First, go find two people who’re at daggers with each other. It isn’t hard to find such a pair. A ruined business partnership, a botched love triangle or an inherited family feud will do. If you’re lucky, you won’t even have to search for one: some lovelorn, hate-ridden scumbag will come along sooner or later and shell out cash for you to kidnap someone’s child.

Once you get the job, obtain the victim’s father’s phone number (usually from thin air) and give him a threat, which you cut off the moment he tries to reply. Wait until the poor father has stationed FBI agents around his house, then don your most gangster-style black leather and go to do the deed. Make sure the police are right outside the child’s door before you snatch the kid from its bed. Ensure the policemen flooding into the room see your leather jacket whipping out of sight. It adds to the drama. If you’re lucky, the victim won’t be a child at all, but a beautiful young girl who will promptly fall in love with you while you show your manly indifference. If it’s a kid, take it back to your hideout (which stands out a mile due to its gloomy, derelict, haunted look, instead of being inconspicuous). Make sure you choose the most typical, clichéd hideout you can find. If it’s not a kid…well, you still have to take it back to your hideout. And don’t forget the manly indifference.

Now, go out and tail the father. While he goes ahead in the crowd, you stride behind in black leather and dark glasses. Never mind that you stand out like a sore thumb. Who bothers with disguises anyway? Call him up on his mobile and mention the clothes he’s wearing and his location (preferably Marks and Spencer and next to the busiest shopping mall in the country, in that order). While he spins around on the spot wildly, looking in all directions, demand an outrageous sum from him. Remember to cut the call just as he begins to stutter back.

When the haggard father turns up unaccompanied and deposits the money in a paper bag into the dustbin, or (more preferably) clutches a briefcase to his chest and calls out for you, remember to make a dramatic appearance out of the shadows, with some lightning flashes in the background. Take the money and declare that you’re going to cut up his child into sheesh kababs and sell them for five rupees each, at which he will whimper and plead for his child’s life. At this point, police will pour in from all sides, even though they were not contacted by the father. This is your cue to show off physically impossible kung-fu moves and slash your way through every police officer that comes in your way. However hard you try, you will eventually die a dramatic death at the hands of the hero (to which the first two-thirds of the movie was dedicated). The kidnapped young girl will wail over your dead body and then go off to live happily ever after with her saviour, or commit suicide in your honour. Who said kidnapping was easy?

This was originally published in Us Magazine, The News, on May 30, 2008.

Link to original: http://jang.com.pk/thenews/may2008-weekly/us-30-05-2008/poster.htm#1