The Underbelly Of Dreams

A writer came to me with a script today and his own story was more interesting than the one he had written. I might have offended him by spending far more time listening to him about his own search for recognition than listening to the reams of material on his laptop he tried to engage me with. This young boy was signed up to write a screenplay based on a story he had written for a film, and was paid Rs 10,000 by a producer.

A few days later the producer called him and asked him to narrate the story to a regional actress who was in town for a week. When the writer narrated the story to the  actress, she loved it and the producer, now over-excited, told her that he wanted to sign her right there and then and would pay her an amount of Rs 1 lakh immediately.

Then Mr Producer realized that he had left his cheque book at his office and asked the writer if he was carrying his, which unfortunately, the boy was. The producer asked the writer to sign a cheque in the girl’s name and give it to her and promised him that he would transfer the funds into his account the very next day, taking note of the writer’s bank account number there and then.

In the evening, the producer texted the writer and told him that he had transferred the funds and the writer, the poor young boy, was happy, now that the film he was writing, his first, had a lead actor as well, and she was nice.

A few days later, roughly two, the writer got a call from the bank to inform him that the cheque he had issued for Rs 1 lakh had shown up for clearing but the funds in his account were not sufficient. The writer in panic, called the producer but the producer’s number could not be reached. Then he sent the producer a text message which kept waiting in his outbox and eventually he had to request the bank to return the cheque as he had no other choice.

Thereafter, he kept calling the producer but the producers’ phone remained switched off and that was it. The cheque got represented once again and finally bounced. The writer was now worried as the producer had disappeared. The writer realized that the producer did not live in the house that he had shown him as his, nor could be traced at the coffee shops in Lokhandwala Complex he usually frequented every evening.

Then the actress first called the writer and asked him why he had swiped her money, and then she turned up at his doorstep with her parents, abusing him for having taken away the funds that the producer had deposited for her in the writer’s bank account. Eventually both the writer and the actress discovered that they had been conned. The writer had been hired for a paltry sum to convince the actress that the producer was actually making a film and the actress had then been exploited by the producer and his friends for a couple of days before they had all disappeared into thin air.

Now the actress threatens to sue the writer under Section 138 and the writer hangs around at the coffee shop where he had first met the producer, hoping to catch him one day and beat him up. What a story! And one without a closure. Then I heard about an admission racket when I chanced upon an actress who is auditioning for roles in films and television and has come from Madhya Pradesh along with her mother to become a star. Her father is no more and her elder sister who was married, passed away a couple of years ago, which the actress told me, was most certainly a dowry death.

However, her sister’s six-year-old son lives with the actress and her mother in Mumbai as well. I asked the actress how she manages her life while she is waiting for roles to come her way, because I thought, if they had enough money, then her sister would not have been done away for dowry. The actress told me that she helps students get admissions in various medical and engineering colleges for which she get paid pretty well. She achieves a few admissions every year, and that keeps them going. She keeps paying guests in the apartment which she has taken on rent in Mumbai.

I asked her who it is that she does this work for and she said that she doesn’t know. She fills forms for the aspirants and passes then on to a friend, who passes them further to another friend and so on… but admissions get done and none of them really know who gets them done and how. But admissions are guaranteed and money promised to them gets delivered in cash. So much for entrance exams.

This is the city of dreams. This is the tinsel town and the valley of the dolls and this is where people, writers, directors, artistes come with a hope that one day they will make it and legitimize their existence by not being exploited. Those who find a way and squeeze their way in, gaining recognition as singers, lyricists, writers, actors through television reality shows or via struggles of other kinds, join the stars, but those who get left behind continue to be exploited until they become the exploiters themselves. Nobody ever goes back to where they came from.

But what the heck, the city gives people a livelihood, even if a writer only got a measly Rs 10,000 for a love story which has become a horror story because  a cheated actress will chase him for the rest of his life. And the young girl from Madhya Pradesh will continue to be paid for facilitating admissions, until the time that she gets a role of a lifetime and gets to a place she deserves to reach.

Vinta Nanda is a film maker, writer and social activist.  She has   written, directed and/or produced trail blazing TV shows like Tara, Raahat, Kabhie Kabhie, Aur Phir Ek Din and Miilee and also   made several documentary films on women’s issues. Her first feature film, White Noise won acclaim at the Kara Film Festival, Pune International Film Festival, Florence and Seattle Indian Film Festivals. Vinta blogs on www.vinatananda.blogspot.com and has written for The Times of India, Tehelka, Indian Express, Mumbai Mirror, Sahara Times and Mid Day. Vinta is also the President of the NGO ‘The Village Project India,’ is producing two TV shows and will be producing and directing her next feature Zindagi Paradiso shortly.