For the sake of that weird wordstat thing that pops up on the side here.

Here is Rang De Chicken Biryani - The Spoof on Rang De Basanti. Arguably, when I look back, my best attempt at writing.

Long ago, I had promised a sequel to Guga and the Five Talking Leopards, so here it is. Though it exactly isnt a sequel, in the sense that Guga is a mere sidekick in the story.

Now that the hype and hoopla around Rang de Basanti has died down, and the movie has been declared a super hit, and carries a message, to inspire the youth to do ’something’.

Well, that something for me translates into awakening the creative part of my brain, and my good friend Rupin’s too.

As usual, keep your brains aside before reading on..

So, without further delay, I present, with considerable help from Rupin, my very own spoof on Rang De Basanti, Rang De Chicken Biryani - a Story from the Heart of ‘GRASS’land ( Read RAIT).

This story is as told by Maggie Simpson, a student from the University of Tripura, who came to Mumbai to shoot a documentary on the sufferings of students of Mumbai university. She reached Kanjur Marg station, where she was picked up by Anita, who she had met during a late night chat in a Yahoo chatroom (Ahem!), who had told her about the heaven RAIT was. She had decided to zero in on a good professional college, where students have fun, inspite of the shortcomings of Mumbai Univ . Her quests led her to RAIT, which she had heard was the place to be, if you wanted to have fun, and eventually end up with a B.E. degree (Abeer, listening?)

It was the year 2003, and those were the days the students of D div in the 2004 BE batch of RAIT were having the time of their lives. Carefree, jovial and not giving a damn to what the world thought about them. Maggie and Anita trudged into RAIT and Maggie was awe-struck by what she saw. Booze everywhere, Cigarettes everywhere, and ‘Na Koi Padhne wala, Na koi Seekhne wala, Apni to Paathshaala, Masti ki paathshaala’ blaring from every device that was capable of musical output. Anita introduced Maggie to Dj(Rupin - he gets to choose, he did the plot for the story), who was an integral of a pack of good for nothing guys, comprsing of Sukhi (Vishal - of pee on Cylinder fame), Karan (Harish Nakhman - no! no!, he does not kill his father here), Cyrus - the Radio guy in the original movie (Nevil- sorry dude, could not find anything better for you), Laxman Pandey (Guga - of five talking leopards fame) and Aslam (myself - WHAT? I work out too!!). There was also an old Sardarji (Jagga - Readers please observe 2 minutes silence for our dear friend Jagga before moving further, who seems to have dissappeared in real life), who Maggie later learnt was Rupin’s grandfather. These guys were a close knit group, who always hung out together, doing nothing but loafing around campus. Lastly, the group also comprised of Ajay(Dabu), who for the uninformed, was Sabu’s twin brother from Jupiter (remember Chacha Chaudhri?). He was famous in RAIT for organizing Morchas, crashing his bright shiny red bike into walls, and his love for the country , and aspired to join the Air Force as a pilot. All these guys happened to be having a no holds barred puking competetion near the RAIT fountain, with Vishal, the perennial drunk prick, not puking even a drop. Maggie was disgusted by what she saw, wondering whether these guys were the right choice for her documentary. Still, after the customary introductions to the group,the usual booze party, and one ’smooching scene during a song’ later, they all sat down together to get to know more about the documentary.

She was then told about how students in Mumbai Univ suffer, with everyone ending up getting 40/100 no matter how much they studied. She also realised that often, revaluation results would come after the repeaters exam was taken, and would more often than not, leave students looking like complete idiots. Most importantly, she was told about an ‘evil prof with weird spectacle frames’ in RAIT, who had taken particularly great interest in failing Dabu in Electrical Networks and Electrical Instrumentation viva seven times. All this because Dabu once had forgotten to label a circuit diagram in the fifth Electrical networks assignment. Even Rupin had been a victim of the Evil Professors wrath, since he had made the cardinal sin of winking at the Evil professor, in a state of complete drunkenness. Nevil and Anna had their frictions with him too. Still, Rupin and Dabu had taken their misfortune with a pinch of salt, and the rest of the group were right behind them. Everyone. except Jagga, who could not take this discriminitaion any longer, and had decided to live a solemn and pure life of sainthood in the green jungles of Anukshakti Nagar. (2 minutes silence again please).

Well, moving on, the plans and the cast for the documentary was finalised. Shooting the documentary also was moving on fantastically. There was a song with Daler Mehndi in this period, which also featured Rupin riding a giraffe in the Byculla Zoo. Months passed, and Dabu had given his exams for NDS (National Defence Services), which he had passed with flying colours, or so he thought. Unfortunately, since he had failed seven times in the Electrical Instrumentation viva, he would not be considered for further selection. This meant he would have to be content with flying Mig 21s, which were not state of the art aircraft, and were in fact even worse than the Vayudoots.

Still, the group was happy for Dabu, since his life long ambition of flying an aircraft, which had started when he bought a paper plane at Juhu beach as a kid was fulfilled and they celebrated with yaaaaaawn! another booze session. Dabu soon left for his training, and the rest of the group continued with the documentary. One fine day, the news channels reported that a Mig 21 plane had crashed,and a pilot Dabu was killed in the crash. The crash had happened over RAIT, and Dabu had supposedly tried his best to ensure that the plane did not crash into RAIT, crashing into the beer bar (satkar) nearby. Dabu’s friends were devastated and heartbroken. It seemed like just yesterday, they were drinking together, and today, Dabu was dead, in highly unfortunate circumstances.
Meanwhile, the evil professor, in an unprovoked and a heartless statement, downplayed Dabu’s achievement saying that Dabu was the sole cause of the crash and that he should not be glorified. He stated that the carefree and irresponsible attitude he possessed was his bane ever since his days at RAIT. It turned out that the professor the evil professor wanted to have a drink the night the crash happened, but could not since the beer bar was destroyed. Rupin and the others were disgusted.

They tried protesting outside RAIT, with a photo of Dabu and a hunger strike near Pushpanjali, trying to prove that Dabu was innocent. But the Tiger guards came by and threw them out of college, under instructions from the Evil professor. In the scuffle that ensued between the guards and the group, millions of journal sheets, which were the last remembrances of the good times spent at RAIT, were destroyed. Vishal, not surprisinly drunk, was observed singing at the top of his voice, as the guards beat him to pulp.

The group was now angered. Their blood boiled. They concluded they would have to avenge Dabu’s death and the loss of RAIT journal sheets. Under explicit instructions from Anita, a collective decision was made to kill the evil professor.

The death of Dabu brought about a welcome change in the group. They turned over a new leaf. They longer drank every weekend. They no longer spent hours loafing around, to return home late at night. The group booked a room in Matheran for a month, and decided to hatch a famous plan to kill the evil professor, ordering eleven tankers of Cannon 10000 to drink for days on end. They believed this would help them think of a suitable plan. A month passed, and during this time nine more tankers of Cannon 10000 had been ordered. They concluded that Rupin and Anna would have the combined honour of killing the evil professor the next day.The whole group would storm into the professors cabin, and Rupin and Anna would kill him by making him drink a whole bottle of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), which Vishal could so easily arrange for.

The next day dawned, and the group marched in. Everyone was drunk from the month long booze session, except Nevil, who had returned home, since the guilt of stealing a calculator from a girl classmate in 1st year engineering was killing him. He’d decided he would set things right today and then join his friends in the necessary evil. Meanwhile, the group barged into the Evil professors room, opened the bottle and forced him to gulp it down. After celebrating their accomplishment with a quarter of Vodka triumphantly, they trudged down the stairs, with the satisfaction that they had avenged Dabu’s death. But no, one by one, all of them collapsed. An hour later, the group was pronounced dead.

When Nevil heard this, he was flabbergasted. He thought a little, and realised the screw up that must have happened. Vishal, famous for his eternal screw ups when drunk, had given Rupin and Anna the vodka bottles to force down the Evil Professors throat, while the group, in a complete state of drunken stupor, had unknowingly consumed the bottle of LPG, thinking it was Vodka.

Nevil knew that he was the only one alive now. He would have to do accomplish what his pals had failed to. Teary eyed, he hatched a plan to kill the evil professor. Days passed. Nevil was sitting alone in the canteen, posthomously reliving in loneliness, the fantastic times spent with his friends. The evil professor arrived, and ordered Egg Bhurji. He finished his meal and headed out, with Nevil following him. Suddenly, the Evil Professor spotted feathers sprouting out of his butt. Within minutes, his entire behind was full of pristine white feathers. Now sprouting feathers all over his body, he tried to yell, but all he could do was cackle like a hen. His nose and mouth were transforming into a beak too, and surely enough, was turning into a chicken. Nevil was contented. His plan was successful. He’d seen the flash news about bird flu breaking out in Maharashtra. He had replaced the eggs for the evil professor’s bhurji, with eggs that were infected with bird flu. In a matter of no time, the Evil professor was now a hen,(I did not purposely use the masculine gender) that was ready to be slaughtered. He caught the Evil Professor, stuffed him in a bag while the rest of RAIT wondered why Nevil was carrying a bag that went ‘cockadoodledooo!!!!’. Soon, Nevil reached the Restaurant close to college, handed the hen to the chef, and that day, everyone had the tastiest Chicken Biryani that was ever made. After a heavy dinner, about fifty seven trips to the loo and ninety two farts later, Nevil headed back home next morning with a heavily upset stomach, as the song played in the background…

aye saala
abhi abhi huaa yakeen ki aag hai mujh mein kahi
hui subaah main chal gaya
suraj ko main nigal gaya
roobaroo, roshni hey………….

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