Mask and you shall receive

Kick

The other night Zorro, Phantom, the Lone Ranger and I went to PVR (Juhu) to watch Sallubhai's new blockbuster KICK. An evening of ‘naach gaana' and ‘maara-maari' eating nachos in red trays.

"Man that was great fun," the three fictional masked characters gushed politely as we walked out post the movie, to get some Baskin Robbins.

"We got to see our first flesh and blood Bollywood masked hero," the Lone Ranger said.

"I'm envious," Zorro said, untethering his horse in the underground parking, "All these years, I've been forced to wear a black hat, black shirt, black pants, a black cloak, plus a mask to be unrecognisable. Your Bhai just puts on a half mask and Jacqueline Fernandez can't recognise him, even with his shirt off."

The Phantom was even more pissed off as he refused a mint chocolate ice-cream - "Hey, Zorro, dude, at least your creators dressed you in black, a nice, slimming colour. My creator Lee Falk put me in this figure-hugging, light purple outfit. It's such an effeminate colour. And if I binge on junk food even for one weekend, my love handles burst out."

As the three masked macho men began arguing about their respective weight problems, I interjected, "Guys stay with the topic, what did you think of the film?"

"Well," started The Lone Ranger, "I have never heard the word ‘kick' used so much in one movie. "Mere life mein kick nahin hai", "I will kick you", "I need a new kick", "Here's how I get my kicks" - couldn't the screenwriter think of some other dialogue?"

Zorro was more forthright: "To me, Bhai was being Bhai, being human and being macho. No attempt at acting. Your actors are more cardboard cut-outs than us cartoon characters." Phantom added, "And what's with this Indian hero habit of screen ‘pataoing' girls young enough to be their daughter. You don't see Brad Pitt serenading Selena Gomez around the Swiss Alps."

"That's only because Angelina Jolie would tear his eyes out," the Lone Ranger reasoned. "You're just jealous, O Ghost Who Walks because you can't get young girls, like Sallu and SRK," Zorro added.

The three men were about to get into a comic book fight in the Baskin Robbins outlet. "Guys can we lower the machismo and stay with discussing the movie. Aren't you impressed that our Hindi films are now shot in locations such as Poland? No recreations of Kashmir in Goregaon Film City type of thing. We now create Switzerland in Switzerland."

"Yes," said the Lone Ranger wryly. "It was particularly impressive that the director has such an eagle eye for detail. Especially when Salman Khan was driving through the streets of Warsaw, in a red London bus, with the London Transport logo on the side panel. And a destination sign that read ‘King's Cross'.

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

The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.