Recently watched a movie called Tere Bin Laden, which brings us to the topic of Bollywood. There are many jobs that people do in this world. Each requires a skill of some sort. Indefatigable fortitude goes with postman territory. Rain or shine, the mail never stops. A civil engineer has to display more than average propensity for complex problem solving. Good taxi drivers are blessed with stellar reflexes. And the list goes on. The only known exception to this rule is the Bollywood script writer.

The Indian movie industry is the largest in the world, based on number of movies released. Bollywood, which accounts for a lion’s share, has the distinction of making the most number of horror movies which don’t have ghosts in them. In a country with an abundance of culture, creative talent and money, it is hard to understand this depressing scarcity of quality cinema. The story of Bollywood has followed a script that seems eerily written by one of their own – devoid of plot elements and empty of memorable moments. Some one once said that if you gave typewriters to a thousand monkeys, it was only a matter of time before one of them came up with Hamlet. Well, more than a thousand have been at work in Mumbai for over fifty years, and so far, it’s just been much ado about nothing.

Seems like Bollywood goes “Didn’t ask for a good script. Asked for a script by Tuesday”. Scripts are not just tailored for actors. They  are also written by tailors.

Take a typical Bollywood script these days –

Boy goes to airport to pick up fiancee, who he last met when he was a toddler. Coincidentally, around the same time, girl escapes from mafia uncle by resorting to the proven technique of running on open roads in high heels to elude shiny 200 horsepower BMWs. Girl inexplicably lands up within earshot of boy, overhears conversation about long awaited fiancee, and decides that best course of action is to pretend to be the aforementioned fiancee. What better way to kill a few weeks on the run than to shack up with a complete stranger.

Boy is ecstatic that fiancee resembles Preity Zinta and not Om Puri, rushes home with girl in tow and a song on the lips. Girl learns about boy’s troubled childhood, his existential angst, PAN number and blood group – all via song, and falls madly in love. The next several weeks are spent dancing the flamenco on mountain tops and grassy knolls. Boy-girl swiss vacations, as a rule, are always interrupted by one untimely demise or another. This time, it is daadi-ma’s turn. Reluctantly, boy and girl foot it back. After brief hiatus, dancing makes a come back – this time, it’s salsa on the streets of maximum city in pouring rain.

Meanwhile, mafia uncle uses google maps on his Samsung phone to figure out girl’s coordinates, loads up AK47 and heads over pronto. Coincidentally, boy and girl get into tiff around the same time. The boy happily hands mother of his unborn child back to mafia chacha. At this juncture, mother of boy, hitherto presumed blind and dumb, suddenly starts spouting gospel truths on true love to her beloved son, exhorting him to rescue girl. Boy has change of heart in the time it takes to say “Ready”, but not before indulging in random drinking binge. Original fiancee  surfaces in item number during drinking binge before disapparating back into the void. Boy heads over to mafia uncle’s massive, walled estate, where local hoodlums, Caucasians, municipal corporators, Lalit Modi, shady UN officials, Shiv Sena and Al Qaeda have all gathered in the living room. A few scuffles and an obligatory bleeding lip later, boy rescues girl and they are back to dancing the cha-cha near waterfalls, lakes and other water bodies on remote islands. The End.

And, we wring our hands as to why we haven’t won an Oscar yet. Folks, we are going to need a lot more than a thousand monkeys to pull that off.

ps: Two thumbs up for Tere Bin Laden.