A couple of days back I read in the newspaper that Brazil’s hot-selling soap opera is one based on the Indian caste system. Caminho Da India (that’s not Punjabi! It Portuguese for ‘India’s Way’) is set in Rajasthan & revolves around a dalit boy who falls in love with an upper-caste girl facing opposition from their families and society. The Portuguese show has its entire production team and actors flown down from Brazil, yet revering traditional Indian values by not kissing on screen. The show has gained so much popularity that Rajasthani trinkets make a fashion statement on Brazilian streets. Also, chai, theek hai and bhagwaan ke liye have become household parlance.
News is that more and more production houses are flying in their crews to shoot in various parts of India; a fresh case reported in Brazil. So how bout Ekta Kapoor planning to set her next soap in Brazil? She’ll have the bikini-clad Shweta Tiwari take an east-bound flight from the forests of Malaya to continue her cheap acts in the Amazon.
The plot is that our homeboy Rudra Yadav, an adolescent from Patna, is keeping up the night to check out the ‘Making of the Pirelli calendar’ on Fashion TV. At 3 am, he spots the super-hot hoochie coochie mamma Swetlana (played by Tiwari) parading at the Rio carnival. Stunned by her beauty, curves & enthusiasm, he feels love at first sight!
Swetlana, born to a Russian-Bihari couple, has recently moved to Brazil to make a modeling career. Her rossi father was the Cuban missile programme manager but was later killed by the KGB for allegedly selling cold-war era subs to a Columbian drug dealer. Baffled and demented after spending most of her time on the casting couch, she hits the streets as a Samba trainer.
Rudra had always neglected studies, and was fascinated by Mumbai. He had aimed to become an estate agent in Kopar Khairane, Mumbai where he was to provide housing to the IT crowd. Things changed after he celebrated his 13th birthday; his uncle Pappu gifted him a MBBS degree from the city university that had given him great hope. While the wheels of Rudra’s life were impending motion, Pappu’s hush hush plan to fulfill his dream leaked and he was killed the very next day in a fake encounter by the Delhi police. Pappu loved football and had decided to kidnap Ronaldo, and bring him to India to train Baichung Bhutia and get India to qualify for FIFA 2010. Rudra was tormented!
Rudra now had two reasons to visit Brazil: Swetlana & Ronaldo. Having several cases of cheating in exams, proxy voting and possession of arms to his credit, he was denied a passport in Kolkata. Desperate, he crosses the border in Bangladesh, which Bangladesh in turn uses to justify that illegal immigration is both ways. He bribes officials to have him jettisoned on a cargo ship to Brazil. It takes him two years for him to reach Brazil via Philipenes, China, Korea, Australia, South Pole, South Africa and the West Indes.
Disembarking, he starts living on the streets under an assumed name, Rodrigues Yadieff (to fake Russian roots, but little did he know Swetlana had Bihari roots), and soon becomes part of a multi-national drug cartel headquartered in Columbia (little did he know the cartel boss had fixed Swetlana’s father). With no money and knowledge of the strange land (apart from 2 facts: that he had attained the legal age for fornication in Brazil but was still single, and despite of the million-dollar opportunity in flesh trade, he can’t run a brothel), he begins his search to kidnap Ronaldo and to save Swetlana from surging sex tourism in Brazil.
Howzatt??? But how is all this happening without saas-bahus, cheating husbands and illegitimate children. That’s dropped! Just the way they got under our skin, we’ll spend time portraying bikini-clad women, street dancing, drug peddling, killing, kissing, and finally, a lot of hate for Argentina. Go Ekta, take a break! Continuing with the globalization example, we will soon have arms, dope, G-strings and feijoada (after pigs stop flying) selling on Indian streets.
PS: The trivial disclaimer you see ahead of all soaps applies here too. It is a work of fiction in totality. And Brazilians, no offense! We can’t mess with you, after all you lead us on Orkut! And if anyone of you didn’t get the Argentina joke, Brazil has a history of rivalry with its neighbour (CAT students: India:Pakistan :: Brazil:Argentina). The difference is that they fight out it over a football game, while we use guns 🙁