Sunday Snippets: Adipurush can improve our country’s economy!
By Venkatesh Raghavan
As we sipped tea at our favourite Irani Café, this time our conversation veered to the controversy created by the film Adipurush. The discussion was somewhat along these lines.
Amir: People in our country have plenty of time to get worked up about cine dialogues and characters. They hardly have any time to ponder aloud on matters of grave concern like price-rise and pressing health issues owing to spiralling air and water pollution. It seems as if other than what gets depicted on the silver screen there is little else that matters in our country.
Me: Think creatively Amir. If the silver screen is the only thing that matters, life can turn out to be much easier and more comfortable in our country. We will not be required to stretch ourselves to such an extent.
Amir: It beats me. How do you plan to make life easier with the entire country’s focus only on the silver screen and Adipurush?
Me: Look at it this way. Our audiences get worked up about only mythological films and their dialogues. What we need to do is set up a specialized movie unit that solely caters to mythological storytelling. The gods and goddesses can prattle off dialogues of their choice, including popular street language expressions.
Amir: Just explain to me how this will help solve the country’s pressing problems like retail inflation, impending water scarcity, poor air quality and rising job losses.
Me: I will first address the job losses part of your contention. There will be an entire set of ancillary industries that will focus on costumes, special effects, ribald dialogues and jokes catering to mythical elements. There will also be a special cell set up to study the minutest behavioural tendencies of mythical figures the movie will portray. In short, an entire team will be working together for each mythological movie that gets planned for release to the masses. This will absorb a great chunk of our jobless youth and put them in comfortable placements.
Amir: Can you throw light on how it will resolve air pollution?
Me: When you say mythology, it’s a very myriad subject, with each geographical location having its own share of it. For instance, the local Goddess of Mumbai is Mumbadevi, in Kolkata it is Goddess Kali and the mythological characters change not only from state to state but also from city to city. In every region, the dedicated team working to bring out mythological films will focus on their local gods and goddesses and this will reduce travel and fuel requirements. There will be fewer requirements for polluting or brick-and-mortar companies. In short, it’s an ecological shift, just like we keep talking about the digital shift in the current era.
Amir: How do you propose to deal with water scarcity and inflation? You still sound a bit far-fetched.
Me: Nothing of that sort Amir. Just imagine we are freeing up from our brick-and-mortar industries. We can ask industrialists to set up plants that convert seawater into potable water across our massive coastline in peninsular India. This being a huge infrastructure project, it can ensure a clean and green environment, something akin to Israel making flowers bloom in a desert. Inflation will drop when people produce and consume locally and work in their local geographic terrain without bothering about long-distance travel or unnecessary junk food.
Amir: Wow! That’s amazing. Never knew that Adipurush will fetch you so many brilliant ideas! You deserve its sequel two too.
