I was born and brought up in a city.
Date: 25. Sept 2011
I was in my parent's village when this idea came to me.
Location: The Village
My parent's village in Kerala is quite different from North Indian villages. (Assuming, of course, that North Indian villages are like those seen in North Indian movies and tepid Hindi, prime time serials.) This one is relatively rich. It either has villas or smart looking thatched homes. Most homes have at least some people, who are educated and can speak and write in English. At least that's how it is in the homes of dozens of my relatives.
The pace in this village is slow and every person's arrival is treated like the next circus in town... err village. Wait a minute. Did I hear one of my story characters speak in Marwadi? Or was that Haryanvi? My story is set in a North India village.
The questions I watch out for when I am here
Where are you going? A simple question with great potential for spice. If I say I went to this aunt's house, then the ones whom I didn't visit in my short stay happened to the spurned ones. They are allowed to ignore me, make faces or stare at me till I 'get' it. I find it cute that they treat me with that much importance.
Did you meet so and so? Loaded question. Yes could result in -'Oh so we're the only ones you didn't meet?' A No could result in 'Why didn't you?' I can answer their questions or confuse them. I take a stance; I answer them directly because I am lazy and I don't want to disappoint them later with contrary information. I'd rather make people feel comfortable around me unless they are on a 'lets-crucify-this-f'ker' type mission.
How is your mom? People, who ask this question stay around her. If they see her quiet or hurling abuses, they would know, wouldn't they? Yet they ask. Mom is an undiagonised schizophrenic, who resolutely refuses treatment. She is nearly 70 and rarely well these days. She gets abusive and is almost always anti-social. So in reaction to the question, I get technical. I assume they want to know the subtle differences. So I have devised about a 100 different ways of answering the same question. Don't waste your time feeling sorry for me.
My purpose in revealing personal information is to show you where and how a story idea was born to me. I hope it will free you. There are too many idiotic fanciful ideas about how ideas are born.
I came to mom's village to pick her up on her request. But once I got here, she was another person. She claimed not to want me around, criticised me endlessly. Being with her made me angry. We were like enemies spending time together in prison. Her emotionally hurtful bombs made me feel terrible. This is not new to me. Unconsciously she has spent most of her time with me and my family members trying to erode our self worth to make herself feel better. It gives her a sense of pleasure and victory to see us hurt. I retorted with anger and empty threats stated with great emotion. Sometimes the violence spilt out. Mom is aware of our many switches. In such situations, she desperately tries to switch them on like a hungry rat stuck in a room. I get mad enough to blow her face off at least once in a day. It takes great restraint to stop myself. I should get a Nobel prize from heaven for my efforts.
A fight doesn't imply stoppage of niceties or attempts on my part to make her realise her 'follies'. If I stop, all my hopes of overcoming the battle with schizophrenia and relating with her is lost. The day I got the idea, we had a fight and I remembered that she had not cooked and that she'd be hungry. So I offered to get her food for lunch (from a market about 7-8 kms away). She expressed that she'd like to have chicken. But then she came up with weird demands based on the stories created from her messed up mind; don't got to this shop for this reason, don't go to that shop for that reason and so on. If I attempted to follow her request, then I would have to go in search of a shop without a name in a particular direction. That distorted the whole purpose: the actual purpose to appease hunger with a chicken dish thrown in. Now she was turning into an adventure, a mission that I hadn't signed up for. It made me mad. I ended up buying a chicken curry dish from a convenient restaurant and the one mum wanted me to go to. Luckily for me someone helped me locate it easily. At the second restaurant I saw a situation out of another story idea I had long ago. I saw a Maharshtrian sitting in a Kerala restaurant in Kottiyam in Kerala and arguing with a Kerala waiter in Hindi and accented Malayam. He turned out to be a Maharashtrian, the state I grew up in.
On my return, I decided to take the bus instead of the rickshaw because it was cheaper and the bus was soon due. In this context, during the wait at the bus, the story idea popped in my head, which I messaged a few friends.
A village bank is robbed. Few villagers set out to catch these robbers. The only clues they have from the local village cop are that they are from a particular city and a description of the thieves corroborated by some witnesses. They are on their own and have no money with them. How they get to the city, manage there and search for the robbers and whether they find them or not forms the crux of the story.
These villagers have loads of characters with different capabilities. Someone is extremely intelligent. Someone is all brawn. It is an action comedy. One scene that I'd like to see in the film is an adaptation of the classic Crocodile Dundee knife scene.
Crocodile Dundee, a villager is roaming the streets of a city. A mugger catches Crocodile Dundee in an alley and pulls out his switch knife. He threatens Dundee and tells him to give his money or he'd pull his knife on him. Dundee is taken by surprise. In shock he reaches out for something and pulls it out. He asks the mugger-Is That a knife? The mugger looks at what he is holding and runs for his life. Dundee is holding a foot long hunting knife.
Date: 25. Sept 2011
I was in my parent's village when this idea came to me.
Location: The Village
My parent's village in Kerala is quite different from North Indian villages. (Assuming, of course, that North Indian villages are like those seen in North Indian movies and tepid Hindi, prime time serials.) This one is relatively rich. It either has villas or smart looking thatched homes. Most homes have at least some people, who are educated and can speak and write in English. At least that's how it is in the homes of dozens of my relatives.
The pace in this village is slow and every person's arrival is treated like the next circus in town... err village. Wait a minute. Did I hear one of my story characters speak in Marwadi? Or was that Haryanvi? My story is set in a North India village.
The questions I watch out for when I am here
Where are you going? A simple question with great potential for spice. If I say I went to this aunt's house, then the ones whom I didn't visit in my short stay happened to the spurned ones. They are allowed to ignore me, make faces or stare at me till I 'get' it. I find it cute that they treat me with that much importance.
Did you meet so and so? Loaded question. Yes could result in -'Oh so we're the only ones you didn't meet?' A No could result in 'Why didn't you?' I can answer their questions or confuse them. I take a stance; I answer them directly because I am lazy and I don't want to disappoint them later with contrary information. I'd rather make people feel comfortable around me unless they are on a 'lets-crucify-this-f'ker' type mission.
How is your mom? People, who ask this question stay around her. If they see her quiet or hurling abuses, they would know, wouldn't they? Yet they ask. Mom is an undiagonised schizophrenic, who resolutely refuses treatment. She is nearly 70 and rarely well these days. She gets abusive and is almost always anti-social. So in reaction to the question, I get technical. I assume they want to know the subtle differences. So I have devised about a 100 different ways of answering the same question. Don't waste your time feeling sorry for me.
My purpose in revealing personal information is to show you where and how a story idea was born to me. I hope it will free you. There are too many idiotic fanciful ideas about how ideas are born.
I came to mom's village to pick her up on her request. But once I got here, she was another person. She claimed not to want me around, criticised me endlessly. Being with her made me angry. We were like enemies spending time together in prison. Her emotionally hurtful bombs made me feel terrible. This is not new to me. Unconsciously she has spent most of her time with me and my family members trying to erode our self worth to make herself feel better. It gives her a sense of pleasure and victory to see us hurt. I retorted with anger and empty threats stated with great emotion. Sometimes the violence spilt out. Mom is aware of our many switches. In such situations, she desperately tries to switch them on like a hungry rat stuck in a room. I get mad enough to blow her face off at least once in a day. It takes great restraint to stop myself. I should get a Nobel prize from heaven for my efforts.
A fight doesn't imply stoppage of niceties or attempts on my part to make her realise her 'follies'. If I stop, all my hopes of overcoming the battle with schizophrenia and relating with her is lost. The day I got the idea, we had a fight and I remembered that she had not cooked and that she'd be hungry. So I offered to get her food for lunch (from a market about 7-8 kms away). She expressed that she'd like to have chicken. But then she came up with weird demands based on the stories created from her messed up mind; don't got to this shop for this reason, don't go to that shop for that reason and so on. If I attempted to follow her request, then I would have to go in search of a shop without a name in a particular direction. That distorted the whole purpose: the actual purpose to appease hunger with a chicken dish thrown in. Now she was turning into an adventure, a mission that I hadn't signed up for. It made me mad. I ended up buying a chicken curry dish from a convenient restaurant and the one mum wanted me to go to. Luckily for me someone helped me locate it easily. At the second restaurant I saw a situation out of another story idea I had long ago. I saw a Maharshtrian sitting in a Kerala restaurant in Kottiyam in Kerala and arguing with a Kerala waiter in Hindi and accented Malayam. He turned out to be a Maharashtrian, the state I grew up in.
On my return, I decided to take the bus instead of the rickshaw because it was cheaper and the bus was soon due. In this context, during the wait at the bus, the story idea popped in my head, which I messaged a few friends.
A village bank is robbed. Few villagers set out to catch these robbers. The only clues they have from the local village cop are that they are from a particular city and a description of the thieves corroborated by some witnesses. They are on their own and have no money with them. How they get to the city, manage there and search for the robbers and whether they find them or not forms the crux of the story.
These villagers have loads of characters with different capabilities. Someone is extremely intelligent. Someone is all brawn. It is an action comedy. One scene that I'd like to see in the film is an adaptation of the classic Crocodile Dundee knife scene.
Crocodile Dundee, a villager is roaming the streets of a city. A mugger catches Crocodile Dundee in an alley and pulls out his switch knife. He threatens Dundee and tells him to give his money or he'd pull his knife on him. Dundee is taken by surprise. In shock he reaches out for something and pulls it out. He asks the mugger-Is That a knife? The mugger looks at what he is holding and runs for his life. Dundee is holding a foot long hunting knife.
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