logo

I still remember getting that call from AK…to come to TAJ LANDS END…some time in the afternoon…for the narration of the script of BLACK FRIDAY…Great…will be there…some time in the afternoon…We all are seated in the conference hall…Arindam Mitra, ChanderMohan Puppala, Anurag, Dev…I can’t recall if there was anybody else…we just wait for Mr.Sudhir Mishra or Sudhir sir as everybody calls him fondly…to join us…he comes in…greetings are exchanged…a few jokes cracked…and the narration begins…three hours of spell bounding narration…with just one break in between…a much required tea and smoke break…Anurag goes through the last page…narrates the last line…closes the script…looks towards all of us…there is few seconds of silence…then Sudhir sir goes…it’s brilliant…you have nailed it man…Arindam is more than happy… ChanderMohan is too… they know they all have nailed the script…Anurag is not sure…asks them again…they repeat the same…He smiles…he is sure…he has nailed the script…there is only one concern that Sudhir sir has…whether the audience will be able to keep track of so many characters…but after a thought he answers his own question…They will they will…when they say visually…they will…our photographic memory is much superior…surly it is…The smile on our faces refuses to die down…why should it…we all know we have a great scrip at hand…Let’s move ahead…Arindam announces ecstatically!

We are moving ahead…Anurag, Dev and me…cramped in an auto…none of us had enough money at that point…to afford anything better…and Anurag used to be much more slim and trim…so three of us fitted…now it is difficult for Anurag alone (just kidding)…AK tells me that he needs an AD team immediately…he has people in mind…he gives me all the names of the Ad’s that he wants on this project…nine of us…Gautam, Dev,Kshipra, Aparna,Neel,Naveen,Raja Chaudhary,Sanjay Murya…And asks me to take over…but before that all of us have to go and meet Mr. Arimdam Mitra(AM) and Mr. Chander Mohan (CM) at Mid Day office…they want to be sure off people they are hiring.

All of us go and meet AM and CM, as they are called fondly at Mid Day…or that is what I am told…I had a very interesting meeting with them…especially CM…very enlightening rather…he is a man of great wisdom…I became a fan of his, immediately… Today I have great respect for these tow men…AM and CM…I always did…we are all officially hired.

Anurag already has his crew in place…all his usual suspects…people he refuses to work without…Natarjan Subramaium aka Nati, his best friend and love of his life as he claims, in one of his post… his DOP…while shooting we got enough testimony of why he refuses to work without him…Wasiq Khan…his production designer…Aarti Bajaj his wife and a brilliant editor…Fabeha, his costume designer…Arjun Bagga, his Executive producer and last but not the least his AD team…The only new member who joins us is Preeti Ali, Imtiyaz Ali’s wife…as line producer.

My first responsibility was to delegate jobs within the AD team…all nine of us have worked together…previously…all of us were comfortable with each other…I asked Gautam…Dr Gautam…AK would love to say… to handle the Casting of the film…the film had a mammoth cast…we knew it was going to be an uphill task…Dev and Aparna were already on the projects…handling research…I give them additional responsibility of handling the properties and co-coordinating with the art director…Neel becomes part of their team…to ease the pressure on them…Raja Chaudhary and Naveen form a team to handle the costumes of that mammoth cast and co-ordinate with Fabeha, the costume designer…By the end of the shoot…they did an incredible job…Kshipra joins me in helping me on Schedule and co-coordinating most of the stuff…Sanjay Maurya is good with locations…he takes over that…And I had to overlook every thing…That’s what AK instructed.

But before it really begins…we all had to do something…we all had to read S.Hussain Zaidi’s brilliant book…BLACK FRIDAY- The true story of Bombay Bomb Blasts…We all did…in one straight reading…it was simply UNPUTDOWNABLE!

That is how BLACK FRIDAY began for all of us.