Set a Thief To Catch a Thief

Set a Thief To Catch a Thief

“Notorious brigand kills three police officers who tried to stop his smuggling trucks at the border checkpost with neighbouring state“ was the headline which stared in the face of the Director General of Police as he sat down to his morning cup of coffee and opened the newspaper his wife had pointedly placed face up to catch his attention. The senior policeman sipped his morning brew thoughtfully while his mind was miles away at his office thinking over all the extra paper work he had to do to prepare the financial benefits and pensions for the three slain officers. He hated paperwork and the brigand had forced it on him on three separate occasions within the last twelve months. He just had three more months to go till his retirement and his political enemies inside the department, a phrase he used to describe all his eligible juniors, would leave no stone unturned to try and find some kind of financial malfeasance to to dishonor his last stage of service before e retirement and to make sure that he went out  under a cloud after thirty years of government service. If he wanted to retire with his pay and pension intact he had to, just had to, do something about this brigand problem. With that settled in mind  he got down to the rest of the days business.

It was late evening by the time he could finally put his plan in action. He directed his driver to take a long and circuitous way home via the police training academy. Once at the academy, he stepped in to confer his plan secretly with the principal-in-charge, also his long time friend and partner in quite a few real estate deals over the years at their various postings together over their thirty years of service. Although his friend demurred at first, he cajoled him into sharing the details he asked for by painting a grim picture of what would happen to both of them if their financial dealings were put into greater scrutiny by their enemies in the police department. Even their political patrons wouldn't lift a finger to save them as they were both approaching their respective retirement ages and would no longer be of any use politically. So the principal-in-charge called to his room his three best cadets from the outgoing batch and the Director general of police interviewed them separately and decided on one particular person he felt best suited to carry out the job.

Exactly one month later the DGP called a press conference and paraded before the media the forest brigand handcuffed and looking beaten like a rabid dog. “This is the man” he thundered at the assembled scribes “who had slain over fifteen police officers, enforcement officers, forest officers over the last two years in addition to slaughtering numerous elephants and tigers and chopping down sandalwood trees”. He looked at the tv hacks with a face full of pride “and it took a dedicated team of officers trained specially by the army commandos in jungle warfare  three months to trace and arrest this most desperate felon.” He went on to look directly into the  tv cameras focused on his large mustachioed face  as he said “ I hope the government recognizes the daredevil officers and grants them large cash prizes and allots housing units in prime localities as a reward for their bravery and hard work” as he looked meaningfully at the assembled police officers sitting in the hall below the dias.

Later that afternoon he rang the bell to call his personal assistant who was seated outside in the ante-room. “PA” said the DGP “has the trainee officer arrived yet?”. “Yes sir” said his PA “just as you said i made sure he only came here after the press conference was over”. The DGP twirled his mustaches “hmmm, well then don't waste time, ask him in, he is a brave fellow”. The PA turned to leave and just then as if remembering something else turned back and said “Well, i have been getting a lot of calls from officers about including their names in the reward list for capturing the brigand”. The DGP said thoughtfully “The terms still stands the same, they have to pay us the value of the cash price, whatever the government gives them and 30% of the land price of their allotted plots if they want me to include their names in the brigand capturing team list. After all they are getting large residential plots in a prime locality inside the city at such a cheap allotment price from the government with no risk at all and after i did all the hard work in capturing that fellow”. The PA said “Understood sir” and went out to send in the police trainee who had actually captured the brigand singlehandedly.

Later, sitting inside the room and facing the nervous trainee the DGP looked at him and said “You did your work well, officer”. The trainee relaxed a bit and said “Nothing to it sir, merely followed your orders  sir”. The DGP twirled his mustache and asked “So you made sure none of the local police people knew you were there on my behalf to capture the brigand?”. The trainee officer said more confidently “Not a single person in the local station suspected anything sir, otherwise the brigand wouldn't have boldly walked alone into the police station at 10Am in the morning to pay his regular monthly bribe sir. I handcuffed him right outside the station as he came out and brought him directly here. Your plan worked beautifully sir” he said and stood up to salute the DGP.

The Games Gods Play - A Short Fiction.

The Games Gods Play.

Ravi sat there in the exam hall scratching his head. The chemistry paper was as tough as he had feared. He had intentionally omitted to study certain chapters hoping that as the same questions had come in the previous years paper they would not be repeated again. Examiners tended to do things like that. They too went through the last years paper diligently like the students did and avoided repeating the same questions again and again. Or that's what Ravi had gambled on. But unfortunately  this time Ravi’s gamble had only worked halfway. Sure none of the questions looked to be repeat offenders. But that was all that could be said in their favor. They were a bunch of no-shit garbage scraped from the bottom of the barrel. No decent person would spend three hours sitting in a crowded hall to answer these kinds of questions and still keep their self dignity intact. But. The pathetic state of the educational system forced students to crib and answer such drivel. He glanced up heaven wards to curse at an unthinking unfeeling God who had allowed such a question paper to come to him- now he wouldn't even have to fulfil his promise of breaking those ten coconuts he had promised to break at the temple if he got an easy question paper. Ok God, he threatened heaven , you had your chance and you fluffed it- no more coconuts for you or temple visits or anything else special from me- you are persona non grata from now on- our relationship is definitely over even if you don't agree. He was that angry with God for abandoning him like this to the whims and fancies of sadistic chemistry examiners.

Ok, he told himself, enough of staring at the question paper and questioning the paper setters multiple parentage. It's time to fill in at least a few pages of that so far blank answer book and hope to hell it at least reaches the hand of a compassionate paper corrector who wouldn't mind being liberal with his valuations.  So Ravi put his head down and started scribbling stuff with his chicken scrawl hoping to fool the evaluator that the scribble was the correct answer just written in hieroglyphs. As time passed he got absorbed more and more into his creative writing assignment until a faint hiss woke him up from his total absorption in his work. He looked up to see who had disturbed his concentration to find the candidate sitting in front of him- their class swot Ramu trying to hoarsely whisper out of the corner of his mouth “Machan the invigilator has gone out of the hall da...tell me what you know”. Ravi was flabbergasted for a minute “he wants me to tell him? Hows that for a role reversal? Uh..okk...” He rapidly went over the possibilities for utilizing the invigilators absence from the exam hall and concluded that given it was the last twenty minutes or so on the clock he just had time to complete three or four short answers at the maximum. The essays could go to hell- if he could get at least half the marks on the short notes he might scrape through.  “Yeah i will help you” he whispered back to Ramu “if you will tell me the answers to these short questions first” and bargain concluded he started scribbling away as Ramu dictated the answers.

As Ravi finally numbered his papers, pinned them and waited for the invigilator to come around the hall to collect the answer papers at the end of the exam, he felt a strange guilt. He felt he had unnecessarily abused god and reneged on their bargain of ten coconuts without waiting for the end. Hadn't he been a tad too harsh with god? Afterall, poor God had finally done his best by sending away the examiner from the hall for a good part of half an hour and allowed Ravi to write enough short answers to pass or at least scrape through the exam which was all he wanted. What if god become angry at him for not following through with their deal? What if his answer paper got lost in transit and never even reached the evaluation center? Or something else equally bad happened? Its better not to risk God's wrath felt Ravi and hastily tried to restore their earlier bargain. “God” he prayed again “those ten coconuts deal still stands, just somehow make me pass this paper and i will never forget you. Please forget all my harsh words earlier and show me a sign, just one sign that all is now well between us and you will make sure that I will pass. Show me the way god and give me a sign, just give me one, gimme, gimme, gimme”.

And as Ravi handed over his answer booklet and went outside the examination center, someone thrust a piece of paper hurriedly into his hand and went away. Ravi glanced at it and read “100% tutorial college, for those who fail this time, a pass guaranteed next time, God's Promise” the last words in bold letters. He could almost hear god laughing at him from above. Even gods have their little jokes, don't they?

Film Review – Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice -3D

Film Review – Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice -3D

With great expectations come great disappointments...i dunno who said that and I am guessing its not Tobey Maguire from the first spider-man movie but it aptly fits the film I am going to be reviewing this week. Batman Vs Superman – Dawn of Justice has been in the works for almost a couple of years and has aroused great expectations from all film aficionado's. And not only because of the interesting premise- the clash between two do-gooders, two superheros, but also because of the interesting cast choice- Ben Affleck as the batman. Now there were a lot of detractors who prophesied that casting an over the hill actor like Affleck in a role requiring a macho action star was going to have a disappointing end and they have been proved right. Ben affleck does indeed look completely out of place as the suave Bruce Wayne but considering the storyline features a washed out version of batman who has been fighting crime- unsuccessful at that- for twenty years, Ben Affleck with his negligible screen presence fits the role of an afterthought superhero. Unfortunately he gets more screen time than the more popular superman character played by Henry Cavil. Which contributes a lot to the overall disappointment of the film.

The storyline is simple – batman feels superman is reckless and is not worried about collateral damage to the hundreds of civilians (dead civilians) who get caught in between when superman is fighting super-villains. On the other side of the equation superman is worried that batman is a lone vigilante who doesn't care about law or justice and simply hunts down criminals as a vendetta. So superman wants to bring batman to justice while batman simply wants to kill off superman to remove any alien threat to the planet. And just when you think the movie gets interesting and the two heroes face off for a showdown the plot  borrows from countless Indian movies which utilize the “mother sentiment” to have a dramatic turning point.

In this instance it is a dying superman who is critically weakened by batman's kryptonite bullets shouting his mother's name- Martha, which coincidentally is also batman's dead mother's name, which means ultimately that batman doesn't kill him but embraces him as brother. At least they stopped with that. Any more clichéd and they could have released it as a straight Tamil movie. Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane who is a reporter discovers that the whole showdown was orchestrated by Jesse Eisenberg who plays a young Lex Luthor and the two superheros join hands to find Luther who has by now found himself a convenient super-beast made from alien DNA. The climax involves a motley group of beaten down metahumans like superman and the wonder woman joined by a lone normal human batman in battling the  creature. Ultimately superman makes the supreme sacrifice of killing the creature with a kryptonian weapon and in the process killing himself off.

Director Zack Snyder who made the eminently watchable 300 has badly erred in making the farce of a superhero movie which cannot hold the audience's interest beyond the first few minutes. An interesting plot goes haywire in execution.

Verdict- watch for the TV premiere.