The devil in Bollywood

“Sauce for the goose
Costs a dollar or three -
Bismillah Hotel
Ki daal hein free!”
From Charrasology’s Chimes by Bachchoo

(Being the most innovative medium in the subcontinent, this newspaper has allowed Mr Dhondy to interview himself regarding his latest mission in India)
FD: So why are you in India?
fd: Well, FD, there has been a great deal of controversy in the international press about the announcement by a first time Bollywood director that he is making a film on the love life of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. The announcement has stirred the UK newspapers to pour scorn on this enterprise which they say is in bad taste. I have, on the contrary, seized the time, as the Black Panthers used to say, and am now in India looking for gullible producers who will buy my latest film script which is all about the love life of Satan.
FD: I’m sorry, I thought you said...
fd: Arrey yar Satan. Brand name from the Bible. Or Muslim “Shaitan”, the Zoroastrian Ahreman or his avatars, the ugly little fat devils we see squirming under the feet of Lord Shiva or Vishnu.
FD: Achchaa. Lekin, he is not very popular.
fd: Yeah, but brand recognition is there! Bound to be superhit. I know from my childhood that he was the source of all evil and of every act of deception, destruction and motivated temptation since God created the world. But no one is all bad. There are two sides to every genocide. We must understand Satan’s motivations, plans, problems and fears. I call it tension and intention. After all he was a great leader responsible for making trains run on time, building roads on which the oncoming traffic was separated from the ongoing by a barrier and for building a cheap car which the general public could afford.
FD: Surely, these things have been done by other people. There was once a railway minister in India called Lalu who made the trains run nearly on time. Then our numerous public works departments which, give or take a bit of adulterated concrete and the nuisance of dug up roads — (India Ek Khod?) — have built just such divided roads and there is even someone, with the help and encouragement of a chief minister, manufacturing a common man’s motor car.
fd: Tell me more! For an appropriate inducement, I can write Bollywood films praising all these people — after I’ve finished with Satan.
FD: You are writing from Satan’s point of view. Surely a fellow called Milton has done this in Paradise Lost? Are you doing a Bollywood by copying Hollywood?
fd: Oi, don’t be cheeky. As far as I know, and we can check this on the Internet if you want to bet, Milton never worked for Hollywood. Truthfully, I have looked at Paradise Lost, but it’s quite not-happening yaar. No songs, dances, nothing. And too long. I also did deep research into Goethe’s Faust and a film called The Devil Wears Prada, to get an idea of design, but I haven’t stolen ideas. My film concentrates on Satan’s love life in his last few days.
FD: Last few days? Satan is not dead.
fd: I think you are mixing up characters. It’s Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson who are not dead. Satan is as dead as that fellow Dodo. Suicide. Him and his woman, when he realised that he was losing and humans were turning away from evil.
FD: What?? I thought you said you were using India as the setting.
fd: Aap ka matlab? Of course, where else? There will be some tax-break scenes in Australia and Switzerland because the Dubai investors like the snow.
FD: Cashting ho gayi?
fd: Babu, mein hoon writer. You must ask our first-time director, my son Mussollini Goebells Dhondy. Lekin, since you asked, I can tell you that Satan is played by a very accomplished Bollywood actor and his girlfriend is played by a Bollywood actress who has more beauty than bra... and quality.
FD: Why these stars?
fd: Very simple. The actor is the only one who readily agreed to grow horns for the role. If these don’t grow naturally through a process of indulgence in shameful and pagan rites, some German doctors have been approached to equip him through transplants. As for the actress, she is very, very sensitive and intelligent and a great researcher into the history of evil and that’s exactly the kind of woman that Satan would have chosen to marry.
FD: The people of all religions have condemned your attempt to put Satan on the silver screen. There has been a hue and cry in the Vatican, in Canterbury, in Saudi Arabia, in the caves of Tora Bora, in Parsi Colony in Mumbai, in the Confucian Aryanic Zenophone Bhagwartsandall Ashram (CAZBA) of San Diego and in the headquarters of British Petroleum. Aren’t you afraid that someone will attack you?
fd: No.
FD: Is there any truth in the fact that...
fd: A fact is by definition a truth.
FD: What I meant was, is, was... is it true that you are just trying to get your name in the papers by announcing this sort of witless nonsense and that you have no intention of making and marketing such a film but are simply trying through the negative publicity you are bound to get to boost the share price of your failing film company?
fd: Speak to me through my attorneys!
FD: And finally, we all know that the world is moving towards integrated casting, but just as it would be the laughing stock of the world for a German actor to play Lalu Prasad Yadav, say, or for Indians to try and play Adolf Hitler or Eva Braun, wouldn’t it be absurd for an Indian to play Satan? I mean Satan wasn’t Indian was he... was he?... I read on a blog... what I mean to say is Satan is evil, corrupt, egotistic, bureaucratic, greedy, tells lies, has no consideration for the next human being, brings discord and confusion, suffers from really bad taste etc. etc... I suppose...
fd: In the words of my distant cousin Feredoon Brooklynbagelwala: “Go figure!”