MUMBAI STORIES 1 – Mango Vodkatini
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 is it based on?’
I looked at him puzzled. �It�s my story� said I.
�Your story?�
�Sure, it�s my own original story�
�Of course, it�s your story but where does the �line� from?�
�It�s all mine bro!
The line, the words, the prose, the characters, the paper, they are all mine.
I worked on it for two years� Seventeen drafts.�
He looked amazed.
�That�s cool man, that�s very cool!�
�Thanks� I said.
�How do you get the inspiration?�
�I watch everything that happens around me� there are issues that get my goat. So I write about them.�
�That�s great.� He said �Most films and music here are all �inspired� .�
�You heard about what happened to Rajesh Roshan.
Sampath really did it to them. They deserve it the bastards!�
I agreed.
He then came close to me and whispered.
�I have even heard of someone who sold the remake rights of a film that he had copied.�
We laughed.
He suddenly saw someone else and he lost interest in me.
�I have to run.” he said. “We must catch up and have a drink, like in the old days.
Let�s go to Janta. Do you ever go there?�
�I do� I said
I continued to sip my Mango Vodkatini and I watched the rich and the famous of Mumbai.
Tags: film, mumbai, plagiarism, Scripts, Stories
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
Parto bhaaaai…
that was like a teaser promo….
need more….
more about that 17 drafts if u please
Partho, read your blogs last night…wondering how did i miss them..loved ur analogy with cooking n film making…all the best for your film…wish it gets made soon!
whats a mango vodkatini really wanna try it now ?
Hi!
We have a screening of your movie ‘Hawa Aaney De’ here at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Doris Duke Theater. Generally for any movie presentation, there is a guest speaker who is associated with the movie or has done enough research to know of the movie, who gives a brief introduction and also takes questions at the end of the screening.
My wife works as an intern at the academy and we were wondering if you would like to send your own introduction for the screening. My wife had sent you an email from your website recently. Please let us know if you would be interested.
Thanks.
@DPac thanks bro. I am keeping the story of the 17 drafts for dessert.
@ Manjeet Singh – thnx for reading my blogs. Hopefully one day I’ll promoted and be among the illustrious ‘featured’ writers. 8-x
@Vivek – sorry bro. This is not a drink blog. This is serious cinema place, so please respect the protocol.=))
@sarang – thanks for your message. I have received your wife’s email. I will write to her ASAP.
@PSG
How long do we have to wait till the part 2 of Mumbai Stories?
Maybe after 15 such stories we can come up with a TV Series….
Here’s a funny article by the great P.Sainath
http://www.counterpunch.com/sainath04142008.html
Partho bhai, you surely belong up there!! wish i could do it all by myself:)