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is that of a ninety-year-old. The most famous bust in India is a pair of falsies.
    My breathing is still uneven as I get up to leave. She sleeps on, a tranquilized smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She must be dreaming, as millions of her countrymen do in the cinema theaters of our nation. Except that they dream with their eyes open.
    Â 
    Exterior: Day
    GODAMBO
    The small plane appears at a distance against a clear blue sky. Water shimmers below, the sunlight making patterns of molten gold on the surface of the waves. As the noise of its engines becomes louder, the plane weaves unsteadily. The sound of fist landing on flesh is heard. Dishoom!
    Interior: a fight is in progress. The pilot lies sprawled across the controls, a vivid red stain across his white-uniformed back. A bald villain is slugging our hero, Ashok. Ashok ducks, kicks. The villain clutches his stomach, the plane bucks, Ashok pushes the pilot aside and seizes the controls. Exterior: the plane dips, straightens itself out. Interior: the villain approaches Ashok from behind, his lips parted in a gruesome snarl. As he raises both hands to bring them down on our hero, Ashok lowers his head and in one sudden jerk smashes it backward into the villains face. Baldy grunts, clutching a bleeding nose. Ashok half rises, one hand still firmly on the plane’s controls, and with scarcely a backward glance sends his free elbow crashing into the villain’s solar plexus. Baldy doubles over and falls. Ashok, grim determination on his face, keeps the plane steady. Below, the water continues to shimmer.
    The villain, lying on the floor of the cockpit, spots his gun under the pilot’s seat. His eyes glint. The gun glints. Ashok, at the controls, has his back to him. Slowly, Baldy inches forward, his bloody hand stretching out toward the gun. Close-up: Ashok, alert eyes scanning the horizon, look of grim determination still on face. Back to villain, inching steadily closer to weapon. Ashok, seemingly oblivious, looks at altimeter, fuel gauge, and assorted other indicators. Baldy s hand nears the weapon. He almost has it! Just as his fingers touch the gun metal, Ashok’s foot lands crushingly on his hand. The villain grimaces, yowling in pain. Ashok kicks away the gun, which flies to the door of the plane. The villain gets up, stumbles toward it. He reaches the gun; the plane lurches, the villain trips, falls against the door. His free hand, seeking support, grabs the first thing it can. Alas, it is the handle of the door, which flies open. Villain and gun follow each other into the void.
    Long shot, in slow motion, of Baldy plummeting unceremoniously to his wet fate, punctuated by a long, plaintive, despairing scream. A resounding splash is heard; a small fountain mushrooms upward. Shark fins appear ominously in the water. Ashok smiles grimly, brings the aircraft under control. Once again, the plane is seen against the clear blue sky, but now its flying steadily and purposefully, like its pilot. The water still shimmers.
    The credits appear on the screen. The sound track swells with the theme song:
    I am the long arm of the law,
I’ll always show villains the door
By day or by night
I’ll handle any fight
And put all the bad men on the floor!
    I am the long arm of the law,
I’ll never flinch from blood and gore,
Rapists and muggers,
Car thieves and smugglers,
Will always get it on the jaw!
    I am the long arm of the law,
No one is quicker on the draw,
Injustice and corruption, Forces
of disruption, Will be the losers in this war!
    Ashok taxis to a stop. A police Jeep is waiting on the tarmac. A uniformed officer with a thin mustache and fat jowls asks anxiously, “What happened? Where’s the villain?”
    â€œHe had an urgent appointment,” Ashok replies, “with destiny.”
    Inside the police station more details emerge. “You were right, sir,” Ashok tells his senior officer, the ramrod-straight Iftikhar, the only