Fade in EXT - Shell Colony

Artistic Revelations happened when I was with Vinayak and another cousin, we casually sat down near the stinky nallah. We , grown up in shell colony, were immune to the smell of the nallah, which was infested with mosquitoes and filth. I casually put in the idea of working on another short film to Vinayak. "Yes. Why Not? " came in the response .

We started searching for the subject, when off hand the subject suggested was madness. "Madness" as in a unstability of the mind. We started bouncing off ideas. Even made a rough plot line about a man who could not distinguish dreams and realities. But somehow, we were not convinced.

Few days later, I met a film maker who told me that dark, disturbing cinema was boring and he certainly did not consider it as creativity. He was in a way right, though a lot of people may disagree. When I look back at what I made in my two short films, the writing was heavily personal, I had some how assumed a personal voice in the stories that I told, though I swear nothing in the movie actually happened to me or any of my friends or none of the people who worked in the films. Still they had a personal touch, that of some cribbing, frustration, anger and depression. My feelings and attitudes, reflected in those stories, and I thought a true film maker should be able to work outside these personal issues keeping creativity and logic intact. I suddenly realised I had to grow.

So we moved on, still searching for a subject, we toyed with different ideas, till we finally reached our million dollar idea. We were convinced, that we would work on it.

That was August, 2005, Bombay had just recovered from the heavy floods and chaos of BMC.

As soon as work on the screenplay started, the work on the opening background score too started. The track was shaping out fine, and few days later, listening to it continously, Vinayak pointed out that it was getting monotonous. He said he was going to call Prasad.

Prasad Ruparel had done some work on my second short film, he played the lead on the last track " When credits roll ". He came in to work with us on the opening background score. Composing and work on the tracks were done by them, they completely controlled the creative aspect of how the background score should shape up even before the film was completely written on screenplay level. My inputs came in only in different levels. We were working towards a common goal through different media, and seeing the same vision. My writing too started achieving a goal and the product got tighter and tighter.

During those days, a visit from an old friend, S , happened. I chose not to name him or the company he worked for. He promised to put us across the chief creative officer of the production company he worked for. We were excited and prepared for our presentation. We wanted a producer.

They initially refused to listen to us, since we had not registered our concept, but they gave us a subsequent meeting in two days. The creative officer loved what we presented, but it sparked off an argument within their team, as to whether the audience were ready to digest our end product. After four weeks, we get an email from them, mentioning "thanks for the submission. At present it does not match our policies. However, your story is good."


There was anger, frustration and hurt. But somewhere down the fire had already started burning and it was fast spreading.......