Many events worthy of a blog post have happened to me since the last update. Thanks to my own laziness, I am the ultimate loser. This time it's a series of events that took place sometime back during the hols.

And believe me ... i sincerely want to get some order back into my life. I want to regularly update my blog!


(PS: Where's the rich text formatting gone in Firefox??)


The Making of "Sarkar":

1st of July, 2005

I've just got out of bed. No-one's at home.Damn!.. overslept again.
Time Check : 1200 hr

Pick up the morning newspaper. Sudoku. Crossword. The latest crime scene. And if i still haven't slept over the commode, i'll  probably glance at the Hindu editorial as well. Today's topic is too boring. Shift to Metro Plus and whoa!!!! ... It's the RGV pre-publicity interview !

"SARKAR" RELEASES TODAY...

Holy faqua! Must book the mobie tickets today at any cost. The next show at Sensation is probably at 1400 hr.
Time Check: 1215 hr.

Brush and milk. Call loyal friday movie partner S. Get the ball rolling. Call RMT and check his progress. Bugger's already sent some guys over to the theater to buy 6 tickets for the 1400 hr. Ask him if they've got money for 3 more. Tells me to wait and make no other phone call to anyone else. Me waits.
Time Check: 1230 hr.

Me waits no longer. Call J. He ain't picking the phone. Probably stone dead. Decide to call later. Meantime call S. Says he'll be at Basant in 15 min.
Time Check: 1231 hr.

Take bath. Offer salutations to Big Brother upstairs. Hope he'll be kind enough to reserve tickets for "Sarkar" today. Check mail and latest headlines. Big uhoh! Rediff's already got a review of "Sarkar" on its front page. The first para doesn't sound very encouraging. That useless son of a thousand pigs. How dare he accuse an RGV flick without me seeing it. Shut down the comp. Open fridge. No grub left. No money either. Must draw cash. Wait! Found 60 bucks in old pant. Lady Luck seems to be smiling on me today.
Time Check: 1245 hr.

Lock doors and rush out of home. Reach Basant in time. S has just arrived and we're looking at each other's faces seriously. This movie has to be watched today. Plus we're hungry. Move to Ekta's Kitchen nearby. Order food. Share our war-plans. His friends at Mehdipatnam can book the tickets. But they have to be convinced to watch an RGV flick first. Tells me they're the Salman Khan fans type. I tell him not to worry about that. I tell him getting tickets for us is more important! I then tell him about my friends. These guys have been waiting too watch the flick from a long time but no-one's done any advance booking. We never do. We watch movies no-one watches. We go to theatres no-one does. So crowds usually don't concern us. But today seems to be the exception. I tell S about a cousin who bumped into RGV the nite before at Prasad's. Apparently Abhisek and Amitabh were there too. This is definitely a serious case. RMT calls. Sensation house full!!!
Time Check: 1330 hr

The heat is getting onto us. We are running gainst the dark cloud of Bad Luck and we're not doing it well. Ask RMT his next POA. Says its undecided. I think I'm beginning to sweat. Tell RMT if he's dropping by this way. Replies in the affirmative. Pay the bill and get moving to HQ.
Basant Cafe!
Time Check: 1350 hr

There are around 4 or 5 theatres in town showing the movie. Prasad's is out of the scene. Sensation's just gone house full. The bastards at Venkatramana should have sold all the tickets in black by now. Same goes for Ramakrishna. Got to try our luck with one of the latter two. Give J another missed call. Mental note to bitch-slap him when he returns. S and I discuss Sarkar for a while. The promos looked way too cool. The haunting Govinda Govinda track. Abhishek running down a dimly lit corridor in slow-mo. Close up of the Big B. Sarkar in white font emerging from black background. RGV's done a good job at that. We wonder what the story could be. Shouldn't go the Godfather way, we concurred. S should know better. He read the book while i was still graduating from Michael Crichton. We've seen the movie more than once. Heck! We've all been through IMDB's trivia a gazillion times. The Godfather was mighty deep. Sarkar seems to be pretty close. A story of a powerful father with a trigger-happy son and another who'se just returned from a foreign land. Will there be a clash of ideals? Who will die first? How will Aby Baby pull off a Marlon Brando? We wonder for where Sarkar would land.
Time Check: 1445 hr

A has just whizzed by Basant on his Yamaha RXZ. Hmm... More of the gang will be on their way. I was right. Ad and M, Dj and An, V, Jd, Sn and Ak and the rest. Quite a crowd moving towards Niagara. M has seen me and gives me a ring. Asks me to drop by at Niagara. Before i leave, i remind S of our plan. He is to go to Mehdipatnam and talk to his friends. They are to book the tickets at Anand and before they do so, he will call me up. If my friends make any headway, i'll book a ticket for him. We shall call each other in an hour's time. Also remind ourselves to get J involved too. Plan perfect, future tense. Bid adios and reach Niagara. Expect the worst to have happened.
Time Check: 1448 hr.

"So how was the movie?" I ask. Everyone is smiling. Through their cigarettes and puffs of smoke they signal the "good movie sign". Apparently 22 guys from our college turned up at Sensation. Why am i not surprised? Probably 'cos i'm too busy boiling in jealousy. Ask M about the performances. Says Abhishek was silent but Aby Bhai was class. Katrina had a blink-and-miss role kathe. And hey... check this out. The first frame of the movie says something about RGV paying tribute to "The Godfather". Ooooh! I have momentarily devolved into a hot-blooded hungry tiger let loose in a poultry farm. Now I am smiling at these chaps. I ask M if he went to CL this morning at 0900 hr. He moans that he couldn't. Reason - he's been at Sensation from the morning for the 1200 hr show!
Time Check: 1510 hr.

Say good-bye to these guys and make for home. RMT has called and wanted to meet up. Call him home. I log in and try hard not to look at rediff's Sarkar review. Play N and listen to some loud music. RMT and G have dropped in quite soon.
Time Check: 1520 hr

Updates me on the latest positions. His motely crew couldn't get the tickets. They are still trying at Ramakrishna. G can't make it for the first show. His dad is leaving town so he's gotta be at home till 2030 hr. I share my piece of news. The college junta have already seen it. Make that 22 of our college junta. RMT curses himself. For a useless movie like "D" we went on the first day. Now what's stopping us from watching Sarkar? Cruel, cruel fate. Remember S's word about PSD. Give him a message about catching the night show. He  calls back. Says he's at K's place and making for Anand in a while!
Time Check: 1545 hr.

Out of the blue, Ch macha calls up. I remember he was going to leave in a few days to Chennai. Probably a good-bye call. but no... Fuckola! Strike me down and pick me up.. He's just back from Sarkar!!! Said it kicked ass. I tell him to drop in at Basant in 20 min. I end the call. RMT, G and me are still undecided. Now its becoming a matter of pride, prestige and everything that's left of our worthless selves. This movie MUST be watched today. Finally manage to reach J. He's out on the roads somewhere in Koti. Ask him if he's gonna come for the movie. He sounds bewildered and shocked. "Today? Night? Then what about K-Circle??" Oh sweet lord! I couldn't care less for a quizzing club at this moment. I tell him all that's happened till now. Tell him about M. About S. About PSD. Now he's got the picture. Says he'll call once he reaches home. I lock the doors and the three of us shift base to Basant.
Time Check: 1600 hr

RMT is a bit dazed now. G is busy planning his exit route for today night. I can't stop thinking about Sarkar. RMT's been a big RGV fan. Claims "Shiva" to be one of the most ground-breaking movie that any new comer in India could ever make. What action! What dialogues! What songs! "Shiva" single-handedly broke down enough barriers for RGV to make an industry of his own. There is something about cult film-makers that draws the same sort of audiences. Too bad others don't have enough balls as he does. RGV couldn't even care less for India's Star System. He probably thinks its A-Grade toilet paper. RMT and I tell G about RGV's "Walk the Talk" on NDTV. Apparently, the reporter asked RGV whether he'd seen "Black" or not. Our anna replied with so disgusting a frown on his face the reporter was left stammering and tried some random-ass topic to cheer things up! Then we compared NDTV's interview with the one in Metro Plus today. This man could be World Champion if they ever could measure Arrogance. He said stuff like "... and then Abhishek did all those NRI sort of movies that never suited him" and "Amitabh Bachchan is totally under-utilised in movies like Black, Bunty aur Babli ..." !! What an awesome dude! Go RGV ...Go! Go whoop some Bollywood ass!!
Time Check: 1615 hr

J is on the cell. He's lost all his cool now. PSD's at Anand and is standing in line. He's screaming and shouting and telling me to rush to Anand right away. We can still make it for the 1645 show ... he says. I ask him to cool down and make a call to S. I tell him if S is going, then i'll go too. He hangs up. RMT and G are looking straight into me. Sigh!
Time Check: 1617 hr

J calls back again. Told S to rush with his friends from Mehdipatnam to Anand right away. I re-think our strategies. Tell J to call PSD at Sec'bad while i'll call S and confirm again. RMT's just bought another round of cigs.
Time Check: 1618 hr

Call S. The phone ain't working. Try from G's cell too but his cell is put off. J calls back. His tone seems to sound as if something died. Anand is house-full. Uhoh! Did he try S? Yes, but the cell seems to be put off. Low battery? Now if i got the situation right, did J just send S and his friends to a theater 10 km on the other side of town that's already sold out? OUCH!
Time Check: 1619 hr

The beauty of Basant Cafe is that there's always someone you bump into. N and K walk in. Fortunately they were isolated in the swampy airs of Eat Street since morning. They didn't even know Sarkar was to release today. I tell that by 1800 hr, almost 70% of the guys I know have either already watched the movie or watching it as we speak! We change subject and talk about the rest of the college gang. Met K recently but its been quite a while since i talked to N. He's now down with some weird eye disease that makes him look likes he's got conjuctivitis. No wonder his status a few days back said "Eye Spice". Meanwhile G leaves us and says he's got to go home. His cell is with his mom so we make sure he calls us by 2000 hr. RMT, K, N and I barf away to glory about college, girls, silly exams and the eternal quest for more Porn.
Time Check: 1815 hr

RMT and I decide to get move. We better get to Ramakrishna in time for the 2100 hr show. Bid K and N good bye and jokingly assure we'll meet up definetly for next week's friday release. Reach Ramakrishna finally.
Time Check: 1830 hr

Just as we park our bikes in the open grounds, it starts to rain. Swell timing!! We rush to the ticket counter and ask the drunk dude with the stick when the counter will open. Another half hour. As soon as the interval inside is over. We stand huddled with a bunch of Bengali uncles, some Hindi-speaking aunties and lots of dudes with flowery designs on their shirt! J arrives as expected and parks the bike. Joins us in a minute and hands over a packet. Without opening it, he tells me its Tandoori Parcel. I've understood it all now. And my balls...  he was at Koti all day!!!! J stands in the queue grinningly stupidly at our jokes. Suddenly in the rain, we find a figure running across the road to the cig shop. Its V and there's the bunch of juniors behind him. Oh no! How many more, god? How many more?? Make a mental note to myself. This is definite blog-material.
Time Check: 1850 hr

The drunk dude with the stick feels its time the party begins. He pushes everyone into two straight lines. Any one who breaks out gets to hear the choicest of words and smell recently consumed liquor as well. This can be fun if not for my predicament. But before i can think any further, the guy behind me is pushing me ahead and I



Current Mood: Heroic
Current Music: Doors, The - American Prayer