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Editor’s note: Proceed with caution..spoilers ahead!

I had the good fortune of investing three hours of my hitherto worthless life in edifying myself when friends propelled me to a show of Gunday. I learnt that the Indian Police is so diabolically clever that they can lay an intricately plotted conspiracy to rival the best of Ludlums and John Le Carre’s. I found that we had cops who were more devious than all the George Smileys and cooler than all the Bonds.

It was gratifying to learn that ACPs in scruffy casuals do talk back to DGPs who are in uniform, as they pound their table in rage, with an insouciance to match Ethan Hunt. We have ladycops who can double up as sexpot cabaret dancers and are also former Miss Worlds (wifey, please note!). We have officers of Kolkata police who can operate with impunity in Dhanbad- in another state.

And all this for just two criminals. Did I hear some cops whine about manpower shortage? Fie on you! And what two criminals! Bronzed, waxed, pumped up chests in buttonless shirts. Two swaggering dudes who always run in slow motion. They are not criminals- just children- the ladycop says. Children playing robbers and robbers. Falling into each other’s arms every next shot. Why did they need the distraction of a female, silly billies! “We committed no mistake”, says one of the dudes to his faux love- the ladycop- bypassing the murders done by himself and his real love- the other dude!

As the climax (yeah!) approaches, one of the dudes loads bullets in his revolver, apparently to take vengeance against his co-dude. Oh what brilliance! What an oblique route to convey what he really wants. You see, what he is loading are not bullets, they are blanks!

 

Umesh  Sharraf is an itinerant who is presently a government servant. He has taken up writing recently after having been at the receiving end from other writers all his life.