Tinsel

by Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran

  Section 302 in the Indian Penal Code was “Death by Hanging”. Ali wanted to source out all the criminals in India since Independence, to have been awarded the death sentence and re-create their stories on television.

  The concept appealed to all three of them. And more than the concept, they were impressed by the intensity and passion of the young writer. Ali had written and directed some documentaries and theatrical plays, but nothing on a mass media canvas. Yet his only condition was that he would be the one to direct the series.

  Ali and Ballu conferred with a local production manager and worked out the budget. The series needed a lot more outdoor shooting than your average daily soaps so the costing was 20% higher. But for the pilot episode, Ballu managed to convince most of the artists, support staff and equipment suppliers to work at rock bottom prices with a promise of regular work when the show was approved.

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  Ali was very meticulous. A week of outdoor shooting was extended to 10 days. Another week for post-production and background score and the 23 minute pilot episode was ready.

  Taking no chances, they took another week to create an impressive title and opening montage.

  The first episode was based on the story of Shaman Raghu, India’s first ever serial killer who was notorious for having sex with women after he had killed them.

  The names of the characters were changed to avoid legal issues and a disclaimer was added in the beginning which absolved the producers and the broadcaster of any legal action.

  Ali had used his contacts in the theatre industry to cast some great, but unknown actors who gave incredibly realistic performances. The editing was taut, the camera angles were creative and the background score by a young debutant composer was downright scary.

  Everybody who saw the first episode of Section 302 was blown away … except the Executive Producers of the channel.

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  They demanded an established Bollywood Star in every episode and felt that the lighting was too dark. Ali tried to explain that most actors were playing real life roles of normal people and having a Star would only add pre-conceived image to the roles.

  He also tried to argue that since most of the action was in the night, lighting had to be the way it was.

  The EPs did not agree and they called the shots. They were not interested in the creative integrity of the show; they were interested in the clarity of vision.

  In the end a compromise was forged. ZMI agreed to have a Star as a common narrator for all the episodes and also agreed to reshoot with better lighting.

  The pilot was reshot and presented. This time the EPs approved it reluctantly after suggesting a few minor modifications.

  The pilot was then sent to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry at Mandi House in New Delhi for approval. This was not a big

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  issue because the channel had agents there whose primary job was to keep the palms of the ministry officials well and truly greased and slip the serials through.

  The series was approved and slotted at the 11:00 pm slot as the content was deemed too violent for kids.

  Thus ZMI’s first television series was launched.

  The series received a lot of critical acclaim but not too many eyeballs because of its late night scheduling. Also most of the competing channels were airing adult sitcoms at that time and the tired Indian viewer preferred light-hearted double entendres to hard core reality.

  The show was reasonably popular and ran for 13 episodes, after which the channel succumbed to “me too” pressure and replaced it with an adult sitcom.

  But the show won a lot of awards and established ZMI as a production house of high standard.

  The critical acclaim that Section 302 gathered opened a lot of doors for ZMI. But not to be typecast as hard hitting, reality show producer, ZMI looked for compelling scripts in different genres.

  Among the scripts that they shortlisted for pilot making was a political sitcom called “M. K. Gandhi” which chronicled an exaggerated and hilarious story of a young idealist, Makrand Kesubhai Gandhi, who aims to change the face of Indian politics and steer India out of nepotism, red tapism and corruption that was rampant in the system but ends up getting embroiled in them.

  Another was a daily soap called “Kaanch ke Rishte”, an emotional tear jerker about a North Indian joint family.

  The third one was a crime thriller called “Crime Beat” which was a fast paced crime thriller with a dynamic criminal lawyer and his team of private

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  detectives, who manage to solve cases that had hoodwinked the police.

  All three were directed by young National Film School graduates who were willing to put their heart and soul into the projects to cut out a reputation for them.

  All three were approved, albeit the name of the sitcom “M. K. Gandhi” had to be changed to “Netagiri” to avoid legal issues.

  Suddenly, ZMI was producing three different serials for three different broadcasters and had become a serious player in the Indian television software production industry.

  With the rising reputation, interference from the channel EPs also reduced and they had greater freedom to execute their work.

  But, just like success has many fathers, it also created many enemies. ZMI’s rising clout was not taken too kindly by competing players, many of whom had ties with the underworld.

  Roy, Chika and Ballu started getting threatening calls asking them to stick to their editing business and get out of production.

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  They ignored the calls till one day three men barged into their office waving country made revolvers and fired a few shots in the air and shouted threats.

  Roy was in the cabin when it happened, but before he could realize what was happening and come out, the men had disappeared.

  It was an escapade that lasted for only a couple of minutes, but it scared the hell out of the employees and some clients who were present in the editing suites.

  The event galvanized Chika into action. He spoke to Sailesh Shetty, a notorious gangster from his community who controlled the far western suburbs of Bombay, to solve the matter.

  Sailesh Anna immediately made a few calls and sent out the message that ZMI was in his protection and not to be touched.

  A week later Chika and Roy drove down to Sailesh Anna’s sprawling fortress of a house in Dahisar and gave him a box of sweets as a token of gratitude.

  In the box was Rs 10 lakh in cash.

  The calls stopped and it was business as usual at ZMI for a while. Then one night, Ballu’s vagrancies came back to haunt them.

  One of Ballu’s girls, Laila, a twenty year old aspiring starlet from Agra, was found dead in the hotel in Dahisar, where she was to entertain the account manager of a leading broadcaster that night.

  Laila was found strangled in the room by the hotel staff, early in the morning. What was worse was that the room was ‘unofficially’ booked in ZMI’s name by Ballu.

  Chika got a call from one of his cop friends and he immediately called for an emergency management meeting at the Garage.

  Roy and Chika were fresh but Ballu was bleary eyed and badly hung over. He explained that the room and the girl were for the account manager of a leading broadcaster, Mr Umesh Kulkarni.

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  ZMI had over 15 lakhs outstanding with the channel, and Umesh was creating road blocks in the process of issuance of their cheques.

  As usual Ballu had sought the carnal route to clearing the road blocks.

  He immediately called Umesh, who was fast asleep in his house. Umesh explained that he was given last minute urgent work by the CEO of the channel which had to be completed overnight and sent to the company headquarters in Canada.

  He claimed that he was working till 3:00 am and had missed his date with Laila. He also told Ballu that he had tried calling him many times on his home number, and had left a message o
n his answering machine. His story checked out because Ballu was gallivanting all night with a South Indian actress and reached home with the milkman.

  Barely had he finished the conversation and the cops walked in.

  The case was being investigated by a Crime Branch Senior Inspector Yashwant Raikar.

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  Medium height, thickset, dark, with a marginal belly and a thick moustache, Raikar who was in his early forties looked exactly what he was. A street smart and extremely corrupt police officer.

  Raikar questioned the trio. Roy and Chika had spent the night at their respective homes and thus had watertight alibis. Ballu, on the other hand, did not and was arrested on suspicion.

  On the way out, Raikar collected Rs 20,000 from Chika for not using the third degree on Ballu and for not opposing his bail plea.

  As soon as they left, Roy called up their lawyer and explained the situation to him and asked him to prepare the bail papers and get the magistrate to sign them. He was also told to collect Rs 10,000 from the cashier to grease the palm of the magistrate.

  In the meanwhile, Chika called up Ram Shastri, the innocuous looking private investigator that ZMI had on its rolls and asked him to do an independent investigation of the murder.

  Ballu was released on bail the next day and a week later, the case against him was dropped as the actress he was with stood by his story.

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  Raikar demanded Rs 5 lakh more to hush up the matter that the room was unofficially booked by ZMI.

  Chika negotiated with him and brought it down to Rs 1 lakh and it was paid to him. The page of the hotel manager’s personal diary where he made unofficial bookings was torn off and destroyed. The investigation into Laila’s murder was not going anywhere. Raikar interrogated the staff of the hotel and had his forensics team comb the room for fingerprints. There were no finger prints to be found and the rain had washed away all the tracks outside.

  No clue was found. It seemed that Laila had checked into the room at around 10:00 pm and had not ordered any room service. Nobody was seen entering or leaving her room. Only matter of intrigue was that the post mortem report said that Laila was four weeks pregnant at the time of her death. Still, after 3 months of futile investigation, the case was closed as “unsolved”.

  A week before the case was closed, Ram Shastri, submitted an envelope and a package to Chika. Chika looked at the photographs in the packet

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  and read the two page handwritten report intently.

  He looked into the private investigator’s eyes. “I trust this is the only copy? And the negatives?”

  “Yes Sir,” replied Shastri and handed over another ochre envelope, which had the negatives.

  Chika took the packages and kept it in his cupboard. From the cupboard he also took out a wad of hundred 500 rupee notes and gave it to Shastri.

  “This never happened,” he said softly but sternly.

  Meanwhile, at the home front, Roy and Rita had their hands full. Zasha was growing up fast into a pampered and spoilt little girl.

  As soon as she turned two and a half, Rita enthusiastically admitted her to a nearby play pre-school centre. She thought that being with other kids her own age would be a good experience for Zasha.

  But Zasha hated it. She would wail incessantly, create tantrums and beat up other toddlers forcing the hapless teachers to call Rita and let her take Zasha home.

  When Zasha did not settle down even after two weeks, Rita took an appointment with a child therapist to understand her behaviour.

  Roy and Rita met Dr Chitra Mukherjee and had a long chat with her. Dr Mukherjee also had a one-on-one with Zasha in her special room full of toys and goodies.

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  It was quid pro quo. Zasha came out smiling carrying with her a teddy bear and a box of her favourite chocolates and Dr Mukherjee got the answers to most of her questions that she asked Zasha, in her own playful way.

  Dr Mukherjee, allayed Rita’s fears and told them that Zasha was more intelligent than the normal kids and hence more aware of the surroundings. This made her more possessive of Rita.

  She recommended home schooling for Zasha till she was four years old by which time, the therapist felt that Zasha would be ready to socialise and make friends.

  Rita had teaching in her blood and was up to the task with a little help from her faithful maid Shobha.

  Chika was Zasha’s Godfather and immensely attached to her. He and Rita were the prime culprits behind pampering her. He would visit her every second day and spoil her silly with gifts and chocolates.

  He was pushing 33 and under tremendous pressure from his parents to get settled with a fat

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  ‘Bunt’ girl who would bring along with her an equally obese dowry. But Chika had somehow managed to dodge the issue.

  In fact, he had just finished a conversation about the issue with his mom when the phone in the cabin rang.

  The call was from Mr Shekhar Saxena, the production head of OPR Productions.

  OPR Productions was owned by Mr O. P. Rajan, an NRI producer who had made a few fairly successful Hollywood ‘B’ Grade films.

  He had recently launched his ambitious, big budget, multi-lingual mytho-historical film Vikramaditya. The script was tailor-made for Special FX of the highest calibre and they wanted to rope in the only studio with the prowess to accomplish that in India.

  Shekhar and the young director of the film, Karan Rajan (Mr O. P. Rajan’s nephew), visited ZMI and met with Chika and Ballu.

  The script was discussed in detail and costs were negotiated. The film was expected to be funded by a big Hollywood Studio along with rich NRI investors.

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  A relatively unknown actor Raghuvendra Pandey an ex-Mr India winner was cast in the lead role, and his name was swiftly changed to Vikram as his original name was not found to be starry enough.

  The production team had shot some important scenes and the first job that ZMI had to do was create an impactful one minute trailer.

  The trailer would be the first look of the forthcoming blockbuster and would be used as part of the presentation to the overseas investors and distributors. The idea was to present Vikramaditya as the most ambitious and biggest film to be ever made in India.

  Though it was only a one minute trailer, the work involved was tremendous. It involved creating 3D titling, creation of montage, background score, dubbing and Special FX that would do justice to the huge canvas of the film.

  Shekhar Saxena would visit ZMI every day to oversee the progress. The fact that he himself lived in Chembur made it convenient for him.

  The project completely consumed ZMI’s resources and, after 2 months of hectic work, the first cut of the trailer was ready.

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  Mr O. P. Rajan himself visited ZMI to watch it and was mighty impressed with the output. He suggested a few modifications, which were thrashed out with Karan and the final trailer was ready in a week’s time.

  OPR threw a grand party at Hotel Taj Mahal, Bombay to showcase the first look of his magnum opus.

  The who’s who of the Hindi Film Industry was invited and a special screen and Dolby sound system was set up at the Taj Ball Room.