THE SECOND HALF

The FTII campus in Pune waits for student Neetu Singh to return to the life she was wrenched away from. There is also the matter of a film she has to edit

The FTII campus in Pune waits for student Neetu Singh to return to the life she was wrenched away from. There is also the matter of a film she has to edit
For the last one-and-a-half years of her editing course at the Film and Television Training Institute FTII,Neetu Singh did not go home to Nepal. She feared she may not be able to return. So,at the beginning of holidays,the student from Nepal would sit and watch as her friends and batchmates packed their bags,wave them off at the gate and then walk back to a quiet few days at the institute.

Occasionally,she would saunter down to the matrons office for a little chat,with the conversation invariably touching on her troubled personal life: she is the wife of Amaresh Singh,an influential politician in Nepal with clout in Delhi. Matron of the girls hostel,Gloria Koshy,the mother-like figure she confided in,says,She didnt have much work and spent time at the library and her room but rarely went out of the institute. She had this fear of her husband keeping a tab on her or others trying to track her.

Walk into FTIIs vast and green premises and its easy to understand why a girl brought up in relative conservatism in the small town of Bhadrapur near the Nepal-India border and grappling with an unhappy marriage would find it comforting to merge into the cocooned existence of FTII. If theres anything that comes unasked for in the premier film training institute,its the space and freedom that it allows its residentsthe long nights,the heated arguments,the two-film-a-day routine,dropping in at each others rooms at 2 a.m. to discuss a new idea,the FTII look long hair,bearded face and flowing kurtas over jeans and the eclectic mix of students. Ages vary from 20 to 30 in the same classroom. It just makes the response so much more interesting, says Sushant Naik from Assam,a former IBM statistician.

This was the freedom violated on the night of December 5 last year when the 32-year-old was forcibly packed off to Nepal.
Two months since the deportation,the shock has worn off,replaced by an eager wait for Singhs return. The campus is abuzz with action as final-year students rush to finish their year-end project: a 22-minute,35-mm film they have to submit in a month before they are awarded the diploma. Each film is put together by a team of director,editor,sound recordist and cinematographer; the climax of their journey at the institute.

Its also the action that Singh is missing right now. Its like the doctor going away in the middle of your labour pains. But the good part is that she was here for the shooting. She has seen the vision taking shape and can get back to the rhythm once she begins editing, says Arunima Sharma,her batchmate from the direction course. Sharma remembers Singh as a shy and quiet fresher in the first year,who took time to get comfortable with both the new language and the unconventional environment. The first few months she was a loner. But she slowly opened up and would join in our discussions on films. She had a loud,endearing laugh and would laugh easily, she says.

Seated on the rebel bench in front of the directors office,Priya Jhavar,a final-year direction student,seems a little lost amid the energy whirling in the campus. Singh was her films editor. Jhavar was about to place the rushes in front of Singh when the latters life turned upside down,bringing the project to a grinding standstill. But we have all decided that Neetu will do our editing and no one else. It was our joint vision. We are ready for the delay, says Jhavar.

If there was one reputation Singh had steadfastly built up during her last three years at FTII,it was that of being one of the most sincere students of the editing course.
Her quest in life was cinema and she was absolutely sincere about it. She was known to take great care of her work and do a good job of whatever she edited. For the rest of us,there was a life outside the campus. We would take a trip to Koregaon Park once in a while and have a night out,but not her. A rare Sunday dinner outside the institute was the most. She spent her time collecting movies and watching them, says Sharma.

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Vikrant Sidhu,a third-year editing student,recalls that marriage made a big difference to Singh. Till the time she got married,she was outgoing,quite popular amongst friends. But after her marriage,she started talking less and started avoiding friends. I remember her telling us that her husband would call or message her at odd hours in the night. He wanted her to drop her studies and return to Nepal.
Matron Koshy agrees. Neetu got married while she was away in Nepal during the holidays. None of us knew about it and only learnt of it once she returned. But the change in her was perceptible. She would remain quiet and seemed disturbed, she says.

Koshy took a number of calls from her husband Amaresh Singh after the marriage. He asked me if Neetu had distributed sweets after she returned. But she didnt do anything of this kind, says Koshy. No one remembers Singh showing her wedding pictures to her batchmates either. It was clear that something was wrong,but what was admirable was that Neetu never let this affect her work. She would get calls that would visibly disturb her but her deadlines never faltered, says Tanushree Das,a final-year editing student.

The FTII life still waits for Singh. A lot of people like to say that FTIIans seem to live in a dream world. When you watch two films every day for three years of masters like Bergman,Renoir or Ozu,you can think of little else beyond the great world cinema you are exposed to, says Das.
With decks being cleared for Singhs return now and her personal life being sorted out through the divorce petition filed in a Kathmandu court,everyone here hopes that she would be back in time to save her and her teams efforts: the spools of unedited tape that lie in some 15 cans. Dont write off the happy ending yet.