Learning to love Bollywood

I recently conducted a survey of the Hindi movie industry. The focus of the survey was to determine how the average Hindi movie of today differs from the Hindi movies of, well...yesterday. The rigorous and scientifically conducted survey consisted of locking myself in a room with a bag of tater chips and randomly watching some recent movies with names like Dil Maange More, Elan, Yeh Dil Kyoon Mange More, Oye Dil Saale Chup Kar Nahin To Teri Maa Ki..., etc. The following are the findings.

Where we were

The average Hindi movie from the 1970s went like this: Boy from a working class poor family meets rich spoilt bitch...er, Girl from privileged background. Boy breaks in Girl and makes Girl see the value of poverty. Girl decides to cock a snook at rich Dad (played by Om Shiv Puri) and get married to Boy. Dad, in an attempt to foul things up, sends 40 goons (400 if the boy happened to be Amitabh Bachchan; 4 if the boy was Rishi Kapoor) to beat up Boy. For some unspecified reason, this gang of mean looking dudes was always led by Prem Chopra, or, if the producer was on a budget, Ranjeet. In any event, Boy bravely fights off goons, using a combination of anatomically impossible fighting moves and a curious sound that appears to the untrained ear like dee-shoom.

In some movies, the police, who are obviously working on Paris standard time, and are mysteriously always led by Anita Raj's Dad, arrive late on the scene with the earnest intent of breaking up fight and rescuing Boy.

Girl's Dad, terribly impressed by Boy's musky machoness and disgusted with the overall quality of Hindi movie goons, sees the error of his ways and decides that marrying his daughter off to a person who is basically, not to put too fine a point on it, a slum dweller, may not be such a bad idea after all. The movie ends on a happy note with everybody, including Anita Raj's Dad, giving their blessings to the newlyweds.

What is the state of the art now?
I am happy to report that we've made rapid progress since the 1970s. The average Hindi movie of the new millenium now goes like this: Boy, possibly from having invested in technology stock, is now from well-off family. Girl is still spoilt rotten; this is now ok with the boy, he doesn't mind. Girl's Dad, for some puzzling reason, still doesn't like Boy. The goons are still around, their IQs hovering around the 50 point mark from having their faces punched to a mushy pulp by Hindi movie heroes since the 1970s.

Girl's Dad, in the misbegotten hope of fouling up the wedding, sends the (by now) half-wit goons after Boy. On his command, the goons lurch forward, this simple, hopeful thought forming inside their damaged brains, "Maybe this time, we'll beat him up." Boy, who has by now mastered a new Matrix-style flying move, massacres the hapless morons.

The police, figuring out that Boy is well able to take care of himself, and it is a waste of petrol trying to save him, don't bother to show up anymore. The movie ends on a happy note when Dad shells out mega-bucks to host a lavish wedding which costs as much as the combined GDP of several small African countries.

So you see, we have come far and the viewer now has a lot of choice. Personally, I plan on sticking to books.

Thus Spake the Pakistanis

I recently read on www.rediff.com that the visiting Pakistani cricket team has refused to play Test matches in Ahmedabad because of the communal riots there. I fully support their demand. They are quite right to refuse to play in Ahmedabad.

In the interest of fairness, however, I would like to propose that the Indian team take a similar stand and refuse to play at any city in Pakistan. The official reason forwarded for this should be worded along the following lines:

It is a matter of some concern to us to note that the Pakistani army was responsible, as recently as 1971, for the genocide of 3 million Bengalis, most of them minority Hindus, in the erstwhile state of East Pakistan, which is now known as Bangladesh. This genocide, that was singled out by several human rights organizations as one of the worst genocides of the century, even ahead of Rwanda and Bosnia, alarms us greatly.

We are also saddened to note that the Hindu minority population in Pakistan has seen steady decline since 1947, when British India was partitioned into the independent states of India and Pakistan. Your country, which had a robust minority of Hindus--twenty seven percent of the population--as recently as 1950, now has a combined minority population--Hindus, Christians and Buddhists--of one percent. We are hard pressed to find a natural demographic cause for this decline, and strongly suspect that said decline is an indicator of state backed ethnic cleansing.

In light of the above disturbing facts, we regretfully inform you that we are unable to play further cricket matches in your country until an unspecified future date.

But of course we won't do this. The "We" in this case being the Indian Government, which in turn consists of politicians that we the people have elected.

I think we should approach this from the perspective of a Prisoner's Dilemma game, on game theoretic principles. In the Prisoner's Dilemma game, any attempt at altruism has an even chance of producing the least desirable outcome for at least one player. Sport between nations often becomes a foreign policy tool (most every cricket team boycotted South Africa during the apartheid era), and foreign policy can be seen as a series of moves in an extended, and repeated, Prisoner's Dilemma game. The coy refusal of Pakistan to play in Ahmedabad is a move in this extended Prisoner's Dilemma game. In an extended Prisoner's Dilemma, the most stable strategy is to mimic the opposing player's previous move. In short, tit-for-tat is the way to go. Cooperation is met with cooperation; betrayal with betrayal.

That is why I strongly recommend that India respond in kind to Pakistan's refusal to play in Ahmedabad.