Making choices- Pleasure V/s Pain
iView Author: Deepak Mahajan (Mumbai, India)
Email: deepakmetro2000 [at]gmail[dot]com
Content : Bollywood, Director
Life is what?…. A list of choices made or followed except one and that is WHO WILL BE OUR FATHER? Seriously this we cannot choose (Many of us wish that to be Amitabh bachchan , Dhirubhai Ambani, why not Bill gates, guys ?). But choices are never meant to get pleasure alone, they are painful also. When I was all set to make my final move to Mumbai and was feeling fully prepared for my fortune. I thought the easiest way of all will be now to go and start working.
FLASHBACK TO:
I got a job in a leading serial production house as an AD. As the day started I was desperate to be on sets and yes I reached there before my call time. Everything looked magical. OH GOD, finally I have reached where I always wished to be. I asked the EP, “Please inform the Director that I’ve joined so that he could assign me work”. He answered a good thing, “baata dangay , pehlay kaam to karo”.Fair enough guys; I started to assume what I should be doing. But my orientation was towards frames. In fact that is something that always draws my attention. But assisting never meant to be fixing frames or anything which is called direction, so I was prepared and informed. I started taking orders from a fellow AD because there was no such thing like chief AD. Finally, after five odd hours, work started; all known & well known artists reached. I found how beautifully they all were abusing and saying sorry that they couldn’t help abusing. Director made a hell of efforts to not to make anything creative or different and yes that’s all our Daily Soap requires; don’t think out of box. When a fellow AD asked me in breaks that what I have done before joining here then I told him about my exposure to International/national short films. He said confidently that I was lying; great at least he was so true and straight to tell me face to face. Since I was also an aggressive but manipulated soul so I asked him that how he can be so sure. I got my answer; he told me that if you know all about direction then you never join a serial as AD. Wow!! I was enjoying having my answers and I left that serial in a week’s time. I was, once again, feeling fresh breaths of ideas and proud in me. But now more than four months have passed and I said ‘No’ to many TV shows. I made my choices limited and tight. Yes many of my fellow friends had joined many places at different production housed in daily soaps. So was I stopped? Come on! I told you I am a very aggressive and manipulated soul. Hence I made my own projects and carried few meetings with lesser known heroes and financers as well. Now I again found my choices getting harassed; financers had their own issues. They liked my show reels of those short movies that I directed. They liked the concepts but they had their own choices of heroes and many other things (you might be getting that, he he he). They firmly believed that if they are putting money then I must realize that is all required for a movie project. I respect money and someone backing me for any reason but still I am going to make a movie and if I am not loaded with right cast & crew then it’s going to be a shit and shit never helps anybody, hence I again made choice here to get a genuine financer and again made a tight choice…..
Choices that’s all I could make; sometimes they gave me pleasure, sometimes pain.
This article is dedicated to all Directors who crossed their tough path of choices and for those who are still struggling to make choices. And MY DEDICATION IS NOT LIMITED TO ALL SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE BUT TO ALL THOSE FAILURE SOULS who surrender themselves to Compromises because today I know that it takes guts even to become a successful failure in Bollywood and no one writes about them anywhere.
CUT TO PRESENT:
Now many years have passed and I am still making choices. Bollywood likes the Success and we can’t help it except choosing our choices carefully. I wish if more people can share their experiences to get more references of their choices they made in their career.
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
Awesome!!!
At the same time awful – Now i get why these serials are called Soaps – They never go out of the box!! cuddled in the soap boxes, the soaps delude and cheat millions with their fake fragrance.
Kudos to your guts for refusing to compromise.
I am not film world insider – however it must be million times difficult to setup a shot than it is to write an assisted line of java code – You are a brave soul indeed and I wish you all the best!
I would say – at least you are making those choices. Most of us are slotted with very little choice or here doing the mundane without any passion. Be proud and Godspeed to you.
Great Article bro.Hope you will acheive your goals soon.
all the best bro. gawd bless.
hello “aggressive but manipulated soul”, stay aggressive and start manipulating and maybe you’ll get there faster
best wishes
Wonderful article Deepak and yes, All the very best!
Loved the piece man. It’s really cool that someone is willing to stand out from the crowd. I wish to pursue become a screenwriter and your story kinda inspires me to try even harder now, even though i am in no way connected with the industry. I hope you make it. Peace out.
P.S. If you want some script ideas i would love to help.
Hey! Pretty well written,gives a beautiful insight to the dark yet astonishingly colorful world of bollywood!
* tnx jaiganesh….for your best wishes…believe me ..this pain is getting worse now to start giving pleasure…Can’t help it
*Yes vinay , there is nothing called defensive in bollywood.
*..tnx V…please add more about you
* tnx uddhav….what you do ?
awesome kudos! I understand your pain & pleasure man,I would rather suggest you in a very positive way to go and make a daily soap yourself to bring a change in daily soap market; TV has lot of scope but I always find best guys to switch over to Big Screen.Think about it & change this conventional process and make it happen.who know you could be the foundation of this process? :-)
Great Insight
Choices are easy to make hard to follow and am glad you stayed stuck to them.
Keep working hard as to change the sick trend, we need aggressive souls like you.
All the Best,
vivek