God hath no answer for a writer's fury

In the comments section of a recent post relating to a Manoj Kumar special, I exchanged a couple of messages about the complexity (read: are-you-being-serious-ness) of stories in Hindi movies, especially from the Golden Age of Melodrama.

On IMDB.com I love trolling through plot summaries of movies and user comments. There's enough hilarity there to keep most mortals occupied. Once in a while you come across a plot summary that is so gobsmackingly outrageous, you are sure even immortals are rendered speechless when confronted with it.

Picture, if you will, a boardroom in a movie studio where a hopeful storywriter is pitching his idea for a film. Imagine how the boardroom would react if this is the story he narrated to them:

Mr. Gupta passes away after an accident while on duty, leaving behind his ailing wife and school-going son, Ramnath. Both await for some compensation, and when they are informed that the company does not accept liability for Gupta's death, his wife falls down the stairs and passes out. When Ramnath goes to fetch a doctor, he is knocked down and run over by a speeding car, losing the use of his left leg. When he returns from hospital, he finds that his mom has passed away, and his landlord has evicted him. Penniless and hungry, he roams the streets of Bombay and befriends a blind young man, Mohan, and both use their talents - playing and harmonica and singing respectively to earn some money. Mohan is on the look-out for his sister, Meena, who works as a Nurse in one of the hospitals and hopes to be reunited with her. Both friends befriend a ailing young girl, Manjula, and hope to get some money from her so that Ramnath can attend school. But fate has other plans for them, Manjula passes away, Meena does get to meet Mohan, but refuses to recognize him as she does not wish to associate herself with a lowly beggar; while Ramnath is arrested by the Police for his alleged involvement with a group of robbers.

How can you top that?! How much more misery can you pile into the lives of the characters? How do you convince people to put money into that?

In case you did not figure out which super-hit (yes, super-hit) movie was made from this story, click on this link for the answer.

While I was reading the synopsis, a scene for a comedy of (sort-of) recent vintage came to mind. I bet even Vinny couldn't have dreamt up a story like that if pushed further!