Making a movie like Vishwaroopam

When the pyrotechnics set off by some Muslim organizations had ironically covered Vishwaroopam in dark clouds, I was just about getting into the first flush of having found an enthusiastic producer for my own first script.  But that high was very ephemeral.  Even if he was troubled by the delay and all the cacophony around the release of Vishwaroopam, Kamala Haasan (KH) seemed relatively unperturbed; my potential producer, a first timer like me, (let us call him PP, for brevity's sake) was absolutely petrified, as if he was already losing millions per day, even before he had spent one penny on the venture.  Just because he had a vaguely sinister hunch that my script may attract similar vibes.  He was acting extremely skittish, like someone being hauled over extra-hot coal, specially made-to-order for him by me and decreed in no uncertain terms we had to `smartly' gauge public reaction to my script before he would even go looking for his wallet.  Otherwise the deal was off, he declared with a finality that sounds the death knell for a fledgling-going-aspiring scriptwriter.  Given the facts that even the most wizardly of trackers would have been hard put to locate a more unknown writer than this scribe and people were not really jostling outside my door offering to produce the movie, I had to agree with the PP even if I deemed the idea outrageously quixotic. Only because my story had no ingredient to inflame communal passions (my guess was that it was not going to inflame anything, but obviously I would not dream of sharing that bit with anyone); and the PP had dug his heels way into the ground, displaying not a sliver of intention to budge. 

KH encountered objections from one quarter which was apparently miffed by something most of us failed to notice in the movie (probably written or said in Arabic or some other alien language??) and most of us thought that the film just showed, in a truly cinematic way, what we have all read and seen in the media for a long time about terrorism - art reflecting life rather than warping something out of shape; so what was the uproar about?  But that is neither here nor there, because my problem was I had no clue where to start my quest to satisfy the PP with representative public responses to my script.  I reasoned with him that he should at least identify a few pockets of `opiners' he wants to hear from. But he was so paranoid that he thought the whole world was going to gang up against this yet-to-be-made movie, so was of no help whatsoever.  I was left to my own devices and therefore had to blunder along.

I decided to commence the experiment on home turf.  It was indeed very logical.  My immediate family has adequate population to do justice and more, to any new product launch survey and if I chose some ten of the members, I would undoubtedly have about twentyfive opinions to deal with.  Arithmetically confusing, but true; you know what psychoanalysts say about thinking with the right or the left side of the brain at different junctures and the consequent contradictions?  And - this is my theory, no one else to blame -  sometimes both sides are so tired of overwork or have depreciated heavily, a blissful emptiness is created and that is when probably the best and most rational responses come through. So, about two to three opinions from each on the same issue seemed par for the course. And, the best part is no one feels embarrassed about changing positions.  My wife being my severest critic, I started with her; put it down to masochism!  She took three days to devour the script and came to me with a grim, stricken look.  She shook hear head in that especially hopeless way she reserves for some of the worst judgements on things to do with me, wordlessly dropped the script on my lap and walked away.  I opened what I thought was my magnum opus to-date  and was aghast to see serious sacrilege committed on the pages. Every second sentence (I am being defensive, every sentence had suffered some wringer-effect) was mercilessly slaughtered, cut, crossed out, with a river of `red' notes flowing alongside.  I realised that she had completely overhauled and rewritten the script, instead of giving me pointers about `offensive' content!!  PP might have preferred her version but that gave me no joy at all. Even as I was still writhing in agony, she came bustling back with that offending instrument, the red pen, and added with surgical precision and some flourish, a few more lines on pages 96, 114 and 176 and said she had forgotten a few things!  Talk of the thoroughness of some teachers!

As for the others, my mother and mother-in-law (who unsurprisingly agree on everything every single time because they steadfastly echo my wife) said they were offended by my characters always gorging on pizza, pasta, noodels or sandwiches but never once eat the ethnic idli or dosai or avial or puliyodarai.  And, because I never once make a mention of a temple in the whole script, they deemed the whole thing soulless!  My father bristled and admonished my hero for his mindless support of T20 cricket and the latter's scathing criticism of those who sit back and waste precious time watching test matches through five boring days.  He thought such childish attempts to besmirch an august institution like Test Cricket would never succeed and I would probably attract a couple of court cases for this part of the script.  My niece came out punching my heroine for opting to dump a promising but passionate career as a Carnatic musician for the sake of cohesion in the family and part time work as a fashion designer.  She strongly opined I was being retrograde and against the idea of women making meaningful choices to enhance their own lives.  She was going to complain to some women's organizations unless I removed the slur forthwith.  My brother and sister-in-law, both doctors, rebelled against the idea of one of their tribe in the story unethically prescribing all kinds of expensive and superfluous tests and medicines, once he knows the insurance company is paying for them.  Their take was,  while that practice is endemic in the industry, a movie should not highlight that and exacerbate the situation! They said the Indian Medical Association would definitely object to that.

 I decided to gamely move on to the domain outside my family and met a state government minister, who was also a leader of a political party.  After reading just the specific portion I had marked out for him, since he was a busy man, he categorically told me he would ask his party to protest against the way a politician is depicted in the story.  When I pointed out that my politician was a `good' one and worked for the well-being of people, he said that was indeed the problem because such a politician did not exist in reality.  He was worried that my movie could `corrupt' his partymen by showing them a fully functional, idealistic leader in the movie.  He might end up losing followers and consequently his ministership, all due to my stupid effort.  He did not mind the script coming out as a novel because he was assertive that his followers never read anything, so that did not matter.  He also had violent objections to a scene in which the minister takes immediate action to cancel a misguided project on the same day he becomes aware of serious issues associated with it.  He said that was a travesty of truth and no minister realistically would take any such action and endanger himself and his party.  By the time he finished, he was copiously frothing at his mouth, just as he normally did on party platforms and left me in no doubt that if my movie ever saw a ray of light, he would provide the requisite darkness and gloom to suffocate the light.

My former English professor was very critical of me for not including a couple of references to Shakespeare as well some scenes lifted from his tragedies.  When I politely pointed out that my story was a Thamizh comedy, he retorted all heroes have flaws, some tragic and some comic, regardless of what language they speak.  He asked me to resubmit the script after complying with his instructions for his review and appraisal.

Since my PP still craved for incremental inputs, I soldiered on and collected opinions over a period and made a compendium which was about a hundred times larger than the original script.  Industrialists, leaders of religious organizations, social activists, bureaucrats, union leaders, labourers, students, were all contributors and everyone seemed to seriously dislike something about the plot or a character or some part of the dialogue.  I realised that if they jointly or severally filed suits against the movie in courts, it might take some fifty years and two generations of judges to clear all the hurdles and I would be 110!!  When I pointed this out to the PP, he sheepishly said `may be, we should have just gone ahead and produced the movie like KH did, without making the populace aware of all the 'objectionable' things in our script'! Come to think of it, almost all the potential litigants against the probably-still-born-movie, would have watched it and gone home without remembering a thing (as is the norm with most movies nowadays), if we had not alerted them with details in writing!  On top of it, my PP said that this exercise of collecting opinions had cost him so much money, he probably would prefer not to venture into actual movie production, ever.  He was very logical in his stance that most of my potential audience, people known to me, have already read the script and may not want to watch the movie!! If they did, it would only be to ascertain if grounds still exist for blocking the movie and for potential litigation!

Now, I have to do a new script and find a new ally for production.  But, I am wiser for the experience and would insist on making the movie even before the producer reads my script, if that is possible!