Olympic ka race ya police ka case?

I have been a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan for longer than I can remember. In fact there was a time when I would try and memorize lengthy dialogues from his hit films. Many a bacchanalian nights revelries would end with my friends urging me to say the dialogues from some Bachchan movie, and I trying my best to impersonate the Big B's baritone voice.

Such a dialogue came to my mind today morning. Early in the morning (8ish is more like it), I was standing waiting for "Lift number 3" to come down and swallow me in. I had pressed the button and the light on the panel had lit up. The lift was making its journey down from the 10th floor. I am not a morning person normally and was still trying to keep my eyelids wide apart and thinking of the long day ahead. I mean I was not in a mood of hustle and bustle. Suddenly from behind me a gust of wind blew in. Not exactly, but you get the impression, right? A man, obviously in a hurry, rushed in.

Now I must describe this man who broke into my early morning revelry. Tall, well built and a slight hint of a beer belly. Clearly someone who use to be a regular at the gym in the not so distant past, but probably his professional life was not allowing him to pursue his passion any longer or too many dinners with clients with lots of booze. Was he an ad industry types? Possibly yes, if his dress of denim shirt hanging loose over his khaki trousers and a small diamond stud earring in his left ear was anything to go by.

Definitely not a banker types. Although I had some doubts about his being an ad industry pro since most of the ad industry professionals that I know, excluding my good friend SGT, never get out of the bed before the sun is well and truly on its way to the midday mark. By the way I must hasten to add, before I lose a friend, that SGT does not wear diamond earrings. But the "early-morning-ad-person's" shoes were designed and worn to draw the attention from the most placid and uninterested onlooker.

The shoes definitely merit a special discussion. They were large, larger than what the person's physique would suggest. Not surprising given that the black shiny leather shoes were very narrow in the front. It (I mean the shoes and not the man) also had some sort of floral pattern around the edges. The sort of shoes you probably see dancing enthusiasts wearing in pubs or bars. They reminded me of some of the white shiny shoes that Jeetendra used to wear in his hey days. Shudder.

Now Mr. Pointy Shoe rushed past me and started jabbing at the lift button as if willing the lift to hurry down fast or rather ASAP as his ad industry boss may have barked at him time and again. He did not stop with one or two jabs. He was clearly a man who believed that once you start jabbing at the lift button, you might as well try and destroy it forever. Or maybe he really believed that his earnest and desperate jabbing would actually bring the lift down faster. The lift, unfortunately for Mr. Pointy Shoe, was in no hurry and was coming down by stopping at each and every floor on the way down, possibly exchanging greetings with the floor cleaner and the security personnel on each floor.

Finally the lift arrived. Much to Mr. Pointy Shoe's frustration, two other people got into the lift apart from us. While he wanted to go to the 6th floor, the other two gents wanted to get down on the 3rd and the 5th floor. As if that was not enough, the lift decided to take a stop on the 1st floor - a stop it had missed during its downward journey. Mr. Pointy Shoes was clearly getting impatient and jumped off the lift as soon as it reached the 6th.

And I remembered the dialogue from Amar Akbar Anthony, which long years of neglect had driven to the deep recesses of my memory, which is also rapidly failing with the advancing decades. The very appropriate dialogue, said by who else but the Big B and penned by Kader Khan, goes something like this: "Aadmi zindagi mein sirf do ich baar aisa bhagta hai, ya to Olympic ka race ho, ya police ka case ho." I wonder which one of the two was it in Mr. Pointy Shoe's case? Or was it an impatient boss or a client presentation not ready but due at ten in the morning? I was smiling as I got out on the 8th - not at Mr. Pointy Shoes, but at having successfully dug out the old dialogue from the recesses of my memory.