Recently, my all-time favourite tangewali -cum-Dream Girl Hema ji showed us — undaunted by the fact that what she held in her unsullied hands was a quaint Palaeolithic implement used by bark-and-fur-wearing semi-humans to clean up their filthy caves — how to deploy a broom with aplomb, grace and patriotism.
Grapevine has it that her assistant brought her Kent-purified water to wash her hands with, a little later.
Meanwhile, my all-time favourite Rani of Jhansi on a fake horse, historian of India’s freedom struggle, hater of Mughals and Karan Johar, and Cannes-regular Kangana Ranaut, called film journalists 10th-pass termites and freeloaders. When she was threatened with a boycott by the Entertainment Journalists Guild and the Press Club of India, she promptly sued them both.
What does this tell you? Other than that the Roshans and the Pancholis are weeping with relief that they have a few extra days?
Why hasn’t anyone thought of bringing these two superwomen together in a movie?
For starters, they are both expert riders. Hema ji ’s matchless handling of Dhanno brought out my untapped equestrian love to such an extent that I attempted to become MAM Ramaswami’s stable boy.
Years later, watching Ms Ranaut’s bravery with the British, as she nobly sat astride a cardboard colt screaming unintelligibly, I was flooded with fond memories of losing my school fees on a horse named Revolver Rani.
Well, based on these facts, as an amateur screenwriter, I can say with some confidence that our plot has a good beginning.
So far, we have Hema ji , Kangana ji and horses.
Now what are Hema ji ’s other skills? She is an accomplished classical dancer. So let’s bring that into the plot. To set right the lack of proper male representation in Bharatanatyam, Hema ji decides to teach her eldest child, Sunny Paaji , the classical dance form. Now how does Hema ji achieve this? Because Bharatanatyam requires knowledge of Tamil, illey ? And Sunny Bhai only knows chillaoing in Hindi and Punjabi. And Hema ji speaks Tamindi. This is where Dharam Paaji breezes in (in a cameo appearance), proud of the new sobriquet, ‘ Bhains Whisperer’, he’s just earned for conversing with a buffalo and its calf on Twitter. Dharam ji ‘persuades’ Sunny to practise the dance moves and beta Sunny obliges. He knows what happens when one says ‘no’ to Dharam ji .
What about Kangana, you ask. We know what happens when we keep her waiting.
Well, how about if, at this stage, a nepotistic gang of Italian crooks, hell-bent on destroying our ancient culture, decide to kidnap Sunny Paaji ? Except they end up kidnapping his Gurdaspur representative, Gurpreet Singh Palheri. (If Kurosawa could do it, so can we.)
This is where our fiery Kangana comes in — riding the daylights out of a horse... with her lawyer riding pillion. In a flashback sequence, we see she is Hema ji ’s estranged daughter who’s been busy exterminating India’s urban naxals wearing an Ermanno Scervino gown, a black Agent Provocateur garter, Dolce & Gabbana shoes, and no eyebrows.
The mother and daughter embrace tearfully. Kangana swears on Bharat Mata that she will find her bade bhai ’s... er... representative, and bring him back to Hema ji ’s dance-studio in time for the arangetram .
After a long battle, assisted by Arnab, a soft-spoken Bengali freedom-fighter, and Akki, a patriotic Canadian mango farmer, Kangana vanquishes the anti-nationals and returns with Sunny Paaji’s ... er... representative. Gurpreet has his arangetram watched by a charged NRI audience and Hema ji brandishes her broom in a victory sign.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a satirist. He has written four books and edited an anthology.
