Dial M for Mukerjea

No one really seems to care about Syrian refugees or servicemen's pensions or sedition laws or Sensex crashes or Sania's ‘Khel Ratna' or the slanging of the Jain community during Prayushan or the shuffling of top cops. OROP and OBC have twirled around in our consciousness briefly. But all this has disappeared under the weight of the two most pressing problems facing the nation just now. Matters of life and death. Okay, mostly death.

1.Was Sheena Bora, Indrani's daughter, sister, sister-in-law, Peter's son's girlfriend by his first wife or second wife? Or all of the above?

Illustration/Uday Mohite

2.How big was the infamous ‘suitcase' that it could fit an entire body?

I mean, the third question that was asked - ‘Who killed Sheena Bohra?' - was answered weeks before the actual evidence came in.

Every woman I know, said confidently, "Of course, she killed her own daughter!"

And when you asked, naively, "How can you be so sure?" you were told, "Trust me, I'm a woman, we know these things!"

Yup, a woman's instinct - solid unshakable proof.

On the other hand, every man I know, said, "Yaar, she's not that hot. What did all these men see in her? These Bengali chicks, are… you know."

The fact that she is Assamese, didn't seem to cut any ice.

Our desi Lady Macbeth had strangulated her ‘child'. Whether she spends the next 14 years in jail wearing a green saree playing volleyball, remains to be seen. What interests me, however, is that every B-grade writer, Bollywood badshah and Breaking News channel is creating content based on this most chilling of cases. Here are some that I know of:

Times Now is starting a division called Assam Now - it will be kicked off with a programme called Crime Story, a detective series where a male investigative journalist called ArGo and his female counterpart InMu solve crimes in various forests all over the country.

Ekta Kapoor and Balaji Telefilms are planning a serial called Kyunki Sheena Bhi Behen Thi.

The Bhatts are already shooting for Murder 4. Emraan Hashmi plays Sanjeev Khanna and Sunny Leone plays multi roles.

Twinkle Khanna is writing a sequel to Mrs Funnybones, titled, Bones.

Peter Mukerjea is back to TV head honcho-hood. He is reviving his channel 9X. It will be renamed 2Xhusbands.

Chetan Bhagat is writing a murder mystery called The Driver Did It. The movie rights are yet to be sold.

And finally, a new reality TV show opens this season. It is called BADA BRO. The location will be Arthur Road jail. The contestants will be Indrani Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan and Subrata Roy. Shiney Ahuja will be joining them.

Right, dear reader, I'm off, I need to leave to buy some meat. Today is the second day of the ban. Apparently, there is a shop that is selling good quality mutton in Mira Road. Or is it Bhayandar? I will let you know. In fact, I will let the nation know.

Rahul da Cunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahuldacunha62@gmail.com