2 SCENES

PEOPLE:

Akshay Kumar as Viraj, Kareena as Sim.

Stallone, Denise, Brandon Routh play themselves, and will probably end their lives if they ever happen to watch their acts.

Amrita Arora also plays her real self. Dumb, that is.

PLOT:

Super stuntman hates women. Supermodel cum medico hates men. By bizarre scheme of things, she operates him and accidentally leaves her watch inside his tummy. The watch sings every hour. She has to feign love to get it back.

Funny. Thinks writer Sabbir Khan.

Not so funny. Says people who saw Pammal K Sambandham.

What an interesting coincidence, says director Sabbir Khan.

Cmon. There are changes. This has the hero farting on Amrita’s face. Do u think Kamal did that? Also Kareena, unlike Simran, lowers her skirt and bends down in two scenes to show more cleavage. This even has Hollywood superstars making absolute fools out of themselves.

Not plagiarism. Sure. Even Mouli & Mohan wouldn’t want to own this one.

Following are some from the fantastic medley of the dirtiest, lousiest, crappiest lame sexist humor we have seen in recent times.

SCENE 1:

Kodak Theatre. Hollywood. Taurus stunt awards.

The scene shows prize declaration for ‘Best body double’. No shit for guessing the winner.

And the handing over is done by (jackpot prizes for guessing that)….. Sylvester Stallone. Yaay!!

And Sly actually knows Viraj by name. Wow.

And the crowd who took pains to attend this ‘massive’ event includes Pitt & Jolie, Cruise, Di Caprio, Kate Winslet, Bruce Willis etc. It is Oscar footage of course, but some kinda logic there, please???

And just after Viraj’s super-lame-emo speech (in hard kaur Punjabi!), the watch rings its hourly melody.

Mangalam Bhagawan Vishnu……..

Our lovely heroine in the crowd springs up in horror, and places her hand over her chest in shock.

Seeing this, an idiotic celebrity sitting nearby thinks it is…. behold…. The Indian National Anthem…

Whole of Kodak are on their feet in seconds… Even Sly.

And the whole of the theatre here, were covering their faces in embarrassment.

SCENE 2:

After Sim rejects him, Viraj is in depression.

And we have Denise Richards (yeah man!), come and sit on his lap. Sweet Jesus!

She is smitten by this guy and wants to have ‘golden’ babies with him… (Golden? whatever that means)

So Viraj says okay to marriage. After ‘much’ reluctance. (Over Kareena? That is a difficult choice, huh? )

Star wipe to marriage set on the beach…

Sim realizes her mistake (Viraj had just ‘slept’ with her that fateful day. Nothin more…. What a loser!)

She rushes in a Beetle with Aftab and Amrita. Another top speed race in busy Beverly Hills.

Due to all the excitement, poor Beetle loses control and strays into a dark alley.

Yankee goons jump out of nowhere saying… “This is our neighborhood. How dare u come in here? Leave the gals and run for ur life”. And the ritual fight ensues.

And to think, we blast them for thinking India is all about Maharajas and their elephants.

Aftab can’t act to save his life. He can’t fight to save his life either.

So one hopes for a happy ending of a different kind. The baddies kill him and rape the other two. Wow.

But no. This is Bollywood. And this is Sabbir Khan.

So, in that dingy alley, in the middle of Beverly, comes a rescuer. And you thought Stallone had done enough for his share of the crores? Hell, no.

He jumps out of nowhere. And takes all of them down. Misery continues.

And what is unbelievably bizarre, is that the American gangsters didn’t seem to care it was their legendary superstar John Rambo fighting them. Anyways.

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PS: Sim reaches wedding right on time. Looks at Denise and asks Viraj. Why do this ‘galti’?

U skinny bitch, u called Denise Richards a Galti? What are you then, a Balti?

Enough of it. Denise makes way for true love. Assholes unite.

Happy ending.

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As end credits roll, there are about 25 lip locks between the leads. Yuck.

And oh, the name of the movie is Kambakth Ishq.

Strings Attached

“ACT, it is eight ‘o clock. If we don’t leave by 8.30, we won’t get the bus at 9. If we don’t get the bus at 9, we won’t reach the office before 10.30”

“So what?” I ask Nikhil Menon.

“So nothing. I’m pretty sure when our boss said 9.30 is the office time, he meant AM not PM”.

That’s the last of what I see (or hear) from Nikhil Menon. For the day that is.

After the alarm call that I didn’t subscribe to (and hence, can’t unsubscribe), he goes picks up his electric guitar from a commotion of wires and settles on a chair with headphones plugged in. The only signs of his existence from then on, are the fingers on either hand that run over the strings with the appetite of a serial rapist just out of jail.

His head sways in rhythm. And he uses headphones. So we have to assume he is playing something great.

“Nick, hey Nick. Can we go?”

“Where to?”

“Office”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay”

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Halfway through the sleepy bus ride from Ennore to Alwarpet, I wake up to see my seatmate; eyes closed, and head rocking to some obviously superb tune. And here I thought he forgot his mp3 player and shaving set at home.

Wait a minute, he doesn’t shave. Wait another minute; there are no headphones in his ears either.

That is when I see his fingers strumming over something imaginary. Maybe that’s what they call the Air Guitar. That’s also when I found out for the first time; Nikhil Menon has a delusionary disorder. He plays guitar out of nothing. And some great songs too.

He is currently Joe Satriani; playing ‘The Journey’ from Strange Beautiful Music.

Do not disturb.

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Office is a chat heaven. When the boss stops his talk, we gtalk. But after anurag_maverick signed out for having his power lunch, I am alone again. I look at Nick, for some company. His headphones are plugged into the Dell. Damn.

His head says, “Lonely nation”. It’s from Switchfoot, the San Diego band. Duh!

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Lunch is from a Tamil mess. A Tamil Mess. And no, that is not a repetition error.

Chris Martin, Coldplay lead guitarist, asks me from across the table.

“Who’s the guitarist in that Malayalam album, Alone?”

“I donno Nick. Why?”

“I’d like to be some indigenous artiste for a change. I’m homesick”.

That’s a start. Lovely. “Why Nick”?

“The food sucks here”.

Shit.

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We go out to interview a teacher.

“What a useless fellow. What does he know about Swedish Rock?”

“Yeah Nick. Nothing”.

He is surely Opeth boy Mikael Akerfeldt now.

Yeah, I’ve learned some things too. At least, I now know Moshpit isn’t an African shrub.

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Suburban trains in Chennai run a contest for the first person entering and leaving the train at every station. We always lose.

Me and Tommy Emmanuel were having Coke, sitting on the floor of the train.

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11.25 PM

Me and Kris watching the same comic clip on Aditya TV third time that week. We still laugh.

Nick… oops, Alex Skolnick, was behind closed doors, merrily playing some song we will never hear.

Alex Skolnick

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2 AM

I had him for my own. No strings Attached.

Nikhil Menon. In flesh and blood. Finally.

He was asleep. That is.

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Why me?

Usually this is a question put to the heavens by fellow miserables.

Or that extremely hilarious line mouthed by comedian Vivek, in another of those sorry movies relying solely on his funny English to run the show.

But here, this question is in a different context.

Why me… it’s as in, why another blogger?

What to make of another of those self-gratifying nutjobs, arrogant enough to believe people will actually bother to read something they write?

And will it be one more addition to the zillion pages on the web that has paragraphs on homemade apple pies and why someone’s last girlfriend ditched him even though he was the best kisser around?

The answer is, I don’t know.

It could be. It may not be. I don’t want it to be. Could be worse.

But the thing is, I am a curious case.

I think a lot. Not a good idea in today’s today. Doers are kings. Not thinkers.

I love movies where the hero is untouchable. Not the apartheid kind, man! But that sucks too. Most of my trendy pals love noire, art house stuff. They can’t enjoy a movie that can’t be shut into any genre.

What is Rang de Basanti… a love story or a social-message-bearer or, or what is it, they ask.

I don’t know but I love it, is what I say. I’m not sufficiently educated it seems.

People say I have talents. I’ve never proved them right. Or me wrong.

I love Chelsea. A universally hated entity.

I sleep at 3. So do many of my good friends.

I have been dumped twice. Quite. And not quite.

I used to believe that guy God. Now I laugh at that idea. Not cos of the dumping thing though. Tsk!

I don’t drink. Yes. Not even beer. Yuck, ain’t it?

I’m the production of two middleclass govt employees. Yet I dream of one day directing a movie.

I even think Bhavana is substantially cuter than Jolie. Acrimony in Suresh Sekar’s book.

And I am surprisingly allergic to hard core porn.

Yup, I’m weird by default. And the thing about being weird, is that you have stories to tell.

So just look at this page as me talking to all of you together.

To my brother at home.

To Revathi at Calicut who promised me to read whatever I write. See if you can take it rev.

To Suresh at Coimbatore for applauding whatever I do.

To Priyadarshan at jeehsuz-knows-where.

So read. Comment if you feel like it. Open up one yourself. I’d be delighted.

Just don’t run away.

Cos we are all curious cases.

Heard Today on telly:

Virginia: Did you ever feel like burning the whole world down?

Hefner: Everyday.