Shudh Desi Script

I am inspired by the title of a recent Bollywood film called Shudh Desi Romance. I thought about the lack of original scripts and decided to come up with a decidedly pure Hindi film script. This can be used by any wannabe director who can't afford a regular scriptwriter.

Boy (loosely used - could be from 20 to 45 years old) meets girl (age is unmentionable).

Sings a dard-bhara love song. If you don't know what that is, stop aspiring to be a Hindi film director and drive a truck.

Girl falls for the hero, and then they both sing a song prancing around gardens of Switzerland, USA or any of the tourist wonderlands.

Enter a villain. Centuries ago, this used to be a very tame rapist or jaaydaad grabber like Prem Chopra, or Ranjeet. Now, it is a guy who aspires to be a world-conquering ganglord, like a Bond villain. But the old world ones had priceless dialogue like "Ise liquid oxygen mein daal do. Oxygen ise marne nahin dega aur liquid ise jeene nahin dega."

Through skills like dance, karate, singing more dard-bhare songs, and setting the U.S. on them (after Syria of course) through diplomacy, jumping over roofs in a rapid sequence (a la Salman the tiger), etc., the hero destroys the villain and his ambitions to rule the world.

Add a kiss (we began to kiss in the 1990s, you know) and an item song (heroine can double up here if budgets are limited), and you have a perfect recipe for a shudh desi romance/action/drama.
And if you don't have the budget for a regular music composer, go for Bappi Lahiri. Ooh, la, la, ooh, lala..

Learning From Big Brother

We live and learn. So it is that we learn from the Big Brother. There's only one left after the Gorbachev ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika, in case you haven't noticed.

Like everyone else, Big Brother also suffers scams, budget deficits and trade deficits. But unlike everone else, BB has a solution. There are two major angles to this.

1. Count the number of countries in the world. Around 190 at a rough count.

2. Bomb one every 2 years. Reasons, like an audit of a forest strewn with a few skeletons, can be found if you look hard enough. Any reason with a word like genocide, weapons, and innocent civilians sounds convincing enough. Soldiers on a draft have no choice, in any case.

You are now Ok for 380 years. After that, Martians may take over anyways.

The spinoff benefits on the main and ancillary industries, can keep you going for two years at least. There could be some add-ons if you also get oil cheap from the enemy of the country you bomb, in case the bombing happens in the Gulf region. Got it? Keep it simple, stupid, is the policy.

Ideas for GDP Growth

Who says India cannot grow at 10% a year? We just have to re-align our economy to what is right for us, instead of looking at it through jaundiced Western paradigms (ha, managed to use this word). In other words, we have to reposition our economy as The Festival Economy. Dubai has something called festival city, so why not a festival economy out here?

All the nation's resources must be concentrated on the festivals. We can easily count around 300 festivals, so that'll keep us buzzing almost year-round. All products and services, supplies, and infrastructure should focus on the festivals. And there should be no shortages, to ensure that the Gods don't go crazy and punish us. So we have to have power for all, roads for all, sugar and oil for all, and so on. The people who have to produce these get fined if they don't produce enough to supply to all the festivals. Those who do, get rewarded with more festival orders.

Everything would be hunky dory, because who can compete with us on the number of festivals, and each one longer than the last one?

Uff, just got another problem off my back. Enough work done. Now let me go join the festivities..

New Happiness Measures

No half-measures allowed. Happiness is too important to be left to the unhappy. So here we go, acquainting the world with these brand new measures of the big 'H'. Get ready to measure and be happy.

1. How long the batteries last. If your laptop and mobile batteries last longer than the next guy, you are, by definition, happier...than him or her.

2. Muscles/square inches of body in case of boyfriends. If you are a girl.

3. Beauty/square inches of body for girlfriends, if you are a guy.

4. Furniture/square inches of home space if you are a 'settled' female.

5. Amount of beer/other liquids per square inch of home space if you are a 'settled' guy.

6. Number of facebook friends you have, if you are 'settled' or not, man or woman. This is non-discriminatory, and totally democratic, unlike 150 countries in the world.

7. Number of biryanis you cumulatively ate in a lifetime, if you are a Hyderabadi. Pseudo-biryanis to be deducted from the total.

8. Irani chais, ditto.

9. Number of commuters you abused, if you are a Delhi wala driver-male.

10. Number of item numbers you managed in a year, if you are a female actor, even a lead one.

Eateries at Nagpur

I had a chance to eat at a few more places thanks to farewell parties, golf group parties and faculty get-togethers in my days at Nagpur. Here is a quick review of the sights-sorry, eats.

Centre-point at Ramdaspeth has good food, and a new look. The top floor at the other, Airport Centre-point has a live singer in the evening. Food is Ok, service is good.

Repose, a ninth storey lounge in Sriram Towers has a very good view of Nagpur. Though the lighting could be better, the seats are comfy, and food is good. Music is set at a volume which 50-year-old ears can tolerate, unlike some other places devoted to Youngistan decibel levels - as a prof. of yore said, it is a debacle, not decibels in those.

10 Downing Street makes it unnecessary to visit U.K. , what with the rupee value and the 3 lakh deposit that the Empire asks of you to go there. If you can have the ambience here, why bother? The menu is innovative, with lots of variety. David Cameron, you just lost a tourist.

L.B. has a party hall, and so does Tuli. Both were adequate for our purposes, and managed to customise it as per our order- a  TV was added for using the Karaoke mike.

For local flavours, hot and hotter, some of the Saoji food joints are good too. There are a few more as well, but I have forgotten the names.Some other time, perhaps.

 

Moving On

On to Delhi and Ghaziabad from next week. Added a second golf hole to the campus golf course at IMT Nagpur, giving more room to flex the golf muscles.

A series of dinners and lunches with various colleagues happened over the last few days, and the feelings that usually remain at the periphery threatened to spill over, that something good was coming to a close. But there has to be a closing for a new beginning to happen. So it is just as well.

Nagpur is a unique place with good vibes, and along with Kirloskar Institute, Harihar, will rank in my list of best places to work in. A good combination of nice students, nice faculty and nice staff. Tends to make you fat, if you believe in the theory of correlation between happiness and body weight.

So now I am off on a slimming quest.

My Own G-10

These ruminations are to prove that G is an important letter in the alphabet. Wanna bet?

1. A lot of positivity comes out of words that start with a G- Good to Great.

2. Very commonly used term in Lucknow, U.P. is G Haan.

3. In Delhi, or Punjab, it is turned around to Haan G, but still contains the all important letter.

4. Important countries of the world (whose currency does not depreciate) are called G-10 nations.

5. GDP is a measure of how well you are doing, except in Bhutan, where only happiness is measured. Poor souls.

6. India's answer to James Bond, Mithun, went by the name Gunmaster G-9. Not F-9 or B-9.

7. An important gaali (honourable term of address) in Hindi is Gadhe...

8. Ghotala, the Hindi word for scandal, also begins with a G.

Above all, two words that drive the spiritual, and the corporate sports-world start with a G-

9. God, and

10. Golf.

I rest my case.