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I was surprised the other day when I came upon a headline in the New Indian Express (Chennai edition dated Saturday May 17 2008 11:48 IST) which said ‘Cannes honour for Billa’.
It said “A year after Veyil, the Tamil movie directed by Vasantha Balan, was officially nominated to the Cannes Film Festival; yet another Tamil movie makes it to the Mecca of movie makers.” (Veyvil was in Cinema du Monde, a special side attraction at the festival last year)
Wow! that’s fantastic, I thought, it must have been a last minute addition as I had gone through the official list of this year’s selection and seen no sign of a film from India.
“A superhit film in India already, Billa will now earn international acclaim by being screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival as well. It will be screened …

It’s been almost three months since I have been in Mumbai. I was called in by Sudhir Mishra to edit a 90 minute international version of his new film, Tera Kya Hoga Johnny! It was a very interesting experience to take a film and reconstruct it in a different way. The Indian version is about 130 minutes long and one could not just throw away 40 minutes of the film. So the narration had to change and the story had to be told in a different way. As the film was made up of multiple characters and their stories, I tried to find a situation in the original film which would become the pivotal point of the new narrative structure. Once I had found that, I reworked the different stories from that pivotal point in a non linear narration. It was quite fun. I dismantled the rough cut and …

There was an auto-rickshaw strike the other day. The government wants them to change their mechanical fare meters into fancy electronic ones. So the union decided to flex its muscles. Suddenly the streets were empty of thousands of noisy gnats. My car driving friends were very happy they said they should be a permanent ban on them. But the people (like me) who are dependent on them were in a real fix. I saw people on the streets jostling with each other for that rare taxi.
I had this meeting with a big corporate film company. I had to go some faraway place to meet them. I tired in vain to borrow some transport from my friends. So finally, I decided to get a radio Cab (they are quite efficient). I told the driver to take me there and to bring me back.
So I arrived at my meeting on …

I was standing at the bar of a famous night spot in Mumbai sipping at Mango Vodkatini watching the young and old, bold and the beautiful, the rich and the famous.

So are you back in India? said a suave looking man with greying hair.

I recognised him like I recognise most of the rich and famous in Mumbai. I knew all these guys when they weren’t so rich and famous back in the late eighties and the early nineties, when they all drank Old Monk in ‘quarter’ bars like Casbah and Janta. They all swore by the Che and the revolution and had smoked at my Alvares house loft.

‘No!’ I said. ‘I am here for some time. I come and go.’

‘Working on a film?’ He queried.

‘Yup!’ I said. ‘Working on a film.’

‘What’s it about?’

I said ‘Well, It’s about… ‘

He quipped in ‘Which film …