Swabhimaan, the real story

Mahesh Bhatt: <.B>Nothing we can do.

Vinod Ranganathan: If the feature film guys could do nothing about it, what can TV guys do?

SD: Maybe we should scare them…

(A break for doughnuts dipped in chocolate and the conversation moves from London and Switzerland to honey and marmalade….)

MB: What’s happening to our discussion?

VR: After we eat.

SD: Last week’s episode was visually very good and matched the performances. I liked Bobby’s introduction.

MB: Bobby who? SD: He comes out of the gym looking very good. Maybe we can give him something more to do. Young people will like him. They like Soha, too. She’s not conventionally good looking but she’s got an attitude. Who’s that girl, Vinod? VR: Aah…Achint Kaur. A model.

SD: Nice leggy girl.

MB: We missed you at the Swabhimaan party. Where were you? Geneva? How was it?

SD: Hellishly boring. My husband worships at the shrine of Odmar Piaget, the watch company. He has a collection of watches. MB: How are our rivals doing?

SD: What rivals? We have rivals? (Laughs)

VR: Yug. That serial’s catching up.

MB: Because of the star cast? Because of novelty? Is there a new bitch in town?

SD: New bitch in town is one reason and outdoors is another. The serial has a different energy…

MB: It is very loud, very filmi filmi…

VR: But it works. I don’t get bored for its 50 minutes when I watch it.

MB: 50 minutes? That could be another reason for it’s success. What about the other serials?

VR: This guy told me that since the last four months, Shanti has not been generating any revenue. Same guy says BR Chopra’s Aurat may be shutting down.

MB: The details in a serial may be important, but the die is cast the day you decide the plot…

SD: I agree. VR: I agree.

MB: …That is going to decide whether the serial is going to be a hit or a flop. But if the basic story doesn’t work, nothing works. SD: I think it works the best when we have a strong emotional core for each episode. At least two scenes have to be about what we are experiencing now, not the future. Then you don’t care whether the serial is talking heads or static…

I think we should concentrate on inter-relationships. Like when Rishab asked Kiran Joneja…

MB: How is Kiran Joneja to you?

SD: She needs a make-over. She has no concept of style. She’s like Kiran Joneja!

VR: Yah! I was about to say that.

SD: She looks like she has just come off the stage of that Joneja Show and walked on to the Swabhimaan set.

MB: But she is comfortable in that. She won’t let go of her persona.

SD: She could look better if she takes that risk of being restyled.

MB: Maybe it is her hairstyle.

SD: It’s a dated look, very dated. Even if she thinks it’s making her look very good, it is out of synch with today’s woman… MB: I wonder how her brother (in the serial) is coming along.

SD: Kuku? He has a lot of potential if we play him differently. He’s filled the vacuum left by Sooraj, the slimeball.

VR: He looks like the Los Angeles-returned slimeball…I was watching Arth…

MB: Where? Where was it coming?

SD: I wish you would have given me a call. It’s a film I can keep seeing.

MB: It’s straight out of real life.

SD: But you know, here a Fatal Attraction would degenerate into a cheap Ramsay Brothers’ type thriller…

(Just then the clock behind Bhatt chimes)

SD: We need a death in the next schedule

.VR: We recently had one of Pankaj Berry.

SD: But we need a near-death experience of one of the younger characters.

(The clock omniously strikes the hour.)

SD: What is this you are having?

MB: Supari.

SD: That chikni supari from Matunga? I love it! SD: Mahesh, why hasn’t India attempted disaster stories? It works so well in the West. This is a disaster-a-day country…

VR: There was a film called Burning Train, or Turning Brain…

SD: …We haven’t had a Towering Inferno. Every single day there is a major disaster somewhere in India. Blood, accidents, crashes…you name it, we got it. But no one has a done a spine-tingling film on it…

MB: We don’t have the technology, the talent or the money.

SD:…Or even inspiring films like Agony and Ecstacy, Lust for Life. Why has nobody tried it here? I saw a film called Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. Very simple, very lovely concept…

(There’s the crunching on snacks and munching on chikni supari, as De narrates the story of the film…)

SD: …so well done. Why can’t something like that work here? There’s a whole generation which would identify with it…

(Bhatt gets up to go to the bathroom.) Definitely not the end…