Shashi Tharoor - Show Business

Our hero grips the whip and wraps it around his hand, drawing his tormentor toward him. Pranay tugs at the whip handle, but in vain. Ashok pulls him irresistibly closer. As he nears Ashok, Pranay flings the stock of the whip viciously at our hero. Ashok dodges it. Pranay lunges for the gun on the floor. He is about to reach it when the whip strikes him across the hand. He looks stupidly at a red weal rising on the back of it. Now it is Ashok who has the whip. “Dance, villain!” he barks. The whip descends again, and a streak of red appears on the villain’s cheek, competing with the gash of red across his narrow mouth. Pranay dances as the whip swishes repeatedly through the air, catching him on the legs, the arms, the behind. (The moralists in the twenty-five-paisa seats really enjoy this bit. You should hear them laughing and cheering in the aisles.)

Abha picks up the revolver and tosses it to Ashok, who flings the whip aside. “Come on,” he says to the whimpering Pranay. “You lead us out.” Pranay, clutching his arm, hobbles down the corridor with Ashok’s gun pointing at his back. They reach a doorway guarded by two Black Cheetahs. A control panel embedded in the rock next to the doorway glows red. “That’s the way out,” Abha breathes. “The switch is on that panel.”

“Go on,” Ashok orders Pranay with an ungentle dig of the gun into his back. “Tell your goons not to obstruct us, or you’ll end up with more holes than a Calcutta road.”

Pranay hoarsely obliges. “Let them go,” he instructs the commandos. “Open the door.” Reluctantly the Black Cheetahs move toward the control panel.

“Stop!” There is no mistaking the voice. It contains enough gravel to resurface even Calcutta’s roads.

The group spins around. Godambo stands there, huge and hairless, his cape swirling round him. There is no sign of the cheetah. “Don’t touch that panel,” he instructs his commandos.

“B-boss,” Pranay bleats.

“Open that door, or Pranay gets it,” Ashok shouts.

“That incompetent? Who let himself be captured this way?” snarls Godambo. “Shoot him. You’d be doing me a favor.”

The group is frozen in indecision. Godambo advances.

“If they try to move anywhere near the control panel,” he tells his Black Cheetahs, “shoot them. Even if you have to shoot Pranay first.” Pranay winces; his master laughs gutturally. “Drop that gun, Inspector Ashok,” he says. “Nice try, but it’s all over for you.”

Ashok tries to look defiant, but the truth of Godambo’s conclusion is evident. The gun wavers in his hand.

“Let me do it for you, mighty Godambo.” This is Abha! Ashok and Maya stare at her in shock. She pulls the gun out of Ashok’s surprised hand. “You didn’t really think I’d deserted you, did you, mighty Godambo?” she asks as she walks over to him, the gun in her hand.

Godambo laughs with pleasure. “Agent Abha …,” he begins, then stops as the barrel of the revolver presses into his ribs.

“You were saying …?” Abha asks.

(Maya smiles in relief, and the twenty-five-paisa seats erupt in cheers.)

“Don’t be silly, Abha,” Godambo growls. “Think of your parents. Your home.”

“I do,” she replies. “And I’m just trying to make sure you will no longer be in any position to harm them.”

Godambo’s eyes turn round with rage.

“Tell them to drop their guns.” She gestures at the Cheetahs and presses her revolver in more deeply.

“Do what she says,” grunts Godambo.

The black-clad commandos drop their submachine guns. Ashok picks them up, slings one over his shoulder, and holds the other one. “All right, Godambo,” he announces. “You’re coming with us.” He turns toward the switch on the control panel.

Suddenly, with a swing of his cape, Godambo knocks Abha’s hand aside. A swift blow to her wrist and the revolver falls to the ground. Godambo, clutching Abha like a shield, backs away toward the interior. “Now try and shoot me!” he laughs, as Abha flails helplessly in his grip. Ashok raises a gun, realizes it’s hopeless: he would hit Abha. Godambo breaks into a run. Ashok follows. “After him!” shouts Pranay, waving on the disarmed commandos in hot pursuit. Maya, alone and neglected, cowers near the doorway, her hands to her mouth. “ Bhaiya!” she screams in warning. Ashok looks briefly behind him and pauses to release a burst of semiautomatic fire at his pursuers. One of the commandos falls.

Ashok resumes his chase. Godambo is running into his cavernous throne room. This time the pillars are unprotected, but the fountains still play and the pool gleams dully in the neon light. Godambo drags Abha toward his throne. Ashok enters the room and runs across the marbled floor. Pranay and the surviving commando are hot on his heels.

Godambo reaches his throne and stretches a hand toward the armrest.

Abha screams, “Ashok! The floor!”

Godambo jabs a finger on the button. Ashok is still running when the floor opens up beneath him.

He jumps.

In a glorious, fluid leap, immortalized by the camera in poetic slow motion — a leap that would comfortably have won India its first Olympic gold medal in athletics were it reproducible without special effects — Ashok flies over the yawning chasm under his feet, as his weapons fall discarded into the abyss. Ashok’s pursuers are not so fortunate. Pranay and the Black Cheetah, with despairing yells, make their fatal splash. The shark fin dives, and as finale the subsidiary villain is accorded only a few glugs of farewell.

Ashok lands on his feet on the other side of the pool. Godambo presses another button, and a loud siren wails through the complex. Red lights flash and blink along the walls. Doors open, corridors fill with the scudding feet of Black Cheetahs.

“You’re finished now, Inspector Ashok,” Godambo declares emphatically.

As soon as she hears the siren, Maya presses the switch on the control panel. The red indicator on the panel turns to green, and the door slides open. There is the clatter of booted feet from the outside.

“Shabash” says a deep voice. Yes, it is the stern and slim Iftikhar, complete with pencil-line mustache! As a truckload of khaki-uniformed policemen trot into the cavern, assault rifles at the ready, he has a brief word of explanation for Maya. “Your Amma called me,” he says. “We followed Ashok’s motorcycle tracks here, but were unable to get in.”

The policemen take positions and a shoot-out follows, five minutes of meticulously choreographed anarchy. Black Cheetahs emerge on high walkways, spray bullets from their submachine guns, and plunge gorily to their deaths. The celluloid policemen, using weaponry unknown in the armories of their real-life counterparts, shoot indiscriminately, shattering flashing red lights and blasting rock off the rough-hewn walls, but miraculously bring their enemies tumbling down. Grenades are thrown, and little bursts of flame add color to the occasion. The bloodthirsty rural cinemagoers get their twenty-five paise’s worth.

Meanwhile, inside the throne room Godambo curses as his henchmen are clearly getting the worst of the raging battle. Ashok stands poised to attack, but he is weaponless now and Godambo holds Abha tightly.

“This is all your doing, Inspector Ashok,” he snarls.

“I thought you said you could crush me with one hand tied behind your back, Godambo,” Ashok retorts. “But I see you still prefer to shelter behind a woman.”

Godambo’s pride is stung. Uttering an oath, he viciously flings Abha aside. She falls to the floor with a stifled cry. “Abha!” Ashok shouts.

“Don’t worry about me,” the heroine breathes. “Get him.”

Ashok has no time to express concern as Godambo, eyes horribly wide and teeth horrifyingly bared, leaps on him with both hands. They fall to the floor. Godambo’s powerful fingers are at Ashok’s throat. Ashok brings his knee up and into Godambo’s midriff: that relieves the pressure. Both men rise. Fists encounter flesh: dishoom! dishoom! Bodies crash into furniture. A right uppercut from Ashok sends Godambo smashing into the console. A left hook from Godambo puts Ashok head first through the screen. Miraculously unharmed by these calisthenics, the two men expand the locale for their fisticuffs. Godambo leaps over the throne, cape flying. Ashok follows. Godambo reaches a door, kicks Ashok, and opens it. Ashok recovers, follows. The two men are now on an outdoor ledge, overlooking the sea. (Why? Because it would make for a more spectacular climax, that’s why. More demanding viewers may assume Godambo was hoping to escape that way.) More dishoom! dishoom! follows. Both men fall, pick themselves up, hit again.