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[ UPDATE : Attached is a video clip of Surya's short film ]

I was majorly disappointed with me not getting a morgue to shoot my film. My experience so far was that of people looking at me in a weird manner, as if they were trying to ask me, have you lost it??? The day Ramani and me saw the post mortem both of us were really stressed out. Though by now I was not too sure if I really wanted to do this film. Kodak films had agreed to sponsor three cans of 16 mm film for free, all thanks to Prasad Gupte and Rajesh Jiandani who believed in my project and my vision. But still I was not happy to compromise on the location of a morgue and both the Shivaji Medical and JJ Hospital authorities refused me flatly. I didn’t know what to do now.

One fine morning I was standing at the Balcony of my small house at Vikhroli that dad came and stood next to me. Probably he had sensed that I have given up, and he was feeling bad for both Ramani and me, as he had seen both of us run around a lot. Out of the blue he tells me, that I have a friend working at JJ hospital, a psychiatrist and if I would like to seek his help, he can take me to him. But after getting to know about Dr. Nakalgaonkar, somewhere I was convinced that this man could help me get into the morgue. At this point my whole request to these officials have been I just want to shoot a dead body being cut open, just one shot, that’s it! But before I could shoot lot was to happen.

Dr. Nakalgaonkar, my savior took me to al those who mattered, including the Dean who had refused me earlier. Dr. Nakalgaonkar realizing that “seedhe ungli se ghee nahi nikal raha hain” decided to put me through the PA of the then health minister Suresh Shetty. It was the beginning of a long battle. Both the PA Mr. Sanjay and the Minister himself were very helpful. I had convinced him that my objective in doing this film was to sensitize people regarding the work these people do and more so there was no film being made on this people before. Within two days I had a letter addressing the dean to let me shoot in the morgue in his hospital at JJ. I was thrilled excited and extremely happy; after all I was getting to shoot in the morgue, which was my first choice. I went and met Dr. Davar, and gave him the letter signed by the minister himself, and guess what? The dean refused, I was thoroughly impressed at the same time extremely pissed with Davar for not letting me shoot. His reply was, “I respect this letter, but I need a permission from my immediate senior and that is the principal secretary education department”. One thought that also made me happy was “chalo iss desh mein abhi bhi hope baaki hai, as he had actually refused and disregarded the health ministers letter, that too signed by him in a very polite manner”. Somewhere I had also some kind of respect developed for him in my mind.

Knowing me, I too took it personally and decided, “bhenchod, ab shooting hogi, aur isi doctor ke aspatal mein hogi, chahe kuch bhi ho jaye” (no matter what, the shoot will take place and under this very doctors nose). Then as I have mentioned earlier in my previous posts, it took me close to three months to actually get the permission, it was a birthday gift for me, I got the permission papers on the 4th September.

I shot on the 6th in the morgue and 7th Sept. the house portions at andheri. But I was happy that I could, where I wanted to shoot only one shot of a dead body being cut open, the moment I had the morgue permission in my hands I had started changing my shots that I had designed to shoot in the exterior and was mentally preparing to spend more and more time inside the morgue. On the actual shooting day, I spent close to six hours inside the morgue, surrounded by real dead bodies. My actors, my cameraman, my light men, my sound recordist, each and every one of them stood by me. The day ended up on a very satisfactory note. I was happy to have achieved that seemed impossible; I had just packed up after shooting inside the morgue. And secondly, my sound recordist who came as a last minute help came and told me ” surya sir, pachchis saal ke aas paas ho gaya main is line mein hoon, bohot shoots aise the jahan par laga ke kabhi bhool nahi paonga, time ke saath woh bhi bhool gaya, par aaj jaate jaate aapko ek baat bolna hai, jo experience aaj aapne mujhe diya na kaam karne ka, woh main apne marne tak nahi bhoolonga, bohot achcha kaam kiya aapne, mera best wishes tumhare saath hai”. Wow, i said what a compliment, very encouraging and satisfying. Just that Ramani came in and told me “boss, surya, sara ka sara, teenon cans khatam ho gaya hain, we don’t have the film to shoot for tomorrow, what do we do?” i myself didn’t have any answers, i didn’t have any money left, my shooting calculations had gone haywire, i had shot the way i wanted to and i did not want to cancel my next days shoot, as i knew that if i cancelled it the next day, i would never be able to complete it again.