Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas

a.k.a. The One in Which Isabgol is a Silent Sponsor

***

Yes, yes, it’s all my fault. A violent downpour and rush hour traffic delayed our cello concert plans and we ended up at Inox with an evening ahead of us. Our choices were New York and Kambakkht (that’s all it deserves to be called, nothing remotely lovable about it) and voicing my concerns at already having lived through 9/11 America, I whined my way into getting tickets for the latter. (It also helped that the Boy had forgotten his wallet at home, so I maturely used the opportunity to wave my meagre money in his face.)

Now there’s garish, no-excuses, Jeetendra-Sridevi-and-pots-on-the-beach ‘80s Hindi cinema and then there’s Kambakkht Ishq. A script, as the Boy mentioned, scribbled on a shred of toilet paper, gyrating numbers that blasted out of seemingly nowhere, an absence of Govinda to justify the mindlessness, squirm-inducing attempts at slapstick, ugly as sin non-actors, wince-worthy sidekicks and the whoring of two wrinkly, past-their-prime Hollywood stars made this flick that passed off Cannes as Los Angeles the Convention of Extreme Designer Exhibitionism and nothing more.

Not even the usually watchable Kirron Kher, completely wasted in this celluloid tsunami, could save it from stinking like rotten eggs. Akshay Kumar hammed through the torturous two hours and thirty seven minutes like a beast on a leash, something I’d throw a couple doggy biscuits at before getting safely out of the way. That the Kapoor girl left a watch inside his belly and not one of her fake lashes or acrylic nails is a minor miracle in itself. (The major one, of course, being that she lives to make another movie.) Kahkashan Whatsherface Patel’s saving grace was that she sports a nose more bulbous than mine, and somebody rescue Javed Jaffrey from himself, please. Repeated exposure to his schizophrenic behavior makes us gloss over the fact that this man needs help. Really and truly. I don’t have degrees in Psychology for nothing.  [An aside: I have a theory that someone made off with the original script, where all the characters were to be herded into a hospital room and gassed into lifelong coma. Now that would be off-the-charts reality filmmaking with a happy ending.]

Watching through fingers fanned across a mortified face, pinned against my seat by roaring sound waves, bleating apologies every third minute to the grim, angry man to my left, and almost making history as the first woman to be divorced before she was married did not make for fun viewing. I want my money and Thursday evening back. And told-you-sayers can just take a long hike. In those 8-foot heels ripped off the matchstick draped in Dior. Now cross your fingers that the Boy doesn’t read this post. The tiniest of reminders may just hurtle me toward history.