Video: These Bollywood spoofs on demonetisation will tide you over the cashless blues

The Narendra Modi government’s surprise move to invalidate high-denomination notes on November 8 has resulted in lots of chaos, confusion and inconvenience. More than a month after it was implemented, it’s still a minor victory if you manage to withdraw cash from an ATM or reach the end of the queue of a bank.

Thankfully, when the system fails, humour comes to the rescue. Demonetisation, apart from being riddled with problems in implementation, has also spawned a horde of hilarious responses on the internet.

From comedy group All India Bakchod’s take on the exercise to a YouTube video of how Adolf Hitler would react to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation announcement, the reactions have been diverse and varied. There’s also YouTube star Sawan Dutta’s ode to her “last Rs 500 note” and even actor plus self-anointed pop-culture critic Kamaal R Khan, who regularly uploads movie reviews on his YouTube channel, posted his take on the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes (His verdict was that the Bharatiya Janata Party will be as big a flop as the recently released Rock On 2).

The video below, uploaded by Facebook user Rajiv Tyagi, adapts Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 classic and ever-so-catchy I Will Survive to talk about the struggles of coping with demonetisation.

The internet also gave us what Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has called the demonetisation anthem, an adaptation of Bollywood classic Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai from Raj Kapoor’s Anari. While an earlier video featured images of queues from around the country with the song playing in the background, the one below is an version of the original song video that has been edited to show the plight of the poor who are left without cash or access to digital payments.

Amid reports of widespread disruption in the immediate aftermath of demonetisation, Modi, on his return from Russia on November 13 made a speech in Goa that soon went viral. In it, he said, ”I know the forces up against me, they may not let me live, they may ruin me because their loot of 70 years is in trouble, I am prepared.”

This video, uploaded on Twitter, responds to Modi’s claims made during the speech with iconic dialogues from Bollywood films (including Sunny Deol’s “tareekh pe tareekh” from Damini).

Saudagar, the 1991 film starring Dilip Kumar and Raaj Kumar, is loosely based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But this video shows that with the right adjustments, a crucial plot point in the film could easily have been demonetisation.

Every year brings with it a fair share of irritating and seemingly nonsensical songs that somehow go viral and become ubiquitous. For instance, this year, we had Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. Here’s what the song would song line, had it been about being saddled with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, instead of fruits and writing instruments. Watch at your own risk.

Meanwhile, another video on YouTube offers a theory on why BJP leaders and followers do not concede the problems with demonetisation and continue to dismiss the hardship as a “minor inconvenience”.