Before Haunted, in a studio interview…

Q. What did you do when Jimmy failed at the box office?

A. I did another photoshoot.

Mahaakshay has arrived on Akshay Tritiya in 3D! The artiste formerly known as Mimoh! The son of the original Disco Dancer!

“Woh aa gaya hai neeyati ko badalne ke liye!”

Unfortunately not his own but a girl from the 1930s. Because Vikram Bhatt now only gets money to make horror films where girls get raped by evil spirits lurking around in the hilly regions of pre-Independent India. Aur iss baar toh location bhi mila muft muft muft! Hotel Monarch, the Chakraborty lair, in Ooty.

The girl-who-must-be-raped here is Meera (Tia Bajpai). The man-who-must-rape-her is a piano teacher but is referred to as Professor (Arif Zakaria) throughout. “Aaj main tumhe naya tune sikhana chahta hoon…” Camera tilt down and zoom in. Now new girl, thrust ’em out, pant and shriek and repeat; thrust ’em out, pant and shriek and repeat.

But our Mahaakki is today’s dude, Rehaan, who bites into Thin Arrowroot biscuits and walks like Boom Boom Robo Da Robo Da. He reads about the music-class-turned-into-physical-education-class in an 80-year-old two-page letter tucked inside a book, which fell off the, er, racks at night. When the glycerine streams down those aloo-bhaatey gaal, it’s morning. No, he is not a fast reader.

In Haunted, in a job interview…

Q. Do you do drugs?

A. Nahin MBA kiya hai maine, from Stanford in USA.

So, what is the ‘source code’ to send the manager back in time? Sing a lullaby. When he wakes up after the interval, he is in 1936. “Main hoon Yozozo, your bodyguard from an alien country, and I know you will be raped!” Silly girl is not convinced. He flaunts his cell phone, its camera, its music player. Silly girl still out of network. He sings Zoobi zoobi and then flings his limbs in different directions like Santosh Dutta’s impersonation of the Sonar Kella camel. Silly girl convinced. “Aisa dance dekh ke hum to (aise hi) mar jayenge!”

Evil spirit has seen enough of these back-to-the-future dance dance. But underpaid Professor cannot get more footage. He becomes girl’s governess Margaret (Achint Kaur) and sticks long tongue out and starts licking girl’s cheeks. Mahaakshay offers his. Mohan Kapoor is interested… he time-travels from Saanp Seedi sets and becomes the cross-holding priest. “If there is evil then there is god!”

But he is not good enough. Father recommends Sufi Baba in dargah one mile away. Sufi Baba recommends kuan near khandahar in bustee one mile away. In all this spirited confusion, Mahaman becomes Sergei Bubka, pole vaults across freshly-laid brick walls and drowns blood-stained locket in well. Evil dead!

As for the 3D, well the trailers on TV end with the screaming line: “Imagine this on 3D”. They should place the same line at the end of the movie. But the first name that dissolves in at the end is MAHAAKSHAY. So you are well advised to keep those glasses on throughout. Just in case... you never know….

After Haunted, in a tell-all interview…

Q. What will you do now?

A. I will be launched again.