Sankalan Submission : Mission Possible

HEAVY RAINS LASH MUMBAI - I found myself staring at this byline scrolling across the bottom of most TV news channels on Sunday evening, 27th July.

This news had me distraught for a few minutes.

 I was scheduled to leave for Mumbai early next morning on a three day trip, which included amongst other things submission of scripts for the Sankalan script lab. I had it all neatly planned out. Arrival in Mumbai at 8.30 am, a visit to the Film writers association office at 2 pm, followed by a trip to the Biascope office, return in time to browse the shops at Hill road and then catch up with an old school friend over drinks and dinner.

Would these plan materialise? Would it stop raining? Or were we going to have a near repeat of the floods that happened a few years ago? The latter seemed improbable, I’d read somewhere that the administration had worked on …


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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… ‘

Mango VodkatiniHe quipped in ‘Which film …


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Why Bother?

iView Author:
Neil Patel
(Jaipur, India)

Email :
Npatelbollywood [at] gmail [dot] com

Why bother?

Why bother?
…as of of late this is the feeling I get. I finished my 4 year business degree in 2.5 years; I like to work efficiently! I moved to Mumbai with a script. Ahh, the city of efficiency! Maybe I should have gone for Hollywood instead. But I came to Mumbai believing in my work and skill! Wow! Brilliant! Amazing! Not really, there are thousands who have come and left before me. Why should I be given a chance?

I can beg producers, directors, and actors that I have written a great script, worthy of commercial production. But no one listens. So why bother? I have been told many things about Bollywood, and what goes on behind its doors. It’s …


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