Comrade 007

If there is one subject which has caused us quite a bit of heartburn, it is that of which Indian would make a convincing James Bond. No, it cannot be not butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth Ranbir Kapoor. It must be a man of mettle, Marxist mettle that is.

If there is one subject which has caused us quite a bit of heartburn, it is that of which Indian would make a convincing James Bond. No, it cannot be not butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth Ranbir Kapoor. It must be a man of mettle, Marxist mettle that is. It can only be none other than dear old Prakash Karat, the now largely out-of-work CPI(M) general secretary. He says 'never' is not a word he would use when it comes to supporting the Congress. Clearly this makes him a contender for a remake of that 007 classic Never Say Never Again.

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Steely-eyed Karat may not top the charts in the action department, but then why not a brainy Bond? We can think of many Bondesque movies he could act in. One, of course, would the fictional Comrades Are Forever. Or Live And Let Lie in which he could have a soliloquy on why it's important to seem unarmed with any logic but actually work to a script. Given his penchant for lecturing to all and sundry, one sureshot role for him would be in A View To Shrill. Here he could get up to some Goldfinger wagging to sundry villains bearing a resemblance to Congress party ministers and a rag-tag bunch dressed in saffron robes. He could tell them how he learnt the lessons of Marxism in a booklet entitled From China With Love and how the philosophy of such stalwarts like Mao Zedong is always more effective than a stun gun when confronted by danger.