5 Oct 2006 - Zindaggi Rocks

OPM*

Presents - Zindagi Rock Bottom

The thing with most women is that they love their jewellery. Not only their own, but also all the stuff in jewellery stores.

This is a problem for the post-metrosexual man who marries/dates this kind of woman, who, it turns out, is every woman but Condoleeza Rice. Now, obviously, since women like jewellery so much it must be plenty likable. A race that makes the world go round, one that treats animals and men with so much care and compassion can scarcely be off the mark.
But for the men who these women condescend to date and/or live with, Jewellery is a big conundrum. One theory that is going around is that Jewellery was invented shortly after the invention of Marriage. This was because after the first few years of marriage men, invariably, ran out of gifting ideas on anniversaries, birthdays, makeup days, make out days etc. Women, at this stage helped men out by inventing Jewellery.
There is another theory making the rounds, which claims that Marriage itself was invented by women to be able to invent Jewellery later. This rings true when you realize that women wouldn’t be marrying just to stay with us men. Especially me.

Zindagi Rocks, a movie that explores the tragic obsession of one woman with Diamonds, answers none of my questions on jewellery, even partially.

Sushmita plays Kria, a Magnificent Woman and a singer who sings for a travelling circus, and is billed only next to Crudus, the Entertaining Clown. Her other colleagues include her brother Karam, the Phenomenal Talent and Loin, a Great Animal Trainer.
The circus is run by a failed Ad agency copywriter with a flair for the descriptive who calls himself Mahesh Batt, the Former Copywriter.

The film begins with a glorious, soprano-like rendition of ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ by Kria, a sequence further enhanced as she sings while performing a complicated trapeze act that involves her stunt double and some standard issue trapeze equipment.
She ends the song on a high octave landing on the net with a flourish. The audience erupts, but this is primarily because the circus elephant is on the loose and there is pandemonium in the paying public. Everything settles down when people realize that it is only a baby elephant that is on the loose. However, when Loin, a Great Animal Trainer performs his act with lion cubs, there is pandemonium in the paying public again and they start demanding a refund. Everything settles down again as Crudus, the Entertaining Clown performs a crude and hilarious version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This act includes several very sad jokes in poor taste like “when in Rome, do a Romeo”. The paying public enjoy the act hugely mainly on account of the fact that Crudus has forgotten his pants.
At the finale, Kria performs ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ again, to much outrage among the paying public.
This happens throughout the season (precisely 3 days) and we begin to realize that Kria is obsessed with the ‘Diamonds’ song. We also realize that Crudus never forgets his pants, he just doesn’t have any!

In the audience every night is Shiny, a man who has won seasons tickets to the circus. He is to be Kria’s Knight in Shining Armour and everyone is pretty disappointed when he is never shown in anything but Corduroys. Shiny, a budding psychologist, has done world famous research in trying to answer questions concerning jewellery that include but are not limited to:
-Why aren’t American diamonds satisfactory when only a trained jeweller can tell the difference?
-Why is Platinum so expensive when it looks like steel?
-Why is White Gold?

At the end of the season, i.e. the third show, Kria breaks down after yet another rendition of Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds’. Shiny rushes to her side and becomes her Shrink (mainly because he’s not been getting his daily dose of viagra). She is taken to his clinic, where, as she rests on the couch, she is very keen to know where he bought the very comfortable couch.

After much discussion on jewellery and the 1953 Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell movie, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, the solution to her problem strikes Shiny while he is fiddling with his iPod.
He realizes that Kria is not mentally ill. Nor is she obsessed with rocks of any kind, including diamonds. Her problem is that she only knows ONE song.
Everything ends well when he buys her the new Microsoft Zoon and gifts her several disks of pirated music.


* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.

Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release