woman and therefore to be won and Cupid, dear Jahanpanah, is a knavish lad, thus to make females mad”. Damn, Akbar thought, this is the height of the West meddling in my affairs. Even this Shakespeare fellow is in league with Che Guvera. But the man wasn’t a king for nothing and he knew how to take quick decisions. He took off Salim’s pajamas again, spanked his bottom with the iPhone 10, summoned a trusted general and dispatched both of them to the Sothern part of his empire with strict instructions that the only bird the prince would see is Chicken 65. While the prince’s entourage and his mood headed south Akbar summoned Anarkali and threatened her with a fate worse than death. She screamed ‘oh pullllease, anything but Ranjit & Shakti Kapoor’. But, Akbar stuttered, I only want to bury you alive. Oh cmon Kingling, she pouted, the days of mummies are over and women are about to be empowered and we are getting voting rights and I am going to sue you for gender discrimination and sexual harassment and tell me what’s wrong with me and by the way are you straight or bi ? The King of Kings, the ruler of a nation was flummoxed and at a loss of words and all he could mumble was ‘Anarkali, you gotta die”! Oh no, she replied, I am alive and I want to break free and I wanna love somebody. Having had enough of medieval pop for the day, Akbar sent her away and ordered a double Royal Salute.

Meanwhile down South Salim was up to his throat with Kingfishers and Chicken 65. Every time there was a call to arms he raised his beer and promptly flopped back on his couch brooding for Puddy Bomb. Since time immemorial it’s always been your friends who volunteer to help and ultimately get you into trouble. Seeing his friend wallow in beer and self pity one Mr Goody Singh from Rajasthan suggested that Salim ought to show some balls and revolt against his father. The royal dude was already seven bottles down and in his heightened sense of perception found the idea romantic. He got up from the couch, furiously shook his beer and yelled ‘Love shall prevail and Daddy I’ll be back’. An invitation was sent to Che Guvera with a carbon copy endorsed to Mughal-e-Azam and a blind carbon copy to Anarkali. Guvera took the next ship out from Cuba, Akbar started the march to the South with an army of a hundred thousand and Goody Singh took Anarkali out on a date to Chandni Chowk. The two armies clashed midway and a furious battle ensued. Akbar unleashed his 61^st Cavalry and the elephants of the 89^th Armoured Corps who ran rampant on the brave but lovelorn troops of Salim. The night before the battle he had made a long and a passionate speech for the cause of lost love which had the soldiers in tears. All you need is love, he cried and the troops ardently responded ‘She loves you; yeah yeah and with a love like that you know it can’t be bad’. However the tremendous motivation of love was no match for the might of the Mughal army and ultimately it came down to a one on one match up between the father and the son. Both the warriors were clad in iron armours and with razor sharp swords they let loose their primal instincts at each other. Salim lunged at Akbar with his sword who caught hold of it with his left hand and wrenched it out from the prince’s grip. And with the right hand, thacchhack, another tight slap landed on the face of the cheeky prince. The pajamas and the undies of the horse fell to the ground as well. Salim was promptly picked up, laid across Akbar’s horse who then spanked his bottoms all the way to Fatehpur Sikri.

EPILOGUE

Anarkali eloped with Goody Singh and became Miss Jaipur, Miss Mewar and Miss Chittorgarh in rapid succession and ultimately became a leading lady of the Bhandarkar Nautanki Company.

Goody Singh, who screwed his friend was last seen in Afghanistan having others do unto him what he had done unto others.

Che Guvera had his ship hijacked to Venezuela and was never seen thereafter.

Shehzada Salim struck a contract with Kingfisher which ensured his unending supply of beer and birds.

Jalal-ud-din Mohammad Akbar banned Aastha channel and started his own and guaranteed his place in the Mughal Hall of Fame. 360 years later he was immortalized in the movie classic Mughal-e-Azam but of course as you all know now, K Asif got all his facts wrong.

Heroine: The "Bai" Feature

One day Madhur Bhandarkar decided to make another movie. He racked his brain for a new story and after numerous ideas he decided on something new. The title of the movie-Heroine ! There must be some law in place which prevents you from naming a new movie with the same one you made a few years ago. And since this enormous effort of discovering a new title had already extracted the last vestige of original thought in his brain he decided to bring out the scripts of Page 3, Corporate and Fashion from his closet and gave them all to his “Bai” with the brief that in the time it takes for her to brew a cup of tea she will have to come up with a new script or else she will have to look for a new job. Please appreciate that those were the hard “policy paralysis” times and Manmohan Singh had not yet worn his reform crusader cloak to save this country from ruin. The US was going slow on outsourcing jobs and services to third world countries, read India, and the “Bais” were finding it hard to make ends meet. Desperate times need desperate solutions. Thus Heroine was born and a job saved. What the mentally exhausted director and writer (?) hadn’t accounted for was that the Bai was also an avid follower of Bollywood gossip and borrowing heavily from her sneak peeks into the tabloids she incorporated every juicy tidbit that she could remember into the new script. Hence in about five minutes flat the tea was brewed and the “Bai” delivered, a story you sensation seekers!

For an inexperienced Bai it may be a tremendous effort but for an experienced film maker it is a slap in the face. The film suffers from fatigue. You have the same neurotic, ambition driven characters whose search for God knows what makes them do strange stuff. I had always thought that the pill popping and alcohol soaking individuals ceased to exist after the Harold Robbins novels albeit with some notable Hollywood exceptions. You also have the same scheming men and women with their saccharine smiles and plastic features constantly trying to manipulate each other. With a few doses of sex and a hinted lesbian romp we are supposed to stand up and applaud the great travails of a slipping superstar although at no stage is it clear when she rose and fell from grace. I had to wait for about forty minutes before the story graduated from the prologue onto to the next level. Page 3 was a ground breaker and although it looked and sounded like a gossip magazine, which it was supposed to, it had its moments of quirky humor. No such luck here. It’s flat, monotonous and a rank bad effort.

The only good thing that happened to the film is Kareena. Playing a high strung I-want-it-all movie star she has given a creditable account of her histrionic skills. The weakness of course is that too much emphasis is laid on her reliance on drugs and booze to combat her insecurities rather than the under played war game that ought to have been the buzz word for her resurrection. It looked all too clichéd and Kareena, for all her talent, tries way too hard. It’s amazing how the television media is playing that up as her ultimate obsession. No doubt it is a promotional ploy but it sickens me to see how these guys are trying so hard to sell something which obviously stinks. They must believe that we are a bunch of idiots to lap up this piece of nonsense.

Unfortunately economics takes precedence over art. Hordes of people, me included, go to the movie halls on the basis of its curiosity value alone and it has already had a decent opening. Music and satellite rights must have been sold at a premium and at the end of the day it will be declared a commercial success. Wait for some rigged award function where everyone, saccharine smiles and all, will back slap each other and in between some listless performances declare the movie as a Bollywood classic. That would be the ultimate insult to the common movie goer.