Baddie boys

Illustration/Uday Mohite

The Indian men's badminton team pulled off the biggest coup in our sports history, winning the Thomas Cup.

The Hindi film industry obviously could not contain themselves.

Kabir Khan, jumped up, "I want to make a sequel to 83 called 2022 with Ranveer Singh in the lead, it is fitting, as his pop-in law is Prakash Padukone"

"Oye Kabirbhai, I think you should cast Jeetendra, it will be appropriate as he introduced badminton to India via his film, ‘Humjoli'," said Rohit Shetty, eyes twinkling.

Karan Johar gushed, "I'd like to conceive a film through the eyes of Pullela Gopichand and call it ‘Coach Coach Hota Hai'"

"I'm envisioning an OTT series called ‘Racket Boys'…", a younger earnest director said.

"Yaar chotu, this is Indian Badminton not Indian Nuclear Science..", an ex-FTII director growled.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali, suggested, "I was thinking of setting the film in Kamathipura… I can dress up the badminton court with flowers…"

Zoya Akhtar interrupted him, "Look, we got to reach the millennials, me and Reema Katgi are writing a movie called ‘Zindagi na milegi Archie'! In this, PV Sindhu plays Veronica, Sania Nehwal is Betty…"

While the arguments raged on in Bollywood, in a cafe in Hyderabad, Rajinikanth and SS Rajamouli were quietly sipping their filter kaapi, shaking their heads.

"Tell you, Rajamouli, these Bombaywallas, have no clue, I say!" exclaimed Rajinikanth.

"Yes, they are regressive in their ideas, retrograde in their craft, and rudimentary in their equipment," elaborated the director of RRR.

The South Cinema Association head called his counterpart in Mumbai and said, "We producers of South cinema have overtaken you, Mumbai, in content, cinematography, casting, computer graphics, costumes…plus you keep making terrible remakes of our originals."

"So what's your point?" asked the head of the Mumbai Producers.

"We have many film industries, Tollywood [Telugu], Kollywood [Tamil], Sandalwood [Kannada] and Mollywood [Malayalam] - we have four languages while you only
have Hindi."

"So what's your point?" asked the head of the Mumbai Producers.

"We are entitled, before you, to make one, maybe two magnum opuses, since all the players in the winning team are from South India. Srikanth Kidambi is from Andhra Pradesh, HS Prannoy hails from Kerala, our doubles pair, Chirag Shetty is from Karnataka and Satwiksairaj is also Telugu…"

While this Mumbai vs South battle continued, the content head of Pixar Animation Studios, California called: "Hello whoever you are, at Pixar we're creating a computer-animated, action adventure, it is a film franchise, the first part of which is titled, ‘Kidambi and the Legend of Ten Shuttle-cocks'.Here's the synopsis - an evil Indonesian dictator, Liem Swi King (voiced by Johnny Depp) and his Danish queen, Camila Axelsen (voice of Amber Heard) rule the Kingdom of S.M.A.S.H. They are furious with India, for having been beaten at their own game. They create a total of ten animated, man-controlled poisonous shuttle cocks which are catapulted into the air, intended to create havoc as they explode over ten major Indian cities.

To defend his nation, a young interstellar badminton player called Kidambi is chosen to intercept these poisonous projectiles. He selects his team, each member has a specific super-power. First is a character called ‘JumpJumpJumpYay' who can leap 20,000 feet into the air unaided. Then there's Jayeshbhai Thor-daar, who has a secret weapon, a golden racket shaped hammer..."

Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting all proceedings.

Everyone went silent, as an elderly American twang, rasped out at them - "Howdie all… I'm giving you all a heads up. I have started shooting a small independent film, a simple sports drama about an under-appreciated coach who trains an unfancied badminton player to great success. My movie is titled ‘Million Dollar Baddie'."

"Sir, who is this? Your voice sounds familiar, but do you have any experience in movie making?" the head of Pixar asked.

"Ok Sultans of Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood, Mollywood and Hollywood… This is Eastwood… Clint Eastwood… come make my day."

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com