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Loong Loong ago Martin Scorcese before he became the ‘rage’ that he did eventually became, he came to bollywood.

He had a terrible hand written script of what was to be called as Mumbai Taxi. It was a half decent script, and was based on the taxidrivers in mumbai..the haftawaalas, the traffic police constables, the prostitutes on the streets of mumbai, the eunuchs, the call center females and other “shift working people”…

He had it all story boarded with his equally bad drawing capabilities and had illustrated it with Crayons and Colour Pencils.

He took this script to Swastik Creations production office in andheri west, to meet the creative director.

The creative director didn’t read it … but wanted a narration.

Scorcese startled … but recovered and narrated the script in a span of 15 mins and 35 seconds.

“Brilliant effort” was the reaction ….

Scorcese seemed pleased. All the efforts of working in short films, EPing, holding lights, clinging onto directors to squeeze out minutest of technical details all paid off…

“Who is the star for this project ? ”

Scorcese seemed zapped. “Hmmmm Saif … would be perfect but may be he would be tooo expensive for this project… This is actually a 5-7 crore film… How about Irrfan ??”

“Hmmmm ..no don’t think our production house will work with him …Who else ? ”

“Kay kay menon ??”

“Too arty arty…”

“Sir the idea itself is arty… We can convince them to reduce their prices..Am sure they would also want to be a part of such a challenging role and an underground streets sort of film ??”

The creative director smiled… It wasn’t the WOW-what-an-idea Abhishek Bachchan smile..but more like the Dejavu-Heard-that-before smile.

“Ideal man would be someone not so famous like Deepak Dobriyal..or may be even Rajpal Yadav… They would be willing” Scorcese persisted …

“See the question isnt the subject of the film…8 crores is ABSOLUTE NOTHING OF AN AMOUNT for somebody as big as Swastika Creations…”

“Then what’s the issue ??”

“It would be difficult to convince them about the film…”

Scorcese quizzed “Them ???”

“Oh I mean the creative panel…they need to be sure of the script.”

“Sir you yourself said its a brilliant script.. then??”

“You see there no positive characters in the film..Make one character positive at least..”

“Sir it’s a noir-ish take on mumbai. I have written it out of real life cabbies..have stayed with them in chawls … spoken to them… have spent an entire night with them on andheri station…sleeping on the benches of the platform before being driven by the cop. It’s a little too difficult to imagine somebody positive under those circumstances..”

“I understand but what we are looking for is something mainstream …. Something that get us money”

“This film will earn you money sir … you make it in 5 crores and you will get back 6 and a half ….Am damn sure .. plus with the era of multiplexes and satellite television rights etc .. this will recover its money … Something like what Bheja Fry did…”

“Hmmm….Tell you what…Why don’t you join us and lets collaborate together on some projects ??? This sort of subject shouldn’t be your first film..Make it like No smoking after one or two Black Fridays…or like Maqbool after one or two Makdees…or like Bandit Queen after one or two Mr Indias ”

Scorcese was confused …but was optimistic…

When he was smoking the Wills Navy Cut Cigarette he overheard two production house “creative” people talking to themselves …

“Lives of Others is such a brilliant film …WOW …. ”
“It truly deserved Oscar … Did you see There will be Blood ???”
“Yeah Daneil Day Lewis.. Our indian actors are no match for him…”

Scorcese finished his smoke…..disgusted

Over the next couple of months, Scorcese worked with Swastika Creations and worked on few “mainstream subjects” ..

Mumbai TaxiDriver was modified … The protaginist became a sewing-machine-worker spinster woman who comes to the city to become a big woman..but ends up becoming a prostitute … forced by the poverty and demands of money by her parents …

Since Deepak Dobriyal couldn’t play a woman and demanded a princely sum of 15 lakhs, they changed the protagonist to Rani Mukherjee who’s fees in turn was only 2 crores ….

The film title too was changed from Mumbai TaxiDriver to “Laaga Sui mein Dhaaga”

Finally the day arrived … when the film hit the screen ..

They praised it … the media (who were on the payroll), one or two critics ranted against the film.. few bloggers too raised their black flags…. but those can be ignored …

The public too swallowed it up like a candy..after all .. “Who in their sane minds doesn’t want to see Rani mukherjee cry ???

Scorcese went onto direct more and more films for Swastika Creations one after the other…Below became his imdb credits -

1.Aaja Hansle (originally about a punjabi family wanting to save their lands from the property sharks……it was later modified to a dancer woman trying to save the entire city of mumbai by urging all the mumbaikars to beat the villans-who-else-but-pakistani-terrorists by tickling their underarms …with Madhuri Fixit…needless to say it was critically and commercially appreciated)

2. More Grey and Less Grey (originally about a hopeless romantic AIR radio jockey falling for a north eastern terrorist, Swastika and Scorcese later made it into an afghan terrorist plotting to bomb republic day celebrations but being stopped by his homosexual lover-Urdu-teacher ..played by big stars like Sunil Kapoor and Robby Shroff) - bold subject..didnt go down too well with the masses, but critics were surprised by the “sensitivity” of Scorcese …

3. String (under production)

Scorcese too had changed now.. The arrogance and anger gave way to comfort… the mosquito coils gave way to All Out mosquito repellents..the chawl to the sea facing bunglow in juhu…the wills navy cut to Cigars ….the desi ‘pavva’ to Vat69…

Meanwhile, somewhere in the USA, an unknown filmmaker of indian descent called as KARTIK KRISHNAN made a fabulous fantastic film TaxiDriver with a relative nobody called Robert De Niro; about a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran working as a night time taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.

He later followed it up with Raging Bull and Goodfelas ….

Some days later, sipping whisky in JW Mariott hotel juhu mumbai, Scorcese was overheard talking over puffs of his cigar ..with the same two production house “creative” people

“TaxiDriver is such a brilliant film…Did you see the last scene”

“Loneliness has always followed me … WOW.. who wrote that dialogue ??”

“You talking to me ??? Why can’t our indian writers/filmakers think of some lines like that ???”

The conversation eventually veered to Scorcese’s next….

“Hey what’s your next film about ???”

“An Akshay Kumar film with Paresh Rawal.. Am entering an unsafe zone..comedy..”

“That’s quite daring of you to do”

“Cheers”

P.S – no offence meant to Martin Scorcese .. I humbly acknowledge that my intention is not to hurt a giant of cinema like him I so admire.. So would request all his fans to refrain from issuing a fatwa under my name.

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