Newton and the Mystery of the Moustache Twirl

You are surrounded on all sides by thugs, each equipped with the highly advanced weaponry characteristic of the typical Bollywood henchmen, ranging from hockey sticks to cycle chains. What would you do? Run for your life? Call the cops? That’s probably why you’re not one of India’s biggest stars. The answer is elementary… All you have to do is twirl your moustache (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIz5pDMgS8k). Now, why didn’t I think of that? No wonder people keep complaining that IITians are technically dumb.

Here are a few more eye-openers:

· http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1lahm1IgZo : It’s Captain, again. Why bother with bullet-proofs when you can frown.
· http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_to_3zAhBf0 : To think, there are people still worried about the energy crisis. Who needs petrol, when we have, ‘Jai channakesava!’
· Sunny Deol in Gadar: I couldn’t find this on youtube, so I’m hoping you’ve watched the movie beforehand. Sunny is driving a truck, and oops, he’s crashed into a car and there’s a huge explosion. No sweat, the car’s gone, but the truck’s safe. The petrol in the car’s gas tank must have fuelled it. Oh no, he has crashed again, and it’s a vegetable cart this time. Another explosion? Err…well, I guess why Mommy made such a fuss about veggies.

Absurd, gibberish, nonsense…. My initial reaction was somewhere in between shame and outrage. I spent the next few hours grumbling about Bollywood, Kollywood and every other ‘wood’ I had heard of. Questions like, what kind of an image would this create about our country in the minds of foreigners, kept irking me.

However, with further thought came a sense of clarity as well as pride. I finally realized that we probably had the best film industry in the world. Come to think of it- the primary purpose behind making movies is to entertain, and a 20 second 'Captain' video is as funny as an entire episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Newton would probably have hung himself had he ever watched any of these videos, a friend of mine comments. Well, probably, yes, but I doubt if he himself could have suppressed a grin.