The First Indo Mauritius Film Co -production of India..... Part 1

Mrs Parsuramen lights the lamp, with Parsuramen (in Safari) , Indian High Commissioner alongside Mukesh Sharma (1984)

The year was 1984 . Children Film Society, India (CFSI), received  the directive from Min Of I&B to organise a children film festival in Mauritius. I was deputed for the job. This was my maiden trip abroad. At that time Air India was operating some flights to Mauritius. I reached  Port Louis, the capital, with a set of 5 Children  films and set the ball rolling for the first ever Ocean film festival at Mauritius. At the airport I found an interesting slogan coined by the Ministry of Tourism " Why is it difficult to find Mauritius on the world map?... Simply because its out of this world."  Yes that was absolutely true, the beautiful island of Mauritius, was just out of this world .

........Mauritius is out of this world

 After a formal inauguration by Mr Parsuramen  the Hon'ble Min.of Art and Culture -Mauritius, I was invited for an official dinner, hosted by the Minister. During the course of the discussion, the minister came up with the idea of a co-production of a Children's film with CFSI.

Hon'ble Mr A Parsuramen

                                                      

Min. Parsuramen & Mukesh Sharma

                                          
The proposal was good but Mauritius had no film industry, what will be their contribution? Moreover Mr Parsuramen the minister (now, Director of UNESCO In India) ) was keen to finalize the project and announce the same to the press and media , prior to my return to India. I had very little time and very few options.
But somehow I was determined to do something, to prepare a blue print, before I leave the shores of  Mauritius. I am at my best when I am racing against time.

Shores of Mauritius

Knowing that the island nation had no infrastructure vis a vis film production, I divided the areas of co-production  on the basis of strength & weakness of each party. Mauritius Film development corporation would take care of the boarding, lodging, air travel of the film crew from India and back. These were their strong points. In addition, the story idea of the film would be taken  from Mauritius. In order to have the local flavor, I decided to cast some theater artistes from Mauritius.
                                                                                

A Multi ethnic Society- Mauritius

    CFSI on its part would take care of the equipments, technicians,  lead actors, raw stock, post production etc. The film would be shot at one stretch in Mauritius.
The total cost of the project worked out to a tune of Rupees 20 lakhs ( two million Indian Rupees)  As per my planning both the parties were sharing more or less equal budget burden.
The toughest part of the entire exercise was to select a local story idea for the film. I remember staying awake the whole night and going through various story books, written by some of the famous authors of Indian origin. Finally before dawn I zeroed down on the story OPERATION PINK PIGEON, written by Ramesh Ramdoyal.  The plot was about saving the Pink Pigeon and  breeding them in captivity (which the birds don't do) as they  were on the verge of extinction like the Dodo.

As dead as a DODO....

   The next morning I handed over my project report along with the Story Operation Pink pigeon  to the Minister, Mr Parsuramen. He was thrilled and complimented me for my efforts, on such a short notice.

A poster of Souten

Hurriedly a press conference was organised and lo and behold I was the cynosure of the entire press.  It was a miracle for the local people. Bollywood coming to  Mauritius, as they were going to be a part of the history.

 The only film which was shot  prior to the planning of this co production was  Sawan Kumar Tak's Souten, starring Rajesh Khanna, Tina Munim (now Tina Ambani)  and Padmini Kolahapuri. But the local Artistes were not involved.
I remember Mr Parsuramen organising a grand farewell party upon my return. He presented to me a coffee table book (about 5 kg in weight) on Mauritius. I was lucky to get one as it was presented to the heads of states only.
Back in India, I was keen to start the work on co production. But the whole thing got entangled in Red tape.  Moreover  CFSI was a headless organisation without any Chairman after Dr V Shantaram. So nothing moved. The people of Mauritius were waiting for the film unit to arrive.
The Indo Mauritius  co- production file was gathering dust.....There was dead silence on the project.................and then..
Meanwhile can you guess how much time it took, before the project Operation Pink Pigeon finally took off??
One year , Two years.. Three years..or more..

Let's keep the suspense intact.
In my next post I will reveal all.

Remembering Satyen Bose on his 95th Birth Anniversary......

I was very fortunate to have worked with some of the Masters of Bollywood. Dr V Shantaram, Kidar Sharma (Rajkapoor's Guru) , and Satyen Bose ('Dosti' fame)..

With Dr V Shantaram , I worked in Children's Film Society (CFSI) for nearly 3 years(1980-83). I have some interesting anecdotes to share.. may be in the future posts.

With Kidar sharma I acted in his telly film "Aise Llog bhee hotey Hain".Sharmaji was quite caring .

  

Dr V Shantaram

    Satyen Bose or Dada (I called him affectionately) who laid a solid foundation for Rajshree Films, by directing their Super Hit , Platinum jubliee film DOSTI , released in 1964. 

I met dada in 1982 when he was directing the children's film Kaya Palat for CFSI. Though he was a bit temperamental, but developed an instant liking for me.

Satyen Bose was an intelligent director, who would appreciate people with I.Q. Some of his successful films were Aasara, Raat aur Din, Mere Lal , Aansoo Ban Gaye Phool, Chalti ka Naam Gaadi , Jaagrati and Jeevan Mrityu , Dosti.

Mukesh Sharma with Satyen Bose and Kidar Sharma

Dada lived & died a loner . Alas it was my fate to do his last rites , since that was his wish. I remember it was 9th June 1993 , the day of his funeral. It was attended by only two people from the film industry viz. Tarachand Barjatya and actor Anoop Kumar(brother of Kishor Kumar). Satyen Bose died unwept and unsung.

Dada deserved a better ending like his films. But reel life and real life are the two realities which never meet.

I found the above vintage photographs in my archives. Thought why not share it with you....More over 22nd January is Satyen Bose's 95th birth anniversary.....

HOW NOT TO MAKE A FILM....PART 3

Tom Alter's absence reversed roles & Mukesh Sharma dons the grease with Ajay Chadda

              In my last post I had mentioned how I managed to complete the shooting of the film Anokha  Aspatall at Kanpur in 35 days. I was very much within the time schedule, thanks to my backward planning.

The rough cut was viewed by the Chairperson CFSI and her team.

Jaya Bachchan ..... committed chairperson of CFSI 

After viewing the rough cut, Mrs Jaya Bachchan and others  looked at each other. There was a silence. And then madam spoke. ''Your rough was different from the story line..But there is  a vast  improvement in the overall  presentation of the script. However you need to re-edit  the film so that flash forward becomes flash back. Also with some more outdoor shooting, you can do away with the claustrophobia that film suffers from. Some portions of the film only require new voice dubbing, since the characters are in long shot. In a nutshell if your graph was A to Z, you may now open the film with Z  i.e flash back. Accordingly you can re arrange the  story line as per the new suggested script". Thus spake the chairman of CFSI.  On my face was the simple expression of being CLULESS and the voice of Mrs Bachchan "So you understood Mukesh . Please ensure the dead line of 31st March is adhered to, as the film has to be censored on or before that date".  "Yes ma'm It will be done".was my instant reply. She left and I regrouped my  team members. We had only a month left to complete the film.

Naresh Upadhaya.......  Mr Reliable...

Like my school friend Mr Naresh Upadhaya who helped me in my production work, another  team member Mr Rajesh Aggarwal, (who was from the 1965 Editor batch of FTII Pune) was instrumental in bailing me out, with his editing skills and creative inputs.

Rajesh Aggarwal friend ,philosopher & guide...

Here I would like to mention another CFSI colleague of mine Rudolf Samson or Eddie. Besides me he was also a full time staff of CFSI and worked as an assistant cameraman. Though technically his boss, I learned quite a lot about film making from Eddie. His father  Samson was an old time Bollywood leading man and worked in B grade movies. I write this with a very heavy heart that Eddie who is now 70 plus is in his last stage of Cancer. But  he is fighting the disease. I pray for his long life.

  The revised rough was ready in two days as we worked day and night to complete it. Once we knew, what we need to shoot or re shoot we were back at Kanpur.

Veteran Shammiji with Padmini the Elephant...

 As usual the first hurdle was the non availability of  the elephant, as she was transferred to Dudhwa  National Park, which is about 80 kms from the place of shoot. Since the elephant could not be transported, she started her grand elephant walk from the wild life sanctuary and reached Kanpur in 3 to 4 days. The second shock was the green cover or foliage which was missing due to the onset of Spring in Northern India. This would upset the continuity of the film. We started searching for some green patch to finish our work and I found one. The patch was like a Mirage in the desert.Somehow we completed our shooting and were back in Mumbai in the first week of March 1989.

Sound Studio....working backwards

By the 2nd week of March 89 we were ready with the revised rough cut and were all set for BG music, effects recording, voice dubbing and mixing or re recording. It is at this juncture that  I asked Rajesh Aggarwal (the Editor Colleague), to visit Sunny Sound Studio and organize the post production work. As written in my earlier post, we had booked the Sunny Studio and paid the advance for the Rerecording etc without even having shot a single frame.

The Gentleman...

 When Mr Rajesh Aggarwal reached the studio, he saw  Dharmendra (the He man of Bollywood)  holding the Studio diary and finalizing  the dates for the dubbing of his film. Unfortunately he was looking for the same chunk of last 10 days of March 89, which we had booked and paid for. Some how Rajesh Aggrawal  managed to gather courage and spoke to Dharam Paji. "Sir we had booked the studio 3 months ago prior to the commencement of shooting. We had already applied for censor certificate.  Some how, in spites of the odds, we have managed to keep our date with destiny. Now if you take the studio, Mrs Jaya Bachchan will not be able to keep her promise to the nation. We are supposed to complete it before 31st March 1989. " Though it was Dharmaji's studio he could have overlooked our commitment and gone ahead, yet he was more then a gentleman. He shifted his base to Madras(Chennai) for his post production work and saved the day for us.

Anokha Aspatal was premiered in cinema at Mauritius 

The pearl in Indian ocean

Need less to mention the film Anokha Aspatal was censored on 31st March1989. As promised, Mrs Jaya  Bachchan brought the final print with her as her personal baggage to Port Louis.  I could not see the final print in India as  I was sent on duty to Mauritius, to start shooting of the Indo Mauritius co production "Operation Pink Pigeon" (or Ankur maina aur Kabootar). This film too won the National Award. But thats another story..

Hope you  enjoyed reading... the making of Anokha Aspatal....
Wishing you all a very happy 2011....