Jun 21, 2007

Shootout At Railways

Well, this one is an eye opener in context of the biggest money making organisation of the country i.e. GOVERNMENT...The story goes like this...One of my really special ;) friends asked me for a little help which he thought I will easily oblige to with my Press card...He wanted to shoot at a railway station for about half an hour for a short film that he is making...But it wasn't really a cake walk as we thought ...I tracked a Railway PR's number...Then got to know through a railway journalist that the rules have changed from 1st of June for shooting a film (proper film, documentary, short film, super short film, mobile film...whatever)...Now you need to shell out COOL 1 LAKH RS to shoot for a day at the good old railways...Well, I still thought life cannot be so unfair...My determination to help my friend grew stronger...I advised him to procure a letter from his law college where he is still studying...But my railway PR friend told me..."Cannot happen boss...we need a letter from FTII Pune or something like that"...Basically from a media school....Now, my friend has already passed out of his media school in Mumbai.....
Well, so now we are exploring all bizzare ideas like involving some TV journalist in this or may be rope in a student of a media school to get involved and help us in this situation....
And for the reason why I m so keen on helping the friend....Well ;).....Anyways, railways killed one chance I had to impress him...Damn...

Wanted: Disaster Manager

Ha...That was such an exciting morning. Got up to see that I was sitting on a beautiful seat like a queen in middle of a stunning lake.It took me about five minutes to actually realise that I was in my 1BHK in Lower Parel, Mumbai and the lake wasn't exactly that.It was actually amalgamation of a tap left opened at night, clogged drainage of the bathroom and my super bad luck....WOW...And the matresses were drenched and the BMC guy got lucky in the morning with 50 bucks income for dragging the useless mattresses.
Anyways that was just one part of the day, the other part was about noone else but the Boss of Indian film producers himself.Well, so somebody cracked a news about the two tycoons joining hands for setting up swanky multiplexes around.Hmm, so what connection do I have with all this.As I do not have secret sources planted at those corporats' home and office(as I really haven't cracked any idea to get news through these god sent secret agents called "sources") so basically my superiors made my life hell by various techniques.
Anyways, that was some day..dealing with water, flood, plumber, watchman, bai, BMC guy, film producer, India's richest corporate and my boss..Some day man....

Jun 16, 2007

As U like it MR.director

Well, one of the widely known high profile Bollywood producers has an interesting way of giving interviews and quotes.At the risk of being sounding 'gossipy', I have to say that that he very strongly believes in the concept of a ghost writer...or in his case, a ghost speaker.So whenever I feel the need for his "esteemed" quotes for a story in my paper, I give a call to the person whose phone is accessible and who is the only way to "reach" the producer....

Now how the process goes is like this, I call up, ask my question and bang! I am taking down the quote from the superflous person on the other side of the receiver, the ghost speaker..The questions never even reach our dear producer but mind you, the quotes are from him....even when he doesn't speak! ...But I happily write the really amazing and well articulated quotes from the ghost speaker and give the credit to Mr.Producer....because nobody is really interested in the name of the ghost speaker even when he is at a pretty high position in the company (yeah dats another fact) and speaks brilliantly....But the glitz is missing in the name....For my readers, anything!!!!....quite weird....well... how do I convince myself...May be the producer's spirit resides in the spirit of the ghost speaker....now this is as absurd as I can get....bad sense of humour....but all original :p