Monday, September 19, 2005

Entertainment Taxed

Ok, it is official.

I saw my first Hindi movie (Sholay) in five years. (Amongst my friends, who have fainted after hearing this news, please read this blog after you recover from the faint. I am not gonna sprinkle expensive mineral water on you)

And for those of you who made those jokes on a certain person going to watch a Hindi movie, I have only one thing to say.

“Saale, Kuthe!!! Mein thera khoon pee jaonga !!!”

Disclaimer: Being a South Indian I don’t know the meaning of the above words, but Dharmendra looked suitably incensed while mouthing these words in ‘Sholay’. All disputes arising out of my usage of Hindi learned from Hindi movies will be heard in a Bangalore/Chennai/Hyderabad/ Kochi High Courts in chaste Kannada/Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam only.

And those of you, who would like to cut and paste the “Disclaimer” please go ahead. I have a hidden Cut and Paste Counter installed in this blog, which tells me that it has already been cut and pasted around 40 million times. Now that’s the approximate population of South India. What a coincidence I say!

'Sholay' is a thoroughly entertaining flick. I didn’t understand a word of the Hindi dialogues. However knowledge of Hindi is unnecessary as action speaks louder than words in most of the scenes.

The story of ‘Sholay’ is very simple. Two guys who are apparently very good friends leave for Bangalore, in search of a suitable IT job. However due to the vagaries of fate they miss ITPL (International Tech Park Ltd.) by almost 100 kilometers and land up at Ramnagaram (Sholay was almost entirely shot in Ramnagaram on the outskirts of Bangalore). Like most freshers they ride an old motorcycle and love eve teasing village belles (I know I am gonna get lynched for this). And like most newcomers to Bangalore, they too search for shared accommodation in this sleepy village. And like most homeowners in Bangalore, the villagers too greet the young men with glee by converting their homes into hostels with bed and board. For the hospitality shown to them they promise to Wi Fi the village soon. In fact one of them even climbs the village water tank , to survey the area to be Wi Fi’ed but is too drunk because it is Friday night. He finally realizes that the village has no electricity and climbs down.

Hema Malini is the love interest of one of the young men. However she shows scant interest in him. She is fed up of the constant harassment by the Income Tax Department to cough up more of her hard earned money for non-existent roads. She is apparently a Consultant in this film who declares her professions as a ‘Horse Carriage’ owner, which the Income Tax people can’t quite believe. This makes her the target of frequent Income tax chases on the non existent roads by horse borne IT officials. Once they even catch her and use Third Degree like making her dance on glass shards to reveal her exact income. However the gutsy gal refuses to be cowed by such dirty tactics by making a song and dance of the whole situation. Bravo!!!!

The Income Tax Collector for Ramnagaram Mr. Gabbar Singh is a frustrated individual. The villages under his jurisdiction are poor and he hardly makes any money from the poverty stricken villagers. Which is why he doesn’t shave and lives in a cave. He is however duty bound to collect taxes and therefore leaves on his horse (remember he is poor) with his officers (also poorly clad and unshaven) to raid the villages under his jurisdiction. He even shoots his officers who fail to collect arrears. His dedication to duty is commendable.

Into this scenario appears a handicapped man ‘Thakur’ with a daughter who wears only white sarees to fool the IT department into thinking she is poor. Now the Thakur had to give an arm and a leg er.... I mean both his arms to pay his Tax dues. Since then he has been unsuccessfully been applying for the ad hoc deduction of Rs. 40,000 under Section 80U given to the Physically Handicapped without success from the overworked, underpaid IT office of Mr. Gabbar Singh. He sort of takes a vow to fight for his Income Tax rebates and goads our two young men to join him in his fight. The young men, who have just got their first salaries, take one look at their IT deductions and readily agree.

The mammoth war between the salaried guys the handicapped guy and the Income Tax department is the climax of the film. In the end the IT department is sizably reduced thereby considerably reducing their salary expenditure for the Govt. who promptly declare on TV news that there will be more Tax breaks on the common people in the next budget. The people have a hearty laugh providing the much-needed comic relief in this out and out action thriller.

Like all epic battles there are some casualties in this fight too, and one of the salaried guys succumbs to his Taxes er....I mean injuries. The handicapped man is vindicated and the remaining salaried guy and the consultant then leave town in Ramnagaram Express to Chennai, now the hottest IT destination in India. (it gets hotter in summer I heard)

(This post was written after I had buried, as is the practice in the beginning of every month the mortal remains of my butchered Salary Slip in the nearest waste basket)

61 comments:

Adarsh A. Varghese said...

Good one! You have a way of putting things in a way that makes people laugh out loud!

Anonymous said...

Been reading your blogs for a while. Excellent grasp of the language....Will be back for more of it...

Praveen said...

Hilarious as usual :). By the way there is a new Sholay on the way and Mohan lal is supposed to act in that

Matter of Choice said...

hmmmm.. i know ppl in the IT dept, and right now they are preparing to kidnap and torture the gal who dares to portray them as the villains..

so lace up ur boots gal..u r soon gonna need it!. all i can say is "Anjali, En Kutton ke samne maat nachna" :))

oh yeah if your legs need to be amputated, dont worry, central govt is planning to increase Sec 80U deduction to 1 lakh!

cheers
MoC

Riot said...

I am surprised you missed THE famous line ..."Yeh salary slip mujhe de de Thakur" :)

Anonymous said...

lol..really really funny. but hey, i'm south indian. i can get the humour in the situation, which is more than what i can say for any northie whos gonna be reading this. prayin for u....chips :-))

Sinfully Pinstripe said...

Way to go! Funny is your middle name!

silverine said...

@adarsh: Thank you !!
@meesamadhavan:Thanks for dropping by ! You are welcome anytime :)
@Praveen: Mohanlal will be Gabbar Singh I hope LOL
@matterofchoice: I think I will start learning Bharatnatyam then. Though friends advice 'cabaret'! Wonder why? :))
@onemorereason:This is a third party account. But your line "Yeh salary slip mujhe de de Thakur" is a classic like MoC's "Anjali, En Kutton ke samne math nachna". Way to go guys :))
@Chips: Please read disclaimer again lol :))
@sinfullypinstripe: Gracias :)

scorpigle said...

hilarious as usual..

Vinod/Kakka said...

Writing code is a waste of your time.

Jiby said...

that wuz just awesome...i feel ur pain, seeing my butchered paycheck has always hurt...but this time it will make me laugh thinking abt ur post!!! RGV shud stop scratching his head any further for a modern version of Sholay and just adapt this one!

silverine said...

@scorpigle: Thanks :)
@puthiyaviplavam:I am not a techie. and thanks, if that was a compliment.
@Jiby:Thank you!!! Paycheck deductions are a pain and sometimes I wonder why I am working at all. You should see the state of Bangalore :(

Sujith said...

"Hello, the Income Tax Dept. of India?"

"We gotta small problem here"

"No no.. nothing so gr8! No scandals or anything"

"No not even that.. no one is saying that she wudnt pay taxes or file the IT returns"

"Well there is a cynical creature in the blog world who is trying to mud-sling u guys"

"No dont arrest her.. leave her for the time being.. may be u can give her a small punishment by increasing her Income tax to say a meagre 90%"

"No 99% wud be too much. 90% seems fine.."

"Ok then bye"

Sujith said...

"Hello, the I-Tax dept? I called sometime back"

"Actually i wanted to keep the anonymity. Please dont reveal my name anywhere"

"Cool! thnx then.. have a nice time raiding around.."

Paresh Palicha said...

Why did you skip the Suicide-on-the-Water-Tank Scene? It would've added more punch to your comic interpretation of the classic.

Encouraged?? Start scouting for a producer for your version of Sholay. I'll happily help you with Hindi dialogues

Dr. Pissed said...

Good lord, you are talented dude!
You never stop to amuse me..
Thanks for all the laughs..

Btw, I thought you were buying tickets. What the..

kickassso said...

Classic silverine! Keep em coming I say!

-Poison- said...

chiripichu kollunathinu njan case kodukkum...Trivandrum High Court mathi.. :D

Geo said...

Namichu*!!!!

*This is a CET slang, which is used in situations when you run out of words to express your reverence.

Domesticated Bachelor said...

absolutely hilarious!!!! Loved it. cant imagine Mohan lal in sanjeev kumar's role. Gabbar Singh is Amitabh Bachan.

Sonia said...

lol! you're grasp of the situation is phenomenal! you don't even need to learn hindi!;o)

Sreekesh Menon said...

didnt really enjoy it as much, but good use of the sholay script.

Unknown said...

one more poor bangalore soul!!

Arun R said...

Very creative and imaginative.... keep it up!!!

nestpa said...

"He wasn't making any money...
that's why he dint shave,
and lived in a cave."

I'm telling you, I'll be the first one to buy any book you write! I think you should write one!

monu said...

:) good one as usual

esvee said...

Hi,
That was a nice one...had a good laugh!

take care

Jagan said...

ROTFLMAO ... Ram gopal varma is remaking sholay ..may be he can learn a lesson or two from you :-)

Anonymous said...

hillarious as ever. publish a joke book. it will be a huge success, specially with people who will kick the tax guys

Parna

~*. D E E P A .* ~ said...

u've been tagged .........

short story in 55 words ....

Safari Al said...

awesome...so you are from bangalore????

i have seen sholay four times but have never managed to see the climax. so technically i dont know what happens to gabbar....

"pachas pachas meel door gaon mein jab bachcha rota hai...to ma kahthi hai..."

awakeningcoma said...

hi Silverine, my first blogroll,
A nice blog,hilarious,if gabbar being the project manager and jai and veeru being s/w engg then it would hav been a cut above.good remake.tamil heroes are witin 4 a remake storywriter like u.adios!

silverine said...

@jithu: et tu brutus ? :)) ( btw good one)
@I didnt, Dharam did climb up to survey the area to be Wi Fi'ed. And thanks for the offer. Will definitely contact you :)
@Alexis:If you turn off the audio of a Indian movie you will have lots of fun coming up with your own dialogues. In fact me and my friends do it all the time. Try it as a party game. The results will be hilarious!!! :))
@drpissed: So howz the new lady? ;)Took her for a spin? Thanks for the compliments. Drive safely!
@kickasso: Thanks :)
@poison:That's a nice compliment :))
@Geo: Thats the ultimate compliment :)
@Joker: Yeah, Mohan Lal should be Gabbar Singh actually LOL
@Sonia: Most of these films should be redubbed with totally new whacky dialogues and released as comedies :))

silverine said...

@sreekesh and nagu: Yeah me a poor Bangalore soul and the script was a dig at Bangalore infrastructure for which we keep paying :(
@monu@ arun: thank you!
@Neil and Parna:I guess I will write for my blog pals like you for now :))
@connectany:I had fun poking fun too hehe
@Jagan: Thanks and let me know f RGV is interested! :)
@ammo: Thank you for dropping by!
@Safari Al: Please dont blog so well about the pleasures of smoking. Glad u dropped by.

Dr. Pissed said...

She feels nice!!
But she makes a lot of noise when i ride her.. which is a good thing.

Geo said...

>>@Safari Al: Please dont blog so well about the pleasures of smoking.

For a moment I thot this was your response to the following line of his comment.

>>>>"pachas pachas meel door gaon mein jab bachcha rota hai...to ma kahthi hai..."

Sorry for the misunderstanding. :_) Actually it was ur disclaimer that forced me :_D

Anonymous said...

you seem to be working on your storytelling skills. results are already showing. :)

good going. nice piece.

-a wolf

(i see that you have burned a bridge.
:) you have made changes to your profile. feeling safe now?)

Safari Al said...

@Safari Al: Please dont blog so well about the pleasures of smoking. Glad u dropped by.

It wasn't a pleasure thingee that post, but more of a kind of...well...something else...let's just say a sequel to another post.

and yes i am glad that i dropped by. i really like this blog.

Anonymous said...

@anonymous: Why don't you just leave a name like a man, ie if you are one.

@Silverine: Saber rattling was never your style and I am glad to see such swift justice to your pet peeve. This was really funny.

JK

Anonymous said...

hopefully IT gabbar won't chop off my hands also and I will be left as some handless thakur and needing help to do all my dirty dirty jobs...:(...
and hilarious post...btw u had ids like revlonlipstick:)
--sush
http://xanga.com/susha0df
PS: i am not the old anonymous in ur blog...i saw the fuming accusations and imagined the flying saucers

silverine said...

@Sush:Thanks for dropping by.Yes, I had some very 'original' id's back then. And by dirty jobs..do you mean Tax evasion? LOL :))

Anonymous said...

ooh. challenging manliness and all that eh... i wont fall for that... not too hormone prone lately. ;)

i am sorry for not leaving my name, i know it is not a nice thing to do.

i thought you would use a bit of your brains to pick out the wolf story. nevamind you dont have the time.

of course next time i shall leave my name.

sorry once more.

inspire.
wolverine aka wolf

silverine said...

@wolverine: So its you!!!! I logged in see your first comment followed by my friend JK's comment. Guessed as much it's you but your last sentence threw me off track. Thanks for dropping by wolverine :))

Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay said...

hmm ! thnx for commenting !

Anonymous said...

"Are Sala kuthe kamine mera bare mein aisa bolne ki himmath tujhe kahan se mili. Khabardar tere lash bhi koi bhi nahin dekhunga."

Would this do for a dailogue with a punch. You know you are quite good at it. I think I now will make you my dialogue Consultant. :>

Anonymous said...

"Kitne Salary Slips the?"
" Quite many Sarkar"
"Aur Tax ke Sections kitne hai?
"Well, sarkar, Section 80c, 88E, 80a teen chaar hogaa sarkar"
"Shadddupp! Bahut Naa insaafi hai"

Gabbar was getting fed up.......

Already Veeru was producing fake conveyence vouchers signed by Basanti with suspicious looking amounts on it. Jai had heard of some deduction for those remarrying white sareed widows and hence started line-marofying the Thakur's daughter. Basanti was claiming LTA in her own name and in Dhanno's name once in 2 years(and the horsecart didnot even have 3rd party insurance)

And,to worsen the situation; Thakur claimed to have "no hand" in the entire affair. All the while he claimed that he had hired the 2 IT guys as his hands ; and hence that he doesnt qualify as an employer with 2 or more "employees". It would have of course brought him under the purview of Section 80a.Moreover mentioned that he was just giving them hand-outs and a hands-on experience in man-handling handicrafts.

Gabbar decided that he did not have a choice and cracked down on 'em all

He didnt however know that Veeru outthought him. and like Capone himself ; nailed Gabbar with a tax evasion charge........

The die was cast.Veeru made Basanti dance for Gabbar....(yeah it was all part of a plan)and Gabbar fell into the trap hook line n sinker ....

Next tax season his chamchas found him dead clutching his own salary slip.It had a HUGE amount against the field- Entertainement Tax !!!!

Cheers
flaash
(Hilarious post from u Silverine!!!U just cooly redefined such a famous classic. Amazing creativity)

Ar Ar Ar Arrrrr said...

ROTFLMAO :)

That too on empty stomach...

No I just skippped ma lunch not from the fears of any tax collector though ;)

Hahaha...

Actually I was planning to write a blogger version of sholay few last week, but this was awesome!!

Being a South Indian, and not able to understand hindi that well, think you made a good judgement of all the characters and there profession.

:)

Safari Al said...

this comment section is almost like a chatroom. pretty cool...

one of my fave places to read...good work silverine..keep posting

Unknown said...

The best comedy blog in this world. Thakur pays Fringe Benefit Tax for Veeru and Jai (daaru, conveyance, and showing a low basic salary on the slip).

Anonymous said...

wdHi silverine.. Thanks for dropping by my cookblog.. Have you trie out the recipe yet and hey you do write very interesting.
R u in bangalore?

Anonymous said...

its not easy to manipulate a classic and make another classic.but u ve done it.

a very contemporary sholay. u re a step closer to bollywood.

kudos miss sippy.

aravind said...

Wow. Thats really something. I cleaned the floor while ROFL.

Do try to publish ebooks. Really with this kinda talent you should try to do that.
Care to make something outta Dhoom. You know that story is kinda mouldable in this cast.

No One Absolutely none except DNA and PG Wodehouse beats you at this. Ofcourse your is situational.

Anonymous said...

“Saale, Kuthe!!! Mein thera khoon pee jaonga !!!”

lol that was quite a statement! Wonder how it might hear if u say this ;)...hilarious flick dude!!

L_D

Anonymous said...

Slightly O.T but, Sholay was the biggest piece of junk I have ever seen... I cannot comprehend why there is so much hysteria surrounding that movie.... Amjad Khan was outstanding, the rest of the lot could have been replaced by baboons and I wouldn't be the wiser.

Naresh Krishnan said...

I used to have the ignominy of being often introduced as the 'guy-who-hasn't-watched-sholay'. Yet. Nowadays,I just nod along with the punch lines & gags.

Maybe you could write a blog on what prompted you to slay the demon.
From what preceded, should be a blockbuster, tax-free prequel.

പാപ്പാന്‍‌/mahout said...

Really, really good! Enjoyed it. May we infer that you have a rather large ax to grind with the Tax Dept? :)

(FWIW, I haven't watched Sholay in its entirety so far. The song sequences, yes. I know the story line well. But each time I bring myself about to rent the movie, I think about its sheer length and drop the plan.)

Mr. J said...

This post made a really good read. You got some sense of imagination. What movie can I get to read next?

Scoot said...

And I am the geek who has not watched "Sholay" till now but have seen every other hindi movie inspired by it.

Kusum Rohra said...

oh mi God you r berry berry creative precious...they threw me outta office as i just wont stop laughing :) hve sneaked in to comment... c what people do for u :)
Am linking this on my loony mela :)

silverine said...

@Maya: Watch it, it's a nice movie.
@Kusum: Thanks girl :))

scorpiogenius said...

Whew...

Watchout for the bollywood celluloid space. You might just have given a 'virgin' idea to some nomadic srciptwriter (one who roams throughout the world video records in search of storylines)

Good one again! :)