0:0 PM – Part II
I contacted my friend Smita Kapoor, and asked her if her parents can help me visit a morgue. Her both parents being Docs helped me to see the morgue for the first time in life. I was put on to another Forensic Doctor Mr. Bangal. He actually took me to see the morgue at the JJ Hospital mortuary. The moment I saw the place I fell in love with it. Architecturally it was the place, as I had already started doing the shot division in mind. I told Ramani my DOP that “Boss, isse achcha murda ghar apne film ke liye mil hi nahi sakta”. This is the same place that I met Mohan the autopsy worker who actually helped me gain insight into their lives. He has been one for the last thirty years. Since there was only one morgue in Bombay at one point of time, I asked him,” Mohan ek dinmein kitna body khola hoga apne” to which he replied, “savere se leke raat ke do/dhai baje tak maine ek din mein lag bhag chalis body khola hai”. I was numb I left. The next move was to meet the dean for permission to shoot in the morgue. He was shocked, he even tried to do my psychoanalysis by asking me questions like if I was ok, that I wanted to put a movie camera inside a working morgue and use it as a location for my film? At first, he flatly refused. However, the location was such that I was head bent, I begged, I pleaded but the doctor couldn’t listen. Though my film was more important than the location, I side by side also started looking for other morgues. My dad had a friend working at the Shivaji Medical Hospital in Kalva. I approached him along with my dad. He in turn put me through another forensic doctor Mr. More. This was one guy who really motivated me, as he was happy to see someone even have thought of making a film on his people. Then followed a series of visits to his hospital. He tried to put me through the HOD of the forensic department. He too was cool with me shooting at their morgue. Then followed the number of visits I had to make to put in an application to the dean. She took two weeks, once I went to meet her, but she had already left. Somehow, the meeting happened and she told me that she would have to take the permission from the corporation biggies as the hospital falls in their jurisdiction. That took another two weeks of waiting, only to realize that I cannot shoot in their morgue. However, she did give me the liberty to approach the Dy. secretary at the thane municipal corporation. I did, and when I reached there, I realized that he was in the middle of the session and can come any moment. I remember standing outside his cabin to close to five hours; I did not want to give up. Finally, I met him, but he too refused. The only best thing that happened during this one-month or so was that Dr. More did take Ramani and me my cameraman to witness a postmortem. I just wanted to observe as to how this people work, what are the expressions like on their face when they are actually cutting a fellow human being open? The first memory is of, one PM servant pushing it on other, saying he will give him a bottle. I checked with Dr. More, he told me about the politics that go between these guys. Just because he wants to avoid doing it himself, he will bribe him with a twenty. Thirty rupees worth country liquor. Cut to – Me and Ramani are inside, there is this corpse. A 32/33-year-old guy, who had committed suicide by hanging himself, The proceduce begins, he first takes the knife, and cuts the head open, the skin form the face crumples down thus disfiguring his entire look. Dr. More is still guiding him. Then he take a ex saw blade, the same one which u will get to see in my film, then he cuts the scalp, takes a knife and a wooden log, hits it and opens the entirely, I see the brain. Then he takes another knife and cuts the brain from its joint inside the head. Then he puts the brain on the table and like a plump cake cuts it into six, seven pieces, the doctor tells me, “Boss, this is to see if there was a brain hamerrhaeoge”. I say ’nice, nice”. The procedure continues, and then he cuts the torso right from the throat till his lower abdomen. I see the ribs and the muscles of a human being. Both Ramani and me are holding the fort without getting affected. Cut to – He takes the same knife and inserts in front of the collarbone, takes the wooden log and starts hitting it. I see the bone is being cut. Next, he repeats the same procedure from the other collarbone and removes a U shaped portion of the cut ribs and muscles, he casually throws it on the corpses thighs. Then he again takes the knife and cuts something below the windpipe. The doctor is very much observing everything. The he puts his hand inside the throat, holds it and removes everything that is inside a human being. The PM servant is still holding it in his hands. Dr. More then tells him to bring it close to me and Ramani and asks me, ”surya, pehchan yeh kya hai”, I look at Ramani, neither of us can recognize what that part of soft flesh it. We give up he say,” kya yaar, itna bhi nahi pehchan sakta hai, its the tongue” directly attached to the windpipe, lungs, intestine, heart, liver, abdomen, kidneys and whatever that is a human being is made of. I just feel like telling him, “insaan ke andar hota, jaise mere andar hain aur pehchanne bolta toh jaroor pehchanta”. Turn by turn he cuts the kidneys, liver, even heart, he showed us everything. We had seen enough, but the parting shot was yet to come. The PM servant took all the parts on the body weighed some and came back again near the corpse, then the doctor tells him, “ek kaam kar, iska pet faad” (cut his stomach) he obeys and cuts the mans stomach. Some liquid falls out, along with some undigested rice. It’s a very yucky sight. Then the doctor asks him to smell the stomach that he has just cut. I couldn’t believe my ears. He again tells him, “Smell it”. The PM servant through his mask and glasses embarrassingly looks at me lifts the stomach and smells it. This was it… I have got goose pimples even now while I write this post. Both me and Ramani were speechless. At the same time, my determination in making this film possible further strengthens. I told to myself, now come what may, I will make a film on this guys and now nothing can stop me. Cut to – Dr. More asks him, ” Does he smell of alcohol”, the PM servant just replies “no” by shaking his head. Its close to 20/25minutes, the entire PM procedure is over. The doctor tells him, “chal ho gaya, band kar”. Now what the guy does is, takes all that he has removed and puts it inside the stomach all together, including the tongue. The brain went, where it belonged. Then he put some cotton over it, put back the U shape that he had cut from the Ribs and collarbone, again laid a thick layer of cotton on it, and was supposed to sew it back. The same was supposed to happen with the brain. As we left the room as he was about to stitch the corpse. Dr. More probably realized and noticed that we were quiet. He told us, “Boss, yeh sab bhi karna padta hai kabhi, kabhi. Kya karein apna kaam hi aisa hain” ( I wanted to give him a hug and tell him boss hats off to you guys, but I was just not in my senses) as we left home.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Bloody Brilliant, Mr. Surendra Hiwarale.
oh i forgot to mention, a year ago in UK there was a reality program called Autopsy and the guy used to do a post-mortem live.. in front of the audience and was telecasted live! it was, erm, well sick.
So by any chance your film shows, erm, the guy doing post-mortem or is just about his…..?
Hi Surya, I am writing a script that has a lot set in a morgue and your post is like God sent. Can I see the short and also are there any pictures of the morgue that you can share? Thanks
goddamn… i’m gonna get working on that clip from 00pm ASAP!
Hey Vasu,
I would have loved to help you as much i could, but unfortunately my still photographer friend who had promised to come and click the stills for free ditched me the last minute, as a result i could not click a single picture inside the morgue or for that matter the next day. I too am working on a feature length script on PM servants. I will direct it myself…
HG – NO it doesnt contain anything related to the process of actual post mortem. I wanted to avoid showing it directly as it would have diverted the audience and me from the objective i was set to make the filmfor.
Durgesh – Thanks bro…
!!!! After reading these two posts, I cannot wait to see this film!!! Thank you again for another great one!
= STRIKER x( How’s the video upload progressing? [-o<
Hey t! – Striker is working hard on uploading some parts of my film on the net. lets wait for him until he does so soon. I know fr sure that he was desperately trying to do so, but there were some problems with thesoftware that he was experientng with for uploading the film. Its goona e re soon bro.
From strikers post on “Size does’nt matter” – http://www.upperstall.com/00pm.html
guys, the 0:0PM trailer has been successfully uploaded at the following link. PLEASE NOTE THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT OF CUTTING OPEN A DEAD BODY!! VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWTDd1BVn3Y
surya,
just happen to see the trailor of your short film..thanks to striker..
from the look of the trailor, the film seems to be very real and hard hitting..the characters too look believable..and i liked the flashfoward bit..very interesting..hmmm..did i see a little bit of boss here and there, surya? the top angle shot in the beginning is very rgv-isque..
bro, but nothing to take away from you..chele mein thoda guru to hota hi hai..hain?
hope to see the complete short very soon..good luck!
saahil, same thing i told surya.. i could see a lot of ramuji in him.. dadhi pandey is so natural in his acting that it’s hard to believe he comes from a theater background. theater acting usually being so exaggerated.. but he was able to adapt seamlessly. i absolutely loved the lighting he used too.. give surya a bigger budget, and i can see the man going places.. sometimes it really is scary to realize the amount of talent out there waiting to be noticed.. and it’s only a matter of time before surya does..
btw, for those trying to follow the one line in hindi in the 0:0PM clip, his wife says “naha ke aaye ho??” trans: did you bathe/shower?? the actual movie does have subtitles. i just wasn’t able to activate it before converting it to mpeg
HEY Striker/HEY Saahil,
Thanks guys, u never cease to stop when it comes to motivating me and keep me going. Just pray to god that my first feature film happens soon…