Daaru Desi

In one week i heard about two stories both had a drunk guy at the end of the phone .

In one story there is this guy who asks a girl out for a coffee, the girl denies [pehli baar main haan to nahi hi karna hai {her words}]. The guy asks her number and a week later this guy calls her, 1st call is a  drunk call and talks for an hour ....asks her to meet him the next day ... The girl says [to me] " i don,t want another mess up in my life " 

In 2nd story a guy hears something from his girlfriend, which goes like this ... An ex boyfriend is buzzing me and has called me up drunk .....this guy here is drunk [i m told that is usually the case] and believes everything he hears so much so that he wants to "talk" to the ex on the phone ... 

One just has to see both these events from an unattached perspective. 

Here is a story from my childhood, i must be 11 or may be 10 , it is my kaka,s 1st anniversary, my aunt is all ready, my mom and my bua are super happy, we have good food prepared, the ladies are having a great time, slowly the clock ticks to 9 and then to 10 , all the festivity is gone. My bua and mom try to console her , she says nothing, changes her dress and goes to sleep. Even for a guy 10 years old i knew that this was horrible. My uncle came home late night [arnd 12], all sloshed ..... Nobody said anything. 

I love my uncle and he loves his wife.

Hearing both these stories i felt sorry for the women who will marry these guys, one out of 5 of these guys will be an addict. What it means is this [from personal experience]:-

In all major events the guy will be sloshed, at public events and family gatherings he might puke and/or embarrass his wife in front of guests. [Has happened to one reader of this post at a family wedding] 

The kids won,t respect the father which, in almost all cases means a broken family.

In most cases there wil be cases of wife beating, should she nag him when he is drunk. 

In many cases he might turn up on the doorstep beaten up or being dragged home by police/autowallah.

My aunt does,t allow any of us to sleepover at her house because she does,t want to risk a scene.

Now i don,t know about these two gentleman but even if they are twice the man that my uncle is [and my uncle is a gem] even then, the girl is screwed. 

And yet most women will still marry a guy who is regular drinker because they believe it won,t happen to them [o, btw, if loyalty is ur thing, well u know wat walks out of the door when ur drunk]. 

Here is the wishful thinking "everyone drinks [says who ?]" "it only happens to the lower class/uneducated [yeah ofcourse....]" "he loves me [in that case u deserve it]" "i will change him [yeah ofcourse]" "he drinks almost daily but in limits [yeah we will ask u wen he is 40]" 

So if ur a girl reading this, just look at this group of guys who are regular drinkers and know that 1 out of this 5 is a sure shot tragedy, within 5 years of the marriage your condemned to a life of eternal emotional pain and embarrassment. 

If u love ur man too much to risk a lifetime of misery for 3 years of romance ....sure go ahead, in that case it,s ur Kismet . 

It is easier for a girl to not be an alcoholic, but in a guy,s world if u drink casually [not strictly socially] then slowly u will be a part of a group that drinks regularly and that group will binge drink more regularly as they grow old, one of them will be an alcoholic.  

I know atleast one girl who says she can,t marry a guy who doesn,t drink, she says, he will be boring. I wish i could show her the trauma we have been through, i don,t wish it even on my worst enemy. The risk of being a bore is rather a small one.
  

Hero Hiralal

I took an auto from office to home 7pm , this auto wallah was a young guy. I was dressed in the usual filmi attire with head bandana and all . When u take an auto from Aaram Nagar and have long hair it means ur either a model [if u have a decent physical presence] or may be a writer. So this autowallah asked me if i was an artist [ an informal word for actors ]. I said i was a writer [ i dont introduce myself as a Director to strangers, the reaction is too much of a trouble]. This is wat he said

Hero Hiralal : Sir ek baat poochay bura nahi maaniyega

Nikhil [thinking] : {O boy ....not another casting cough question} Poocho

Hero Hiralal : Suna ki film sign karne say pehle Director Producer log heroin ka izzat loot leta hai

I just laughed so hard at the innocence of the word "izzat loot leta hai" I was no longer irritated at the question and instead of answering my usual "aapko kyon matlab hai essay" i said "hum log to writer hai hum log abhi bahut neechay hai par aisa hota nahi hoga"........

It was a long conversation 1, 30 hours and the entire conversation was if ppl fucked for role ....

Next time i m not a filmy any time some stranger asks me 

When I played Butcher

This is a small incident from my childhood that is a character building event, will explain why i m writing it here.


Growing up in a small town [think wasseypur, although it was not a muslim dominated area], getting chicken was always a big deal [this is before boiler chicken became a household name] so the only ppl who would sell a chicken were some from muslim family and since only a handful families had chicken to sell, it was seldom available to be bought. One fine evening, we bought a chicken from our backyard it was available to be sold and my aunt bought it. Normally they would sell you alive chicken. Butchering it was the job of a male member. In our family it would either be my kaka [chhote cha cha] or his best friend Sahjaad Chahcha , both of them were absent. No male member of my family or anyone in the neighbourhood was available. Now my aunt [badi mummy] was born and bought up in Nepal [to indian parents] and she had exposure to all kinds of wild lives [even in our house, snake was a usual presence, whenever you had fish in the house snake was a sure thing] and had killed snakes, frogs, chicken and what have you. But even she refused because now she was a mom now and hence she couldnt do it. So she asked me to butcher the chicken, she would guide me. Being an enthusiastic kid dying to eat chicken, i was happy to do it. So I butchered a chicken, under her guidance.  My uncle later heard about it smiled and said "ladka bada ho gaya hai" Sahjaad chacha gave me a treat, of his hand cooked mutton.


Not every male member of a family goes to a butcher,s shop to buy chicken or mutton. Buying mutton is especially tricky, only my kaka and me do it, not my dad not my cousin golu, nor my bade papa. So today i went to buy mutton, it was a khossi [a kid lamb] and had just been de-skinned. Clearly a few other processes like cleaning intestine and cutting off some cartilage had to be done, so i stood there and was thinking about my own non-issue with butchery, remembered Bill the Butcher and the Qureshis from the movies. I have seen people who can't see an animal butchered, it,s not a sight for the faint hearted, even the mutton shop owners do it discreetly. I have to admit i have never seen a religious animal sacrifice so my only exposures to butchery was in my early childhood. Atleast i think is a character building experience slaughtering an animal, firing a gun, getting in fist fights, being beaten to pulp, spending a night in Jail etc etc ... Beaten to pulp or spending night in jail is yet to be done, i missed my chance in the Anna aandolan, and havent been beaten to pulp but yeah have been beaten to a crooked nose.              

Life Is Beautiful

Wow..... 8th July will indeed go down in my history as a historic day, saddest day of my life, can't share it here or with anyone. Blogged so that i remember the date and my feelings. 


The most shocking news come to us unannounced, it not anything like in the movies, there is no heightened emotional impact so to say. It just hits u and u don;t even know what part of it has hit u. You just become numb. 


Life is complicated. I know i m blabbering ..... Don't want to write more..... can hear my mom weeping in the drawing room.  

The Last Samurai 

Let me clear it at the onset, I admire everything about Japan minus sushi, can't think of eating fish raw. I was introduced to japan by the book "The Way Of The Zen", reading about it i came to understand the Zen mind. The bare minimum requirement is a "still" mind which is only achieved by long and conscious effort to tame your mind [every book says thats the toughest thing in the world and hence only a few do it]. But Hinduism and Zen differs post this first step. In our culture once you have achieved stillness of the mind you are expected/encouraged to be religious but in medieval Japan or China this was not the case. Once you achieved stillness of mind you could really do wonders for the society and hence people were free to use this concentration and discipline to achieve goodness in any and everything. Hence you find a lot of titles like "Zen and the art of motorcycle repair" or "Zen and Archery" "Zen Garden" "Zen Painting" etc etc .....

Anyways coming back to the movie Tom Cruise kills a Samurai Warrior in battle and the Samurai lord captures him alive and puts him in captivity to learn the ways of the western warfare [guns and cannons]. Samurai lord puts him in the house of his sister whose husband was killed in battle by Tom Cruise. The way this subplot in the movie is handled really touches my soul. Ofcourse the lady of the house develops a soft corner for this foreigner [movie hai bhai]. But the way this is done totally nails it. There is no romance, but admiration and respect. As a storyteller i am interested in the way romance is tackled on celluloid.

The movie does well to exclude any moment of physical intimacy and that is why it is so great. At emotional level we have all experienced the feeling to extreme care and love for someone and that often is a driving force towards physical intimacy. This might not have a romantic tinge to it, for various reasons. This is the trickiest of all situations and I do intend to touch upon this subject in some of my films. 

Here is a plot . Say, there is lot of affection for a friend, this relationship has reached it's zenith.  Few Subplots will follow this plot line. It has either got to get romantic from here or it will decay. The last sentence has been used and abused by bollywood, the classic tale of best friends becoming soulmates. BUT, say you don't want this person as ur romantic half, for whatever reason, but you don't want the relationship to decay! Subplot 1 : Guy proposes[ i m a guy so my pov], girl disposes, reason "he doesn't, love me, it is just a momentary weakness, i know him well enough for it", here the relationship will fizzle out, because nobody accepts refusal, this subplot can further go on if the girl later sees this decaying and wants the guy back and hence "the three words". But the guy won't agree now, one because of his ego and second because he had long accepted the fate of this relationship and so now this has come too little too late. I hope the same story repeats when the genders are exchanged, meaning the girl uses "the three words" first and the guy denies it. Well ofcourse, different genders will react differently to the refusal.

Subplot 2: Both know this is as far as a platonic relationship will go and hence they need to up the ante, but both are mature enough to understand that the first line of action [forcing love on the other person] will not work. The only other option is a "friends for benefit"scenario but here it becomes tricky too .....how to go about it in a way that nobody gets hurt emotionally, most people will either come out of it as a pervert or easy, depending upon who makes the first move. The easiest scenario is to get drunk and let it happen. But what after this.

Subplot 2a) It can't be a one-time thing, can it truly be no strings attached ? If they haven't put a "label" on it some miscommunication will result vis a vis the possibility of any romantic interest for a 3rd party. This will result in jealousy and heart burn. Hence there will come a time when you will have to nudge yourself to fall in love or it will end, and this time with lot of heart burn and feelings of betrayal. This is the classic case of whoever blinks first loses.  

Subplot 2b) It's not a one time thing but both sides know the traps of 2a and hence they agree to discuss about it. I think this is only possible between same sex couples because a girl will expect the guy to understand it without her having to speak anything on this subject, in most cases she would prefer not to even acknowledge the sex thing in the morning, but that won't work beyond 2-3 times. The guy would want to talk everything about it so that the girl doesn't get any wrong picture and this will be a possible doom, if he does it after the first time.  Even if they do it, the choice of words will make or break the relationship and i m sure lot of people would have been in this scenario. 

So talking about it is too risky. 

2c) The only possible scenario in which this will end happy is either they both genuinely understand that they want each other badly enough and this is what love is [mast filmy happily ever after]. A popular movie plot line example "Friends for Benefit"

2d) The physical distance between them increases, may be a change of city or country, in this way they won't actively witness a third party entering their lives, and, can continue their affection whenever they meet [which will be too infrequent to discuss about] but here too, even if they romantically see a third person the chemistry between the two should remain the same, else it will end. This arrangement can cause some problem if the girl lets her "socially conditioned" mind question the sanctity of sleeping with two guys, loving one and liking the other....

Plot 3: They are in a platonic relationship and refuse to take it further, risking the decay, one person marries or falls for a 3rd person. But since there was no closure in the earlier case it will be an emotional roller-coaster [hum dil de chukay sanam] or the famous plot line of Gunaho k Devta [the most sold hindi novel].

The best thing would be to realize the truth "everything that has a beginning, has an end Neo" but then you won't have a story !!!! 

To tackle all the plot lines together can be achieved in the dramatic premise similar to "he is not that into you" 4 couples etc etc ..... don't know when ...but some day i will tackle this subject.

P.S. I don't proof read before posting a blog, you don't proof read your diary right!... So don't judge me on the form but on the content. 

Filmy Holi

I m high on Holi, always have, always will be. The best holi is ofcourse played in Bihar, or may be i see it that way because i was a kid growing up there. I was allowed to throw colors on strangers (i wasn’t a stranger to them though, it was a small place and everyone knew everybody else). The special festival delicacy is “pua” and with mutton is the best dish out there (may be a close second to satu-paratha with mutton). 

Anyways on this holika dahan i drove up to Pitobash,s apartment and we flagged off our next movie and put words on paper, while returning from his house at around 2am, i clicked few holika’s and drove back home. The day prior to this i had offer from two people to start a company with them. It,s such a disgrace, people want to start a company without first knowing what is exactly their vision for one or where do they want to take it, what will it do. The answers are same, we will do whatever we can lay our hands on, Corporate AVs, TVCs, Films, Music Videos etc etc......anyways unko gyan nahi diya. 

Next day i woke up to a call from Pooja di (a senior in my 5th grade, now married and a mother) to drop-by home, slept again woke up at 12.30 to a call from friends who wanted me at Yari Road asap. We went inside a filmy gathering organized by Zoom TV. The atmosphere was electric, to say the least, almost 50% guys there we topless (all of the modeling variety), girls were dressed for occasion. The gathering was electrified by white wine (my only alcoholic drink) and some kick ass music. Dolly Bindra and Mahajan took double meaning to new heights. Ofcourse everyone kind of knew everyone else so we kept bumping into ppl. I met Vinod Bachan (producer Zila Gaziabad) and he wanted to know what i was doing next [we didn’t meet after i walked out of Zila] he was with some actress. Few TV actors and actresses later, the artificial rain began. Now i m a sucker for rain, i m the guy who took his bike out whenever it rained in Delhi (it is impossible to repeat it in Mumbai). Needless to say i jumped on d floor. Some girl flirted thoda sa; asking if my locks were real (i asked her to see it for herself, she touched my locks) thoda sa aur casual flirt later the rain stopped. I walked at the edge of the venue to see the sea, hoards of commoners playing Holi at Versova beach.... I have to say this, “i will always be a commoner at heart, even there, admist all the glitter i wanted to jump that wall and play holi there”, i think i m a sucker for middle class things !!! 

Anyways, danced the entire afternoon, put strangers in mud, took photographs. Last 30 minutes were super intense with artificial rain pouring cats and dog, finally it was over. The entire street was packed by vehicles getting out of the venue, I enjoyed my moment under the sun, with curls like mine i was walking undertaker (the WWF wrestler) and Everyone turned and looked till i entered my car and zoomed away. 

Evening was spent with Arunaab whose video (the spoof of MTV Roadies) has gone viral and he is flooded by calls from MTV, V, UTV Bindas and the likes.... We shared lunch, evening tea plus 8pm coffee (neither of us drink). We did talk a lot about future planning for his firm and where he wants to take it, the challenges outsiders face here and how Anurag, Imtiaz and Tigmanshu have tackled it. Finally it was time to go home.

What good would a Holi be if it didn’t end with a romantic dinner, so, had dinner, went to this new, unfurnished flat and called it a night early, she had office the next morning.   

P.S. As a result of me getting drenched my phone is gone so are the photographs....

2012

For me each year gets better than the last so has been the story of my life post 2008. 2009 i was in LA, long had i wanted to had my passport stamped and how !!! 2010 i did manage to direct my first feature length film and boy 2011 released it. 2012 is here and i am excited. I am happy, I like that women in The Network (Director Sidney Lumet), when my professional life is good i am feeling great. So 2011 was great ofcourse it had its low points but you don't remember the mundane stuff. 2011 was the year i was mentioned in national newpapers. As a boy preparing for IIT that was one of the dreams. 2012 is the time i want to roll in money and no i m not selling out. I wont compromise on my work. I just have to Direct 6 TVCs thats all or earn 30 lakhs (minus taxes) whatever happens. Along the way i have to Direct my 6 short films finish a screenplay and HOPEFULLY a novel that is inside me. Plus this will be the year when i will start my 2nd movie No Love Lost. This is a minimum wishlist for 2012.

So start a movie
30 lakhs and or 6 TVCs
Finish all pending work vis a vis short films.