(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)Despite the torrential rains turning Mumbai’s notorious underworld into waterworld, one man still continues to shower his attention on them. L Suresh caught up with Ramuji.
“The hero carelessly chucks his popat (mobile phone) on the table and prepares for his supari (contract). He picks up his ghoda (gun) and casually begins to load it with capsules (bullets). A sideways glance at his chamiya (bar girl) and a khamba (full bottle) appears. He looks at the photo - this time, it’s going to be a dholiya (white man) with battery (spectacles)…”
I wait with bated breath as Ramuji finishes narrating a storyline on his mobile.
Is that your next venture?
Yes, I was just discussing it with Da… the team.
Tell us more…
It’s inspired by the Father of the Bride. The movie is set in today’s Indian society - the girl’s father is a mafia Don and the boy’s father is an ex-cricketer.
Another movie on the underworld…
I can’t reveal much of the story, except that the cricketer father and the Don get together to pull off the ultimate match-fixing of the century – the Don finds the cricketer’s son to be the ideal match for his daughter and pressurizes the cricketer to fix the wedding. For the next two hours, a lot of people get shot.
Why so much violence in a movie about a wedding?
Actually, they’re not getting killed, they’re just getting filmed – they’re auditioning for a look-alike for the Don. So, like Saddam Hussein, the Don will have six look-alikes crisscrossing the globe. By the time the world figures out who the real Don is, the wedding gets over. It’s going to be a regular who-don-it.
So how do you reveal who the real Don is?
He is the one who is constantly whistling ‘Main Hoon Don’ from the movie Don, right through the movie. That will be his signature tune, until a police informer blows the whistle on him.
What happens next?
Cut to the climax – the wedding reception at a five-star hotel in Dubai. The cops, the intelligence, the sharpshooters from other gangs - they are all there, but the Don is nowhere to be seen.
The reception is over and not a soul knows whether he was there or not. There are speculations – some say that he came in as a woman in a burka, some say he walked in as a moulvi (priest), some say he saw the reception on his laptop through close-circuit cameras, but no one knows, no one will know…
What are you calling the movie?
The working title is ‘Do Bhai in Dubai’, but it will finally be called B.
Why B?
Well, for two reasons. First, most of the action in the movie happens in a place called Bhai-culla in Mumbai. Second, I made C for Company and then made D as a prequel to C. Now going in the reverse order, I’m making B as a sequel to D.
Any other plans on the anvil?
Yeah, I’m planning to make a movie on women in the underworld. It’s about this woman Radha whose mother-in-law borrows five kokas (crores) from a money-lender, Sukhilala to start a gang. The payment plan was simple: each year, Sukhilala would get four petis (lakhs) from their profits. But Sukhilala demands forty petis and lets a saand (bouncer) loose on her. He is supported by the village elders who don’t want the police to come to the village. Radha joins the underworld to fight Sukhilala. The movie ends with her shooting her wayward son Birju, who has joined another gang. (Rumour has it that the film will be titled Mothered India.)
There’s another… an experimental venture. A silent movie on the underworld – titled Mum-bhai. It’s about a hero who shoots his mouth off regularly about his underworld connections over a cordless phone to his actress girlfriend. Since most of the conversation is censored, we thought it would be a good idea to make it a silent movie and have subtitles.
What about your collaborative effort with Arindham Choudhury?
That stars Sunny and it’s about this nice guy who is forced to take on the bad bhais. It’s the story of one man against the entire underworld. We’re calling it ‘Tok sake to tok lo’ (loosely translated as ‘kill me if you can’).
Nothing on television?
I’m thinking of a TV series about a group of unemployed youth who come to Mumbai in search of work and join the underworld. Their trials and tribulations will be captured in ‘Bhai ke Bandhey’ – it is a remake of ‘Band of Brothers’.
So why is your next venture, James, not a take on the underworld?
Wouldn’t that have been too predictable? I mean, releasing a movie about the bhais during Raksha Bandhan? Naah, that’s not my style…
Do we dare disagree?
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 18 September, 2005)
“The hero carelessly chucks his popat (mobile phone) on the table and prepares for his supari (contract). He picks up his ghoda (gun) and casually begins to load it with capsules (bullets). A sideways glance at his chamiya (bar girl) and a khamba (full bottle) appears. He looks at the photo - this time, it’s going to be a dholiya (white man) with battery (spectacles)…”
I wait with bated breath as Ramuji finishes narrating a storyline on his mobile.
Is that your next venture?
Yes, I was just discussing it with Da… the team.
Tell us more…
It’s inspired by the Father of the Bride. The movie is set in today’s Indian society - the girl’s father is a mafia Don and the boy’s father is an ex-cricketer.
Another movie on the underworld…
I can’t reveal much of the story, except that the cricketer father and the Don get together to pull off the ultimate match-fixing of the century – the Don finds the cricketer’s son to be the ideal match for his daughter and pressurizes the cricketer to fix the wedding. For the next two hours, a lot of people get shot.
Why so much violence in a movie about a wedding?
Actually, they’re not getting killed, they’re just getting filmed – they’re auditioning for a look-alike for the Don. So, like Saddam Hussein, the Don will have six look-alikes crisscrossing the globe. By the time the world figures out who the real Don is, the wedding gets over. It’s going to be a regular who-don-it.
So how do you reveal who the real Don is?
He is the one who is constantly whistling ‘Main Hoon Don’ from the movie Don, right through the movie. That will be his signature tune, until a police informer blows the whistle on him.
What happens next?
Cut to the climax – the wedding reception at a five-star hotel in Dubai. The cops, the intelligence, the sharpshooters from other gangs - they are all there, but the Don is nowhere to be seen.
The reception is over and not a soul knows whether he was there or not. There are speculations – some say that he came in as a woman in a burka, some say he walked in as a moulvi (priest), some say he saw the reception on his laptop through close-circuit cameras, but no one knows, no one will know…
What are you calling the movie?
The working title is ‘Do Bhai in Dubai’, but it will finally be called B.
Why B?
Well, for two reasons. First, most of the action in the movie happens in a place called Bhai-culla in Mumbai. Second, I made C for Company and then made D as a prequel to C. Now going in the reverse order, I’m making B as a sequel to D.
Any other plans on the anvil?
Yeah, I’m planning to make a movie on women in the underworld. It’s about this woman Radha whose mother-in-law borrows five kokas (crores) from a money-lender, Sukhilala to start a gang. The payment plan was simple: each year, Sukhilala would get four petis (lakhs) from their profits. But Sukhilala demands forty petis and lets a saand (bouncer) loose on her. He is supported by the village elders who don’t want the police to come to the village. Radha joins the underworld to fight Sukhilala. The movie ends with her shooting her wayward son Birju, who has joined another gang. (Rumour has it that the film will be titled Mothered India.)
There’s another… an experimental venture. A silent movie on the underworld – titled Mum-bhai. It’s about a hero who shoots his mouth off regularly about his underworld connections over a cordless phone to his actress girlfriend. Since most of the conversation is censored, we thought it would be a good idea to make it a silent movie and have subtitles.
What about your collaborative effort with Arindham Choudhury?
That stars Sunny and it’s about this nice guy who is forced to take on the bad bhais. It’s the story of one man against the entire underworld. We’re calling it ‘Tok sake to tok lo’ (loosely translated as ‘kill me if you can’).
Nothing on television?
I’m thinking of a TV series about a group of unemployed youth who come to Mumbai in search of work and join the underworld. Their trials and tribulations will be captured in ‘Bhai ke Bandhey’ – it is a remake of ‘Band of Brothers’.
So why is your next venture, James, not a take on the underworld?
Wouldn’t that have been too predictable? I mean, releasing a movie about the bhais during Raksha Bandhan? Naah, that’s not my style…
Do we dare disagree?
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 18 September, 2005)
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