Once upon a time in a magazine office far, far away, it was decided that a scriptwriting competition would be held — luckily for us, we couldn’t enter as we wouldn’t have stood a chance with a hackneyed introduction like that. But, loads of you did enter (more than 750, seeing as you asked), and after weeks of judging by our esteemed panel of experts, we have arrived with a winning script.
So it’s huge congratulations to Ash Sharma, a 39-year-old fraud investigator from Pinner, northwest London, who took time out from busting crime to create his own masterpiece. Sharma’s original logline was: “Two bankrupt American footballers are offered the chance to play the wildest sport in India. Through curry and violence they find redemption and love.”
And, as you can see opposite, his script doesn’t disappoint. When we told him the good news, Sharma was modestly surprised: “I was stunned and still am. I can’t believe it. I actually came up with the idea after seeing a kabaddi match. Kabaddi is primarily a rural team combat/mixed martial-arts contest played in India. I wondered what would happen if this traditional sport was upgraded with the razzmatazz of modern India. I love fish-out-of-water stories and to me, everything just fell into place. Now if only someone can commission Kabaddi Buddies as a film...”
