I’ve got mail

There are days when being a journalist isn’t equal to being underpaid, ignored, abused, overworked and generally equated with a beast of burden. Sometimes, it’s a journey of discovery that begins in your Inbox. Most of the time, the Inbox is full of nonsense notifications like the one that informed me that Nandana Sen is in love with a stuffed cat. But then the peeps at Raindrop Media redeemed themselves (and how!) when they sent the email titled “Maradonna Bares it All.” Genius should not be tampered with so here is the PR’s text in its pristine, barely-touched glory:

Maradonna plays the lead protagonist in the movie; it’s his debut movie [“Pankh”] and in his first movie only Maradonna has bared it all on the screen. Sources say that “The scene was a very important scene and if they removed the scene, then it wouldn’t have had the same effect as it will have now.” Sanjay Gupta [producer] and Sudipto Chattopadhyaya [director] have gone away from the regular Bollywood masala and made a very bold and realistic movie. Before the shoot started Maradonna was introduced to a lot of World Cinema. In world cinema its very common where the protagonist had to bear it all for his role. So when Maradonna had to shoot the scene in front of the whole unit, it was little difficult but he managed to act it out very well. The exposure to world Cinema helped him a great deal, and the comfort level which he had built with the entire crew helped him act out the scene very well.

(He has a “comfort level” with the entire crew? That definitely tops the rumours that fly about Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. And – surprise, surprise – Priyanka Chopra. But that’s not the sort of thing that comes to our inboxes from PR companies.)

In case you, like me, were thinking football legend Diego Maradona has decided to follow in Sylvester Stallone’s footsteps and embark on a Bollywood career, allow me to disabuse of that notion. The gent who is the subject of this piece is Maradonna Rebello, nicknamed Jerry. At least that’s my theory for why the accompanying picture was titled “Jerry Nude”. For a moment, my heart caught in my throat when I saw the file name as I imagined Raindrop Media was attaching a picture of a nude Jerry Pinto but fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Those accustomed to “world cinema”, see below; others, please ignore.

I have two observations: a) Maradonna, aka Jerry, sweats a lot; and b) the lady in the flip-flops must feel rather short-changed with this photograph. I can’t wait for the email that will announce her woes: “‘They chose his butt over my face!’ complains Maradonna co-star, who is glad she got a pedicure before this crucial shoot. She is wearing I’m Indi-a Mood for Love from OPI, in keeping with the focus on World Cinema that has been key to the shooting of Pankh.”