That day we went to the city

The night before the trip I was seriously inconvenienced during my sleeping period by several mosquitoes making a feast of my blood and their home in my room. At about 5:45 I devised a solution, wrapping the thin bed linen tight around my body like a caterpillar, which finally allowed a few hours of sleep. This was a rather insufficient amount of time.

On coming to, I felt how one mosquito had had the audacity to sting me on the lower lip, grim tidings for the day to come?

I crawled on to the bus and found a nice seat at the back. It wasn’t long till I was merrily drifting in and out of sleep. I remember only a series of sounds and visions: the smell of Timian, the color purple, a side walk in Lithuania. During this time I also found myself in a vast field of cacti expanding seemingly endless in all directions. Needless to say I was puzzled by this. Narendra Modi, God and two other women where there. They were picnicking in a small clearing in the field and had only just sad down, after playing a fun, but somewhat exhausting, game of Croquet. Modi was laying with his head in gods lap, as god was petting his beard he purred like a cat.

When the bus stopped at majestic, we took autos to the offices of M.Bhaktavasala in Gandhi nagar. He was situated in an office of small to medium size. His office desk featured a buzzer with which he could call to his assistance an older gentleman. He would frequently do so, often regarding the location of various articles. He spoke at length about topics including; the role of song and dance in Indian cinema and the intricacies of the geographic sub-divisions of cinema in the subcontinent.

The wall behind him featured, among other paraphernalia, a large collection of books. I remember among them; Winston Churchill, Alexander Dumas, Dickens and a book on Hitchcock written by Francois Truffaut, the title was; “Hitchcock”, of whom I just now seem to recall haven it written on his Gravestone: “-Thus for naughty little boys..”. For lunch I had butter chicken.

O - 6th Feb 2014- Interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOF_4uhk8fY&feature=youtu.be

6th Feb 2014

It seemed Gandhinagar had changed over the week. Gandhinagar still looked like the last time, but the numbers of posters had increased. We walked on the opposite lane this time. Our eyes followed the bundles of paper [which turned out to be poster prints]folded and carried by young men on their shoulder, and following them we were led to many distribution offices. At one point, we were surprised to find a small sheltered lane filled with three distribution offices, and a place where ticket printing and numbering was being done.

Shrinivasa Murthy Bhat, was a 60 year old young man we first met. He was the owner of 

Shri Jaya Durga Movies. He has been a part of film industry for about 35 yrs. He had, small little rooms filled with Film reels and posters stuck all over the walls. I still remember the old yellow walls with the texture of age painted by time. Bits of old torn posters seemed like the walls were bruised all over, and the new posters were like bandages for covering these wounds. He was a distributor, and we had a nice time knowing him in person.

The street posters had the film we were about to watch ‘Brahma,’ as well as another film which I wish I could have remembered. So the other poster was a little scary with this woman who had masculine features and was too revealing. The poster haunted us for about half an hour until when we entered the lane I last mentioned. There people guided me to this man. I began questioning him about Cinema when suddenly in a very relaxed tone he pointed towards the same poster claiming to have directed its film. Having been in Gandhinagar for 3 times now, I well controlled my anxiety. I questioned asking him about the story writer and he claimed it was his, yet without any hint of exaggeration or pride. I was very glad to having met a story writer. Soon someone pointed out to the scary women in the poster and told me that the acting too was done by this Producer cum Director. I wish I could remember what his expression was, I think it was humility. I froze, not for having met an actor, or the producer cum director of a film, but by seeing how Bangalore just like Mumbai had become a city for people’s dreams.  He had always been the villain, and even here in his 1^st own film he again played a villain, but I saw the contrary in his eyes; he was the lead actor claimed by the ambition he held in his heart. He anxiously was waiting for the day to pass and to get the audience response for his film, it was a Thursday. He had built courage and his friends too supported him for this 1^st project of his, but his fate and finance are balancing on a single thread. He dared to dream, but the audience had the power, would he or would he not fly? That is the paradox of film industry, where success is to make a mark, if your film is spoken about in passing after a year of its release you certainly made a mark.

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