Jaldi & Ugra, Chors Get Fast & Furious

Jaldi aur Ugra: Paschim Vihar Drift doesn't quite have the same ring to it as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. But the F&F-style luxury car robberies by the 'Ravi Uttam Nagar Gang' in Delhi has got traction even after getting busted last week. Using scanners and GPS jammers, the gang comprising Manish Rao, Jagdeep Sharma and Aas Mohammad stole 40-odd cars before getting arrested. Will they spawn a whole bunch of sophisticated cat-turned-car burglars? Rao, Sharma and Mohammad may not be your idea of car heist-meisters. But, remember, the hero of the original 2001 The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel, is a dead ringer for the chief minister of Meerut resident Mohammad's home state.

F&F's reality check is more jugaadful than what was inspired by F&F's filmic rip-off, the Dhoom franchise. Those Baby Dhoomers ended up being wannabe John Abrahams using superbikes to snatch chains and aspiring Hrithik Roshans to execute 'pashmina shawl' heists at the handloom museum. But F&F isn't the only inspiration. Desi chors seem to have moved a notch up from Bunty Aur Babli-style con jobs. The Spanish heist crime series, Money Heist, for instance, hasn't just inspired copycrooks in Brazil and Switzerland but also self-styled 'professors' in Hyderabad and Lucknow's Gomti Nagar. Yes, crime is stranger than fiction.