Letters from Sydney: Episode 4

Hello All,

Thanks for the fantastic response to all the letters till now. From here on the letters are going to be a bit more film based and reflective of my constant changing mind-frames in the Land down under. You might feel weird time leaps as you read these, but by the time I reach the finale of this series, all of it would make sense.

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“Rule 1 of film making” my professor’s sound boomed across the lengths and breadths of the black n white lecture room in the basement, “Paper is cheaper than film. Do you guys get what I said?” he asked, drawing a circle on the white board with a black marker. Not many of us understood as we reclined in the chairs looking at the professor draw a film reel from the circle.

I, for starters, was one of the very few guys who understood exactly what he meant. Film stock, celluloid as it is popularly known, is extremely costly, responsible for almost 60% of any film’s production budget. In a filmmaker’s language it’s essentially referred to as film or stock. When you go out to shoot a film, you have to be so well prepared, all your shots storyboarded, all sequences planned, each and every minor detail of production worked out just to the T, so that you can shoot in a XYZ amount of stock, keeping your budget on track, your film on schedule. Whatever experimentation you do, keep it to paper, so that you don’t screw up on film. That’s why, Paper’s cheaper than film.

It had been almost a week since school had started, I being exposed to an entirely new world, a world that had only one word which it followed, with passion that reached heights of fanaticism, the word being Cinema. The class is a brilliant blend of students from all over the world. Perhaps, for the first time in my life my eyes opened to a gamut so wide of talent, creativity. People who are as crazy as I am, leaving jobs, medical studies and well-settled careers just for the sake of this absolutely insane passion for films. There are a few genuinely talented guys who are at a similar creative level as mine while the others are technically sound, with everyone almost having an area of specialization. I couldn’t believe the kind of boost my mind received when I entered this environment where all we talk, eat, drink and think is films. Imagine a world where all we do is talk about Tarkowski, Antonioni, Scorsese, Tarantino, Noir cinema, Bazz Luhrmenn’s version of Romeo and Juliet, How Jaws 3 is the worst film ever, How Bram Stocker’s Dracula ridicules the novel, How Ashutosh Gowariker made a brilliant film out of a very simple story in Lagaan and How Russian and French films are inspired from the socio-political circumstances in those particular countries. The list is endless and trust me, it’s incredibly exciting.

All of us have our own pros and cons, some of us being exceptional screenwriters, some having a striking acumen for cinematography, some are master editors while some would make brilliant producers. The surprising and best part of the whole deal is that it’s all a highly creative learning process fuelled with stressful but fruitful brainstorming sessions and not a place that houses competition and jealousy.

The first week was quite tough and stressful, we were made to work on mad, mad deadlines, finish 3 scripts by 1700 hrs. or write, shoot and edit a film in 24 hours. It was crazy, but hell yeah it was fun.

Thinking about all this and things from back home, I was missing Pune more than anything else. I am so used to the city; I love it in spite of all the potholes and very, polluted air. There are days when I look at a clean Sydney road and think that these guys are missing having potholes on the road, they are missing out on the fun of abusing the government for not paying attention to the road. There are days when I look at a train in Sydney as it zooms along the Harbor Bridge, that these people in this city are missing out on standing in a crowded, hot and sweaty Mumbai local. There are days when I look at people in this city and think that these people are missing out on so much, they are missing out on a totally different flavor of life, which only India can offer.

As I walk alone along the fantastic City roads, looking at the disciplined traffic, people who cross roads only when the walking signal goes green, people who look extremely happy all the time I just think that what I miss the most about India is not my friends or family. What I miss the most is the little imperfections in India which make India, India. I just smile to myself as I roam around the city, alone, thinking that there’s a different kind of fun associated in breaking a signal or running across a packed-with-traffic road. The kind of fun that Sydneyites can never, never experience. The kind of fun that Indians can never, never forget.

It was quite late at night. Almost 3 a.m. I had just decided to catch a few winks because the next day was going to be tough. As I reclined and closed my eyes, I fell asleep immediately. I must’ve been asleep for half an hour when my phone rang.
‘Private Number’ flashed on my mobile making me understand that someone from India was calling. I answered, saying a hello, trying to sound as not-sleepy as possible.

“I woke you up. Right?” said the voice from the other side.
“No you didn’t” I said, recognizing her instantly, “I was just lying down”, crossing my fingers as I lied to her, “What makes you call at this hour?”
“Nothing… I just felt like talking to you” the saccharine voice confided with heart-melting innocence.
Unable to control the Hassesque 300 watt smile, I said, “Talk, then.”

It was the voice which had become my support system over the past few months, being with me through the ‘n’ number of problems I faced in almost everything. But more importantly it was the voice which helped me stay unfazed like a rock in an alien city.

She wasn’t my girlfriend. I wasn’t seeing her. We never dated. When I told David, Natalie and most friends in my class that I didn’t have a girlfriend, I wasn’t lying.

Early morning one day, as we were sitting on the wooden boxes outside school, sipping coffee that she had just made for both of us, Hasse asked me, “Nik, have you ever truly loved someone?”

I smiled, looking straight in her blue eyes and I told her something that I hadn’t told, rather confessed to anyone in Sydney till that day. There was something about Hasse that made me trust her, instinctively. She reminded me of people like Pavan, Vivek, Amogh, Bodhi, Prasad, Sachin Bhai, Vijay Sir, DJ, Sandu, Amol, VD and Tejas… I could just look in her eyes and trust her.

I told her something that made her really, really worried. Hasse was the 7th person on earth to know about the Pretty Girl in Pink

“Is she crazy?” she asked me, wide eyed and amused at the story she had just heard.

Remembering that line from True Romance, Smiling, I said, “Honey, that’s the way it goes. But every once in a while, it goes the other way too” not even one bit amused that I had put so much of trust in a person who I had hardly known for 5 days.

When people tell you about their love lives, they like us. When they tell us about the tragedies of their love lives, they trust us.

TO BE CONTINUED