5 Things Worse than Leonardo Not Winning the Oscar

The last two days have been particularly hard. As are all days when we in India spend too much time pretending to give a fu** about something just because everyone else is. The list is endless: Manchester United, Gujarat…. Some people had to go to office coffee machines and brave small-talk like ‘Hey! How was the weekend? DiCaprio didn’t win. Sh*t yaa. No yaa. What yaa.’ As the Shiv Sena puts it, “Why they are outraging over Oscar in the land of Kirloskar?”

But of course, as a movie-goer and Leonardo fan, I feel bad for him. The first tragedy in Leonardo DiCaprio’s life was being on a ship that sank. The second was never winning an Oscar. 5 times over. Being nominated and not winning. Or as Crime Master Gogo puts it , “Haath toh aaya, mooh na laga.”. Or as single Indian men put it, ‘life’. But let’s not lose perspective over it. There are worse things that happened, and some of them could have ramifications in Bollywood. Be afraid, be very afraid.

1. Matthew McConaughey’s name

(Lupita Nyong’o came a close second).This is one moment where the ancient Indian jibe of ‘McConnahey ki spelling bhi aati hai?’ will work. It’ll be fun if he comes to India because then people will be like ‘Axecuse, what is right pronownciation of your good name sir?!’

2. Gravity won seven Oscars

More #RealGravity as #Gravity is up for awards at #Oscars: Free flying further away from your ship than ever before pic.twitter.com/Yg9reRLt4n

— NASA (@NASA) March 2, 2014

The only one it should’ve won is ‘How vela was George Clooney’. Somewhere that gives Sajid Khan enough hope to make a Housefull 3. And bring Chunky Pandey back from Bangladeshi cinema. In which case, we make bad cinema and also add to the refugee problem in West Bengal.Shudder.

3. Anil Kapoor isn’t there this year. With his ‘Chhaiwaalah’ antics and that dance

Yes, I’ll say it. I love Anil Kapoor. I love that dhin-aa-dhin-dhaa and Rum-pum-pum dance from Ram Lakhan. I want Americans to dance to it. Yes, I want those rich whites to grow chest hair and shake that tooh and validate our country. Way better than making one of us the CEO of Microsoft.

4. Ellen DeGeneres’s record-breaking selfie

That was nice, because it had Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt and a lot of others. But my fear is that Sumitra from Ghatkopar and Paramjeet from Rajouri garden will now upload even more selfies with captions like ‘Ma and mah Ellen pose LOL’. Next time, Miley Cyrus will be twerking and clicking a selfie. Notice how I just used two words that competed last year for entry into the Oxford dictionary. Pure genius. Just like Martin Scorcese taking both Matthew McConaughey and Leonardo Di Caprio in his movie.

5. Ellen ordered a pizza!

A step full of panache and cheese. But what if Bollywood apes it like it apes anything Hollywood? We’ll have Fardeen Khan’s cocaine dealer, who goes by the name of Jehangir Raza Muhammad Zeeshan Qadri(alias Ankit Sharma) walking in to give him his stash in the middle of an awards function. Although why Fardeen Khan would attend any awards is beyond me. Worse, we’ll have Karan johar calling for his coffee hamper. And Anoushka Sharma calling her make up man, just in case she doesn’t win the ‘best Visual Effects’ award.

where's my tip... smh

— Oscars Pizza Boy (@OscarsPizzaBoy) March 3, 2014

Vikramjit Singh is a Delhi based writer and Stand Up Comedian. He usually writes to sell things, and in really desperate times, sells himself. Follow him @Vikramjit_S