The film, Don, has become the talk of the town. Critics have dissected the movie, frame by frame. They’ve told us whether or not to compare the new movie with the old one, and whether SRK measures up to Big B and his mystique.

All my friends seem to have seen it, including those who vowed not to do so since they firmly believed it would be an act of sacrilege. A remake, they argued, could never match the Bachchan original. Every one of them had their own distinct take on the movie. But nothing could have quite prepared me for the remarks of my golfing buddy the other day.

Those of you who have seen the movie would recall its beginning: a scene where Shah Rukh Khan swings a golf club and asks his henchmen as to which one of them is ratting on him. The denial is met with another swing of the club and the ball goes right through the temple of the squealer.

My golfing buddy wanted to know if I had noticed the terrible swing. Then, clearly disturbed, he went on about how everything was wrong with it. The head was unsteady, the left elbow was bent, the grip was too tight, and so on and so forth. I told my buddy that he was being rather uncharitable. Don had achieved a perfect hole-in-one, or at least a hole-in-the-head by emulating Arjun, who had arrowed the fish’s eye.

But my golf companion was not convinced. And he, after 30 years of golf, a sound handicap of 24 and firm in his pursuit of the perfect game, should know. He dismisses the film on the basis of that one perceived flaw. According to him, with that kind of golf, the Don can at best be a distant second to James Bond — whose smooth swing in Goldfinger is worth emulating.

... contd.