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The lady’s new kind of acting school packs a long lasting punch
10 am: I walk to the lift in my building, when I hear loud, crashing sounds come from the stairway. I poke my head forward, curious about the commotion. Lo and behold, it is my neighbours Mrs C and Mrs M (dressed in polyester printed salwar-kameez and gleaming white sneakers), rushing up the stairs to the third floor and then back down to the second, again and again. Getting dizzy just looking at them, I call out, “Mrs C, Mrs M, what are you guys doing?”
Mrs C ignores me (the same way she ignores my monthly SMSes asking her to make sure her dog doesn’t defecate in the front yard. Last Diwali, I very kindly sent her a beautifully wrapped, made-in-Japan poop-scooper but never even got a thank-you note. Mrs M pants and answers me, “We are doing exercises. You can see no… then why asking?”
Muttering under my breath that no amount of running up and down floors can dislodge the 100 theplas they eat at each meal, I roll my eyes and leave the building.
2 pm: Sitting at my store and going through accounts is a dreary task. Though I feel I may need some sort of injectable drug to get through the day, I settle for some coffee.
4.30 pm: I walk into the building and am jostled by yet another elderly aunty walking up the stairs. Wondering about this fitness mania that has suddenly gripped my entire building, I spot the hunky movie star who has finally moved into his third-floor apartment in our building and it all makes sense.
I smile and wave out at him. He walks up to me, punches me hard on the arm and says, “Do you know how many times you beat me up when we were kids?” Now, I have absolutely no recollection of these not-so-momentous occasions. You see, I spent my entire childhood mercilessly beating up various pimpled boys, half of whom grew up to be very famous people. Promising to send him my yummy dahi tikkis, I enter my house and meet the man of the house. When I tell him about bumping into our new neighbour and finding out that apparently, I have beaten him up as well, the man of the house just sighs and says, “What’s new? You beat me up everyday too, maybe you should open a new kind of acting school.”
I protest that I really can’t act. He adds, “I know that, but you can claim to be a lucky mascot. A punch from Twinkle will make your stars sparkle!” I feebly protest that this slogan doesn’t really rhyme.
He shushes me and continues, “There will be testimonials from all your former students…. Like Farhan Akhtar: ‘Every time Ms Khanna beat me, I thought Bhaag Farhan Bhaag. That is why I was so good in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. It was sheer practise’, Karan Johar: “I am successful only because of Ms Khanna’s regular thrashings. Every wallop I received, I said kuch kuch hota hai and that’s how the idea of my first film was born’, Hrithik Roshan: ‘I became the superhero of Krrish only because of Ms Khanna’s punches. It left a deep scar on my mind and I decided to grow up and fight evil’ and of course me, Akshay Kumar. ‘I would be nothing without Ms Khanna. I learnt karate, taekwondo and parkour only because of her blessings in the form of slaps and boxes.’
When I object that everyone knows he was a martial arts expert even before he met me, he snorts, ‘So what? You anyway want to take credit for everything, so take credit for this as well.’ Remembering a line from the Mahabharata, “The good never approve of speaking highly of their own strength, nor do they speak of their own merits”, I decide to stay silent and max out his credit card instead.
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