Mumbai, July 02: It’s been an almost eventful two weeks. Things nearly happened. But nothing really happened.
Until yesterday. Yesterday my wife went for a three-week break to her parents in Hyderabad. Hyderabad for those who don’t know, is a city which has computers and uncharacteristically for India, is run by a government which may not be corrupt.
With the wife gone I did the decent husbandly thing and celebrated. I mean, I really let the hair down. Which in my family, genetically speaking, doesn’t take very long. Although putting the hair back takes aeons, and more embarrassingly, outside help. With the wife out of the way, it was time to go back to my scientific pursuits. Pursuits that challenged my academic bent of mind. Unfortunately, with age I’m also reminded every day that my mind is not the only thing that’s bent.
My in-depth study of the female anatomy had been frowned upon by my wife. That’s if you can call tearing up of all adult magazines and bashing up of all adult material, video cassettes, frowned upon. Either way, with she temporarily out of commission, I could resume my noble pursuits of this higher understanding of that most sacred of things, the female anatomy.



But there remains a more sleazy side which needs to be respected as well. And that side (which is located on the left upper area of my body), also wants to make movies. This, along with eating, drinking, using the bathroom and flossing, has to be done behind my wife’s back. So I advertised in a local newspaper for scripts. And here’s a couple of proposals that I’ve narrowed down from the 40,000 odd who sent their stories.



a) Return from the Dragon (A BIRD IN DANGER) This simple story tells of how our Prime Minister and his delegation successfully almost bearded the dragon (dragons traditionally don’t have beards, so the phrase is pointless, although one with sideburns was spotted in Edinburgh, Scotland) in its den and returned home safely.



This includes a riveting subplot of how the PM joined the 36 Chambers of Shaolin to understand more about China. And how he finished the 165-year course in 4 days, by insisting that all communication be in Hindi, only until the Cantonese speaking population in the monastery couldn’t take it any more and fled to Hong Kong, while the travel rates were low thanks to SARS.



Although a bird in danger, he wins over all he meets in China, and when that fails, resorts to Hindi dialogues which no one can understand especially in India. The film will also have two songs, item numbers done by Isha Kopikar and a famous Chinese actress (preferably not Jackie Chan). The movie ends with a Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai song, sung in French by Yanni on top of the Great Wall. After the song is complete, all the actors will disperse, except for Yanni who will be left on the Great Wall for many days, till he promises not to perform in public again. The actual ending will be a brief speech by our PM which will be faded out after 40 minutes or so. For the Chinese version, the fading out will start immediately.



b) Beckham and Sons This is the tale of displacement and triumph. David Beckham was recently voted England’s sexiest man. Which places him above Elton John, Roger Moore and two of the older Stones, who now help decorate Stonehenge.



David goes to Spain with his wife Victoria, whose talent is at about par with a victoria (a now almost extinct carriage found in Mumbai). While his wife struggles to find work, David takes to Spain like a bull to water.



He does what he does best. Have haircuts twice a day, and occasionally play football. Here too he’s successful scoring on and off the pitch. Twenty-one goals and two new-born sons is his tally for the season. Keeping with his wont he names one son Madrid and the other Lisbon. This goes on till someone tells him Lisbon isn’t in Spain. So he changes son number two’s name to Milan. Which, while very popular in Gujarat, is almost unheard of amongst Gujarati speaking Spaniards. His wife in the meantime also wants her 20 seconds of fame. (She had about 15 with the Spice Girls, so a brief 5 more would make that 20, thank you!)



She changes her name to Maria, joins a Ba’ath separatist movement, then resigns in disgust when she’s told they have nothing to do with showers. The movie ends with Alex Ferguson going on holiday, meeting Beckham in Spain and constantly throwing things at him.



These two scripts for their contemporary theories, poignant look at relationships and bold no use of Jackie Chan, have left the deepest impression on me. So before the wife returns or Jackie Chan finds out, let’s get India’s best filmmaker NFPC.