A Humble Plea To Rename Bollywood to Aram Nagar Part 2
In Versova, a peninsular tendril of Mumbai’s suburbs, there is a neighbourhood created over the fossils of a British naval landing, comprising of over 3000 broken bungalows and the dirt tracks that criss cross through them. Over the last decade, these bungalows have become Mumbai’s equivalent of Hollywood, housing casting companies, production houses and a vast array of other organisations that service the Hindi film industry. It draws dream chasers like moths to a flame and creates a graveyard of singed wings around it. In true reflection of the nature of the industry it houses, the name of this place is Aram Nagar Part 2.
There is a man with a handsome face and many missing teeth who introduces himself as Master Aniket (names changed). He visits every cafe in Aram Nagar Part 2, and moves from one table to another, with a brown suitcase in tow, which like his weathered suit and his canines seem like remnants from an Eastman color past. He used to be a child actor from the 70s he explains with childlike earnestness. He then asks if the person he has interrupted is a filmmaker. “Yes? Excellent” “No?” No matter. He still asks them to keep ‘a’ number, not ‘his’ number. And to keep him in mind for any role, no matter the size. His stomach rumbles. He calls for a tumbler and drowns the sounds of his belly with water. He checks if the person whose time and space he has intruded, would care for a coffee. In his eyes one sees as much hope of them turning down his offer as there is for them to offer him one as well. He does this for a week until the baristas eventually push him out.
He returns a few months later.
Baristas change. Strugglers in the film industry endure, running on fumes, and filtered water. The ash of their blazing bodies and burnt dreams lace the untarred pathways of Aram Nagar Part 2. In a country where films are religion, this little village in Versova is Haj.
The X acre plot of Aram Nagar Part 2 is separated from the sea by a thin strip of road and sea side facing apartments that either have shut windows or rooms slick with salt laced moisture. Many years ago this place was a naval barrack. Little trace of that martial history remains. There are only bungalows now in Aram Nagar Part 2, a stupendous percentage of which serve Bollywood in some capacity. Production houses, casting agencies with or without the (mostly handwritten) ‘No Auditions, No Intros’ board stuck outside, and makeshift offices to accommodate a single movie or TV show’s crew, pack Aram Nagar. In fact if the Hollywood inspired monicker, seems offensive to domestic filmmakers, a case for a nationalistic rechristening of Bollywood to Aram Nagar Part 2 would make for a solid appeal.
The real estate landscape of the place is as quirky as the industry it houses. One might frequent one of the many restaurants that line the periphery of this place, and one day open the door to find themselves staring into a wall-less blast of broken bricks and sunlight where their favorite corner side table used to be. Illegal extensions are commonplace here. There is space to build it and profits to be made. And while gourmet food is one kind of profit making enterprise in these parts, just as lucrative are gymnasiums and dance studios. Biceps are after all, as good a measure as they come, of acting chops in this industry. But even these metal heavy stores, shut shop upon getting wind of a BMC raid, leaving perplexed patrons in yoga pants and muscle baring singlets looking at the locked gates, as confused and grumpy as the many neutered cats that roam this place.
Loneliness and despair invokes immense empathy in Aram Nagar Part 2. The street animals here are better taken care of than most parts of the city. There is a black dog outside the park at Aram Nagar Part 2 who is a joyous mess the second it comes across someone willing to scratch its rump. It then speeds to either one of the several audition places that house it, incapable of understanding why you can’t accept it’s invitation, when scores of fresh faces standing in queues go inside and out every single day.
Next to this park is, Sudhir Mishra’s bungalow. It has a boundary wall that is three shades shy of a communist red and enjoys the canopy of one of the densest trees of Aram Nagar Part 2. At night his tall slender figure can be seen strolling the park as he walks his dogs, most of whom are old, arthritic and seem generally unhappy. Whether he is a saint who takes in these kind or someone under whose watch they have become thus is as open to conjecture, as the perplexing gap between his abilities and the work they produce.
The universe unspools in the conjecture laden cafes of Aram Nagar Part 2. They are the green room of possibilities. On every table is an unmade script, an unwritten screenplay, an unfulfilled idea, an undiscovered talent, admiring itself, changing it’s attire, getting it’s cosmetics done, attracting people to it or to the people working on it. Almost everyone here is open to a conversation.
You can make out the difference between those who’ve made it, and those who are trying to, between how they order their coffee. Taapsee Pannu, Sobhita Dhulipala, Anurag Kashyap have their coffee on the go. Vrajesh Hirjee, Manish Chaudhary, Priyankshu Painyuli hatch their plans here but without much interference. Bornila Chatterjee, director of the visually magnificent Hungry, spends as much time working as she does exercising her curious fixation over twirling strands of her hair into braids that don’t behave. When in the city, the immensely talented Aditya Vikram Sengupta, director of Asha Jaoar Majhe, spends a lot of time in troubled planning here with his wife Jonaki. Vikramaditya Motwane fumes over his phone in silence while his crew are contrarily uproarious. Shekhar Kapur once apparated out of nowhere, handsome with the lights of the setting saffron sun upon him. In close proximity to these dream merchants operate entrepreneurs, architects, lawyers and proponents of every imaginable profession, adding their own tinder to the ever blazing fire of concentrated will that makes the future more pliable, more bendable, more subservient to their caffeine laced vision. The vibe about this place, they all agree, is something else.
The locals spill over most visibly in afternoons and evenings. The aforementioned park, and playground, are venue to compelling games of cricket, volleyball, football and badminton, depending completely upon the mood of the participants. In these places one can witness Aram Nagar’s past despite the prism of the present. An angry resident screams at a queue of folks lined up for auditions demanding that the cars blocking the exit of her bungalow be removed. “You bloody film people have ruined this place” she screams “I am calling the police” she says with the phone fastened against her ear. People watch uncertainly, wondering if they should flee, or store this perfect caricature as inspiration for a later role.
As dusk settles into these pockets, their quiet corners find couples romancing, as they breathe in each other’s perfumes, and the smoke of dank weed, drifting in with the heavy but inaudible voices of the smokers.
“Lovers are the most disgraced in the eyes of the world. Smokers and drinkers are safe where people are romancing, Buddy!.” says Zubin (name changed) pistoling his favourite word. He introduces his cousin Karan (name changed). Zubin is an almost forgotten actor who needs a few careful gazes before an excited memory will spring the characters he’s played back to memory. Karan, an amicable seeming chap licks a spliff to shape. Not ten metres from where he sits precariously on the seat of a see saw, the photograph of his smiling face is plastered, among several others on the declaration poster of a political party.
Zubin hates the infiltrators, calling most of them pseudo intellectuals that don’t want to do good work, and only want to get laid. His criticism, would have seemed unfair, had it not been for how it fit like a glove when extrapolated to the way the entire industry was known to run. Zubin ’s grandfather supplied wood for the construction of the sets for old Hindi films. They operated out of Aram Nagar when it was more forest than land. It makes his family probably the oldest tie that the place has with Hindi cinema. To point it out to him though yields a sharp retort “Buddy” he says his eyes glazed with the disillusionment of having spent a lifetime as a struggler, with no sight of a way out, and no idea of how he got in “No one gives a shit”.
Fin
