Body Double

In my days of online innocence, I sincerely believed that the term APP was the pet name for appalam the Tamil term for pappad. But now I am sadder, wiser and terrified , really terrified to see how the word spreads its web across the worldwide web.


There seems to be an app for every season, occasion and person. Some are nice, like the one that allows me to book a movie ticket without having to run around with cash and see the guy at the counter frown at me when I flash a ye olde Rs 500 or 1,000 at him. His eyes say: “Why the hell don’t you risk your life a bit by standing in an ATM or bank queue and get the new notes? Come on! What is life without a little risk?”.


Now courtesy demonetization, standing in ATM queues has become riskier than climbing Mt.Everest. It is like playing Russian roulette. You are actually pointing a gun at your temple and pulling the trigger. There is no guarantee that the bullet won’t make a grand entry into your head and explore your brain. Similarly there is no guarantee that you won’t join the elite club with its membership now touching 70 , the exclusive club of those who have kicked the bucket in ATM and bank queues after waiting in them for hours. So God (if there is a God) bless all those gizmos that help us avoid such agony.


Oh oh, we are still stuck in the demonetization rut no? Okay let us take a detour. If you are an action movie fan, you would probably watched with bated breath as the characters perform such stunts that poor ol’ Isaac Newton would have got himself admitted to a loonie bin after pulling his hair, tearing off his cloths and running naked on streets.. What they do is a serious violation of laws of gravity.


I am talking about the days before all that FX came into being when you stand before a blue screen and pretend that you are jumping from a high rise. Of course the filmmaker would not risk the neck of his leading actors and use body doubles to do all that dangerous stuff.


Now, what do body doubles got to do with apps and demonetization? NOW THERE IS AN APP EVEN FOR BODY DOUBLES. Now where does demonetization come into picture. A smart enterprising guy has come up with an app called bookmychotu for body doubles who would perform the dangerous stunt of standing in a never ending ATM queue in your place for hours. And you can leisurely go and have a drink and visit your girlfriend while your wife naively keeps believing that you are standing in queues on aching legs to get cash and bring home the bacon (if you are a veg, bread) to the family.


BTW the chotu in the app’s name is the abovementioned body double. He is chotu even if he is taller than Amitabh Bachchan , wider than Great Khali and heavier than a few sumo wrestlers put together. Our man charges by the hour for playing your body double. So if NaMobhai has any idea of sending you to the happy hunting ground of liberals, commies, atheists and other kind of non-Bhakts by making you stand for eternity in a queue, he can perish the thought. Such wiles don’t work on our chotu.


Hats off to the guy or gal who came up with the bright idea. I think it can be extended further. When you return home late sozzled with fond memories of your tryst with the GF and face the wrath of your wrathful wife who doesn’t fully accept your idea that you were late because you thought of standing in tomorrow’s queue today but later gave up the idea (Of course she won’t as you would be stinking to high heavens of booze) there could be an app called bookmyshield that would enable another chotu or the same one who stood in the queue to act as a shield against rolling pins and flying plates and saucers fondly hurled at you by your wife.

Wow, I must say the times are a changing, as NaMobhai sang out of tune at Mumbai’s Coldplay concert in what could be construed by fans (not his but Bob Dylan’s) as an unpardonable insult to the Nobel laureate.

 

Kamkalji I don't get the economics of this. It is okay if you want the perfect alibi to cheat on your wife. But suppose Chotu stands in the qeue for 12 hours considering that the queues are massive, he gets half of what you withdraw from ATM and you are left with the consolation of having cheated your wife.