“WHAT THE F*$#%?” : EK KAUWE NE KK KO KHAAYA… !!

A very dear friend of mine who has this rather strange predilection of watching pretty much every Bollywood movie that releases and then bitching about them often asks me the same question – Why the f*$#% did someone invest so many crores into this shit? Interesting question which unfortunately throws up endless related questions of the same ilk… 

Paise ko paani ki tarah bahaana is fine but sinking 100 crores into a movie about a geographically challenged ship going from London to India that somehow manages to sink in the Bahamas? Why couldn’t they just shoot one song with Lara in a bikini and be done with it? 

And surely only a glutton for punishment would sacrifice 40+ crores in a movie about a widow who takes the idea of loving her spouse to death a tad too seriously - actually 7 times too seriously. (you’d think she’d have learnt her lesson the 3^rd time around – masochist) 

And what forecast was the dude following, who sank 50 odd crores into a tale of a couple who met, parted, met again, parted again and so on through two more tortuous seasons. One probably needed a totally different MET department just to keep track of their comings and goings. Sheesh! And couldn’t they just take a hint – every time they met and cootchie cooed, catastrophe followed. If any Ms. India’s were serious about world peace they’d just take a gun and pop off this calamitous couple. Or better still maybe they should have just gotten the dude to hook up with the widow from the previous mentioned disaster. (BTW didn’t that happen in real life?) 

Anyway point being that producers follow a thought process that’s completely beyond the ken of normal mortals (meaning individuals who possess at least 1gm of common sense). Why they would opt for a 50 crore loss over a 5 crore profit is a mystery that must rank as high as the Bermuda Triangle or the optimism of flop actors who turn producers, cast themselves in the leads and imagine that the same audiences who till now were barfing at the sound of their names would now get super excited and cause maxi riots at the multiplexes. Yes Zayed, Amisha, Sushmita, Lara, Himesh et al, the only reason we never went to watch your movies is cause the produced by credit went to some dimwit loser instead of you… 

So while I have no insight as to what is the Eureka moment for these esteemed folks who make it possible for gems like Drona, Tees Maar Khan, Prince – It’s Showtime, etc to inflict themselves on the masses, I have had some absolutely WTF encounters with them that I must share… 

The first story is really short – but in terms of WTFness it’s right up there with the likes of Dolly Bindra and Pooja Missra becoming topics of conversation.  

I had essentially gone to pitch my kids film to this fledgling production house. But I never got to even doing an elevator pitch cause in the first five minutes the lady I met said something that had my head spinning faster than an Egyptian belly dancer’s navel ring.  

She insisted that before I said anything I needed to hear their company’s strategy – one that was radically different from that of every other studio and production house. I was fairly impressed by this, so I shut up and listened. And I suggest you do too cause these are truly golden words… 

“We’re only going to make films that make money.” 

I nearly fell off my chair. The simplicity of it, the sheer genius – they had stumbled onto something that even Spielberg and Lucas had probably never contemplated. Only making films that made money – what a winning idea!!! And here the rest of the industry in their stupidity and ignorance were only going about making films that lost them money. 

Wait a minute – Drona, Tees Maar Khan, Prince – It’s Showtime, Mausam, Blue, Saat Khoon - damn it the woman was right – they were the only production house that was clear that they would only make films that made money. Which could be the reason why till this day (3 years after my life changing meeting with them), they still haven’t made a single film… but that’s not the point. 

Anyway coming to my second story. This was with one of the biggies, one of the largest and most prolific studios in the country. And my meeting was with a fairly senior guy and had been arranged by a well known writer and director. Nevertheless having tried to peddle my sub 2 crore price tagged film for over 6 months now with absolutely no success, I wasn’t very optimistic. 

However everything changed within the first ten minutes of our chat. It so happened that the previous Friday three films had released – Phoonk, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam and Mumbai meri Jaan. And as it turned out Phoonk rocked the box office and the other two pretty much died. 

This phenomena became the topic of conversation for the first 27 minutes of our meeting. The man with the money found it super amusing that a film that was marketed around a crow had drawn more crowds than KK or Mallika or Paresh. 

“Ek Kauwe ne KK ko khaaya.” 

This was his repeated refrain. I mean he must have said it at least 21 times. And of course he went on and on about how this was a 3 crore film and the others were all close to 9 or 10 and how this was smart film making and marketing and this was how business should be done. 

By now I was dancing on the ceiling. If this was how he thought, if this was what gave him the jollies, in another ten minutes I would have my contract and signing amount.  

Or so I thought… 

When finally we had finished with the Kauwa and its dining habits he asked me about my project. And with full gusto I launched into my narration, prefacing it with how this was a kids film and it would cost less than 2 crores, thinking that I had just played my ace. 

That was as far as I’d got. Said head honcho stopped my narration saying – “We don’t want to make small films, 2 crores and all no way!” 

WHAT THE F*$#%? What about the Kauwa and KK and… 

I do remember wishing as I left that I could summon the same Kauwa and have him feast on this man’s brains. But consider the guy’s statements and thought processes, poor crow would have probably starved… 

I’m not going to say which studio it was. But here’s a clue. They produced one of the masterpieces I talked about at the beginning of this piece… J  

‘Nuff said.

Anand Sivakumaran

Rangmunch.TV

“WHAT THE F*$#%?” : I LIKE FISH!!

Anand Sivakumaran

Pop Quiz. A super baddie and three menacing minions charge into your home and start shooting at you and your wife. Since you’re quite satisfied with your current model of spouse and are currently not looking at any exchange scheme saving her is a priority. And since suicide is not on your to do list this week, saving yourself would also be a good idea.

So what’s the first thing you’d do –

1. Get the missus to a spot of comparative safety?
2. Pull out your own gun and start firing back?
3. Wave a white flag and plead for mercy?

Phooey. The first thing any true blue hero would do is pick up his glares lying on the table and wear them. How can he possibly do any daredevil, death defying, world saving action stunts WITHOUT HIS GLARES?

Am I kidding or what? Just telling you exactly what happens in a major action scene in a super huge budget action spectacular film made in Bollywood a couple of years ago!!!

“WHAT THE F*$#%?”

My reaction exactly!

Ok forget the movies. There’s a lot of nonsense in them anyway. Try this.

Autorickshaw drivers go on strike to protest against the fact that traffic cops are catching and fining them for having faulty meters – after all it’s their janam siddha adhikar to luto the public!!!

“WHAT THE F*$#%?”

Well ain’t that what happened in Mumbai city a coupla weeks ago?

Point being, be it in the movies or in real life, so many things make us go WHAT THE F*$#%?”

This column is a kind of journal of my WTF experiences in the course of working in the TV and film industry over the last decade. All of what follows is true, and if any of those mentioned in these anecdotes are reading, well you know who you are and since I haven’t mentioned names, you can’t sue me, so GOTCHA SUCKERS!!!

  

I LIKE FISH!

Since way too many words have been expended in just explaining the idea of this column to you, my first story is going to be a tad short. But what the hell it’s a doozy and should set the bar for what’s to come.

So let’s flashback to a time when I was still a newbie in the industry, had been around for about a couple of years and had just come on to writing a thriller show for leading channel. This was my first meeting with the channel person on that show, a sweet young gal with a generous heart full of compassion and sensitivity, which was exactly what would lead to my WTF moment…

But let’s not jump the gun. Before the WTF moment there was a good 30 minute narration of my tense and taut screenplay about a psycho terrorist who kidnaps a scientist so as to get him to make a deadly toxin with which to decimate the population of… YAWN, let’s just fast forward to the moment in question.

So anyway the deadly toxin has been created and the terrorist being a dude with severe trust issues thanks to a traumatic childhood (ok, that’s another story) wants to test the toxin. And I’d written a cheap and cheerful scene where the baddie puts the toxin into an aquarium, the fish die and the audience (hopefully) would be horrorstruck at the prospect of what would happen if the toxin were released amongst humanity.

This is the moment where the meeting went to the dogs. Or actually didn’t cause the channel lady liked dogs. Wait, I’m again jumping. So I narrated my aquarium moment and suddenly the channel lady stopped me and said “There’s a problem.”

Any of you who’ve attended meetings with TV channels or movie producers (essentially anyone who gets to decide if you eat Shahi Kofta the next day or scrabble for scraps with stray dogs) know that these three words spell doom and damnation. There was tension in the room, the production house folks were suddenly looking at me as if I was the guy who’d murdered their parents and fornicated with their goats and my writing future was looking bleaker than Manmohan Singh’s chances of another term as PM.

There was no easy way out. So I opened my trap and asked, “What’s the problem.” That’s when the immortal words that shall always be burned in my consciousness were uttered by Channel Lady with sensitivity and compassion

“I LIKE FISH!”

Pin drop silence. Maybe no one spoke cause they were wondering if she was suddenly talking about what the main course at lunch should be. Or maybe they were just following Rule Number 1 when dealing with the Deciders of tomorrow’s Dinner – Don’t talk, Just listen.

But then I’ve never been good with rules. So again I spoke out of turn, “Sorry, I didn’t quite get you.” Then came the illumination which pretty much put all my lights out.

“I like fish. I don’t want fish to be killed.”

More silence. My mind was still grappling with myriad thoughts and possibilities. Maybe the poor girl thought that the Production House, bunch of heartless bastards would slaughter real fish to make the shot look good. So I quickly spoke again, making a total and through ass of myself and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t actually hurt any fish.”

“That’s not the point. I like fish, I don’t want to even show them being hurt.”

Fait accompli. From the looks I was getting, it seemed pretty clear that forget pomfret I wouldn’t be getting to even eat pau wada if I didn’t save my script soon. Aunty was all set to junk the entire episode and if that happened production house would junk me.

I tried another gambit. “So if you like fish, you probably like dogs so we can’t have them being killed right?” The lady with the soft hearted glared at me as if I was dog doo. “I love dogs.”

Two strikes. Last chance else bye bye career. I grabbed at straws. “Do you like people?”.

She glared. “What?”

I quickly clarified, “I mean, what if the terrorist makes one of his guys breathe the toxin, and that guy dies.”

What follows is a Mother Teresa moment. “That’s lovely. We can show him choking and suffering and dying horribly. Superb.”

The production house people beamed. Channel lady was happy. I wasn’t going to be thrown out of the fourth floor. But all I could think was

WHAT THE F*$#%?”

Anand Sivakumaran

Rangmunch.TV

Rangmunch.TV welcomes Anand Sivakumaran ON BOARD!

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Anand Sivakumaran really does not need any formal introduction because his work speaks for who he is and what he stands for. However, it is an honour and priviledge for Rangmunch.TV, to talk about this Writer and Director of Mumbai’s Television and Film Industry.

What is the first thing that crosses your mind when you hear about a person who is a Chemical Engineer from IIT? With due respect, I will tell you what comes to my mind when I hear about an IITian. He is definitely going to be intelligent (obvious isn’t it?), will be working in a Corporate Firm at a Senior Management position, earning a handsome package per annum, probably not very talkative and definitely not Creative.

But when Niharika and I met Mr. Anand Sivakumaran in Bombay, he pleasantly surprised me. He was just the opposite of what I had in mind except for the fact that he is extremely intelligent. He is a superb conversationalist with a witty sense of humour and sarcasm. He gripped my attention from the word GO and I was amazed at his straight forwardness. He is a Creative genius and knows the nitty gritties of the Television and Film Industry like the back of his hand. As we spoke, I also realized that he is a man who has immense confidence & self belief and readily takes risks in life, orelse he would not have chosen the media industry as a profession which is not only opposite to what he has studied but is highly unpredictable too.

Anand has done a considerable amount of work on Indian television and has written shows like Miley Jab Hum Tum, Jab Love Hua, Shakira, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, Lucky, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan. He has been Executive Creative Director of Rose Audio Visuals. He was a writer and Associate Director on an episode of Rishtey - Izzat Ka Falooda that won the ITA award for best Mini Series. His film (Dreamers a 32 minutes short film on which he was the Screenplay writer) won accolades at festivals abroad. Before entering the Entertainment Industry, he also tried his hands at Advertising, Journalism and Event Management.

Currently Mr. Sivakumaran is all set to make his Bollywood Directorial debut with MONEY DEVO BHAVA - an edgy, topical youth movie about greed and consumerism and how it drives college kids to amoral activities.

Rangmunch.TV, is extremely happy to announce that going forward Anand will write weekly columns for our readers. The articles will be driven by his real life experiences that he has encountered during his journey in the industry. He is a man who does not mince his words and calls a spade “A SPADE.” So all you people out there who always wanted to read and know about the inside stories of the Entertainment World, do look forward to Anand’s write-ups. We assure you that every article will be a "Reader’s Delight."

We welcome Mr. Anand Sivakumaran ON BOARD, and are eagerly looking forward to start this column on our very own blog. 

Swati Ghosh

Rangmunch.TV