Will They, Won't They?

Sania - Shoaib. The media is ODing on them. Their marriage is front page and “breaking” news every single day, as if there’s nothing report-worthy happening in the entire world. Bookies have ditched the IPL and are placing bets on their wedding - Rs 1.25 for every rupee if they get married, Rs 3.50 if they don’t.

The controversy has gone way beyond being absurd. It's hilarious now. I mean, who the hell ever gets married to a person he/she has never met and that too over the telephone??!! Are we living in pre-historic times? And how does marrying over the telephone work, exactly?

Then I read an article where Shoaib admitted that he went to Ayesha’s house a few times to meet her before their wedding but she was never there! Her family would make excuses for her - she had to go out of the country for some urgent work, she was having an emergency surgery yadi yada.

And he bought their stupid excuses!! Ha ha ha!!

You travel all the way to another country to meet your bride-to-be and she’s never there. Wouldn’t you be a tad bit suspicious? Just a tiny little bit, Mr Malik, not much? Didn’t a warning bell ring in your mind? Such a thing can happen once, not repeatedly. Even a dimwit will be able to see the warning signals.

Which brings me to my conclusion - Shoaib Malik is either seriously dumb or he was desperate to get married! Or both.

I think it is both. He has got to be really thick AND desperate to not have smelt something fishy in this bizarre case.

‘A’ put it beautifully. He said, “this guy is a ch***** of a different level”. It may sound crass but that’s the only word to describe Shoaib Malik. Who else will get married to a woman he hasn’t even seen, on the telephone!! I just can’t get over the hilarity of it.

I really don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong in this entire episode of telephonic shaadi (patent it Shoaib Malik before someone else beats you to it!). And now that Ayesha is claiming she also got pregnant with his child - did he even impregnate her over the telephone?? Brilliant…he should patent that as well.

If you ask me though, I think the guy could've been duped. But then, given how dumb he is/was, he totally asked for what's happening. And that's exactly what prevents me from sympathizing with him.

The question I can’t stop asking is – why is Sania Mirza getting married to this guy of all the people in the world? She is an educated, financially independent, career woman. She's a smart woman too, or at least she comes across as being one. Then why is she marrying such a stupid guy??

Maybe Shobhaa De has the answer. She thinks Sania has fallen for Shoaib’s “boyish good looks & rakish charm”.

Voila! If this is the case, I think their marriage will definitely happen on April 15th. Unless law gets in the way. Or the real Ayesha turns up! Sania Mirza is a woman in love after all, and a woman in love knows no reason, no matter how smart, practical and accomplished she is otherwise. The bookies will be better off betting on whether SRK will dance naked at the end of this IPL.

Inshallah.

The 4th Idiot

Really, I don’t have an opinion on the 3 Idiots controversy. I don’t care whether Chetan Bhagat gets his credit or his money. Therefore, I don’t have an opinion. The man is rich enough to be living in South Bombay; I don’t care if he earns a few more lacs.

But the controversy has me in splits - Chetan Bhagat’s statements & reactions to be specific. He claims he’s been grappling with the issue for 2 years but kept silent about it. Why? Pray tell. Was he waiting for Fairy Godmother to come and sort out his issues before the release of the movie?

His reasons for finally speaking up on the issue (when he must've realized he's no Cinderella & no Fairy Godmother is coming to his rescue!) are hilarious. It starts with his mom having cried because his name came so late in the rolling credits and scrolled by so fast that she missed it!!

Now, didn’t mom teach him not to trust strangers when he was little? Or was someone not paying attention growing up?

If he wanted credit upfront, he should’ve ensured that part was mentioned in the contract he signed - so the producers would be bound by law to give him credit as due, or bear the consequences. I honestly didn’t expect an IIT-IIM graduate who worked as an Investment Banker before he became a writer to be so daft.

It’s clear what Chetan Bhagat is really after are the film awards for Best Story, as he keeps repeating in every interview that Abhijat Joshi & Rajkumar Hirani will go around collecting all the awards while he’ll be forced to watch from the sidelines. And his getting upset over not getting the main credit for the story makes sense given that he’s made his intentions of turning into a screenplay writer quite clear.

And then came this - “They have an army of people to promote their side of the story, crores of media budgets and are sparing no efforts to bring me down. The only thing I have is my fans, and the truth. But then, the truth is Krishna, and the Pandavas had only that while there was an army on the other side. Remember who won that battle?”

Oh please! We don’t need a refresher course in Bhagavada Geeta 101! Leave that for the saas-bahu serials on TV!

And then came the clincher! Bhagat said that he’s a Krishna bhakt (devotee of Lord Krishna) and he’ll happily join ISKCON & dedicate his life to Krishna!!

Really? And who’ll pay the EMI/rent for the South Bombay apartment while he spends his life serving Lord Krishna? Poor wifey who continues to hold a corporate job so hubby dearest can realize his dreams of becoming an author, and cry like a cry baby when he feels he's duped when what he really should've been doing was to pay attention to the goddamn contract he was signing?

Sorry for getting personal Chetan, but I still haven’t forgiven you the 100 rupees that I spent on ‘One Night @ the Call Center”. (That book is right up there with Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's 'You Are Here' on my list of the The Shittiest Books Written Ever!!)

Once rumors that Vidhu Vinod Chopra & Co. are planning to sue Chetan Bhagat started doing the rounds, Chetan Bhagat promptly decided to “close” the controversy by saying that he & his fans want to move on, and they have. Would he have made such a big issue out of the whole thing if the movie had tanked like the one that was based on ‘One Night @ the Call Center’?

Honestly, I don't care who wins this battle of the credits but I wonder if Pritish Nandy hit the nail on the head when he Tweeted that given Aamir Khan’s penchant for unusual promotional strategies, it could be possible that the fight with Chetan Bhagat is aimed at pumping up sales of both Five Point Someone and 3 Idiots?

Now, that’s a thought. Five Point Someone IS flying off the shelves after all.