My script - Version 1.5

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This is actually the second version of the story, which I had written on the 5th day of the workshop. Anjum liked this too, but he mentioned that the 1st script was much better.

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Manipulation

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Characters

· Ragavan – 45 yr old person, working in a private finance company as Accts manager – Family man with a fat / uninteresting wife, 2 sons in college, Honest, pious, Hard working, but has one weakness: porn magazines – He is sexually deprived & these magazines keeps him going – He buys them from a road side vendor secretly & reads them after dinner in the pretext of working officially or reading something else.

· Ranjani – 40 yr old attractive woman, working in the same company as GM(finance) – Divorcee with no children – Lives alone – Good mannered, Strict & well dressed decent lady.

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Situation

Ranjani has offered a loan to her family friend(a big amount) with a personal guarantee, but the guy vanishes after taking the loan. Only Ragavan knows abt the personal assurance of her & he has that particular file. An external audit team is visiting the company in 2 days & Ranjani wants that Guarantee form to be removed from the file, so that it would look like another default case.

Stake

She is expecting a promotion & a transfer to Mumbai, her beloved city. This scam might spoil everything, including her career.



Scene 1

Office. Day. 5pm

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Ranjani summons Ragavan into her room & reprimands him for doing some mistake in his job. He tries to defend himself & Ranjani gets upset. She takes a file from the drawer, tosses it on the table & asks Ragavan to open it. Ragavan hesitantly opens it to find a ‘porn book’ in between the sheets. It is his book & by mistake he had delivered the file without removing it, it seems. He is shocked, tries to accuse the attender, but Ranjani knows for sure. She throws the book in the dustbin & warns Ragavan severely.

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Ragavan comes out of Ranjani’s cabin cursing her. He wonders aloud abt the file reaching Ranjani without his knowledge & blames his absent-mindedness for that. He is ashamed & leaves for the day.

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Scene 2.

Ragavan’s house. Night. 8.30pm

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Dinner. Entire family present. His sons are talking about the current cricket team etc, but Ragavan is not listening. He is still thinking abt the incident at the office. His wife is amused with his lack of concentration.

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Scene 3.

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Ragavan’s bedroom. Night. 10pm

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His wife is sleeping in the bed, while Ragavan slowly gets up, take the porn books from the bag, keep it inside a file, sits in a chair away from the sleeping wife & starts to read. His face is a myriad of expressions - pleasure, pain, anguish, relief etc. He looks longingly at some of the pictures of models dressed in flimsy clothes.

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Scene 4.

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Office. Day. 11am

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Ragavan is summoned into Ranjani’s room & this time she looks ill & worried. She slowly brings out the subject (loan, her personal guarantee etc) & the external auditing. She wants Ragavan to help her by removing her guarantee form from the file. Ragavan refuses. She pleads & begs & tells him that she will do anything for him to do that. He stares at her for a while & asks “anything?”. She nods helplessly. He grins slowly & tells her that he will get back to her shortly. He leaves the room & she looks beaten.

Scene 5.

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Office.11.30am
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Ragavan in his seat. Checks on that particular file. Sees the assurance form, smiles, puts it back in the locker, locks it & pockets the key. Thinking abt the issue & the various possible outcomes. He is certainly aroused now & wants to use this opportunity. He is scared but still formulates a plan. He gets up. Sits down. Dilemma. Finally he makes up his mind, gets up & walks into her room.

Scene 6.

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Office. 12 noon
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Ragavan is very uncomfortable. But gradually tells her the favour that he wants. He wants a sexual favour. She is shocked. He tries to justify. Talks abt his wife, the sexual deprivation etc. She asks him to leave the room. He looks defeated & leaves the room.



Scene 7.

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Office. Ragavan’s seat. 3pm
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He is squirming in his seat. He is sweating. Keeps looking at Ranjani’s room door. Gulps down water. Totally uneasy. He tries to get up, when the intercom buzzes. He picks up.

Scene 8.

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Office. Ranjani’s room. 3.15pm

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Ragavan enters slowly. He looks a mess himself. Ranjani looks a lot composed now. He was abt to open his mouth to apologise, when she speaks “Where & When?”. He is shocked. Realises her decision & is Jubilant. She is expressionless, stone faced. She asks him for assurance abt the file & he promises to remove the form the next day morning first thing. The auditing is in 2 days & she wants things to be done asap. They agree to meet at her house (she lives alone) by 7pm that same day itself & he can leave by 9pm after finishing his business. She pleads him to maintain secrecy, admonishes him for his ruthless demand. He is remorse yet happy. He just could not believe his luck.

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Scene 9.

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Office. Ragavan’s place. 4pm.

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He is ecstatic. He cannot believe his luck. He takes permission & leaves the office early by 4pm.

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Scene 10.

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Ragavan’s house. 6pm.
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Ragavan is standing in front of the mirror combing his hair. He is wearing a nice T-shirt & is clean shaven & fresh. When his grand-son enquires about this, Ragavan says that he is going to a function in a colleague’s house. His wife is lying on the bed. She is not well & has fever/head-ache. Ragavan asks her to take rest & she nods with her eyes closed. He looks at her face, hesitates momentarily, but leaves eventually.

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Scene 11.

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Ranjani’s house. 7pm.
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Ragavan rings the bell. Ranjani opens & he enters. He is a little shy & uncomfortable. She is still expressionless. He sits in the couch, asks her for water. He is visibly nervous. She looks indifferent, but not angry anymore. He stands up hesitantly & she leads him to her bedroom. The door closes behind them.

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Scene 12.

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Ranjani’s house. 9pm.
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The bedroom door opens. Ragavan comes out of it slowly. He looks a little ruffled. He pauses by the door, looks back, hesitates & leaves the house.

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Scene 13.

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Ragavan’s house. 9pm
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Ragavan comes out of the bathroom after taking a bath. His wife brings a glass of milk to him. She looks very tired. She walks past him slowly & lies on the bed. She coughs mildly, covers herself with a blanket & turns away from him. He sits on the bed looking straight ahead without any expression.(He is guilty). He closes his eyes slowly & immediately hears a slap sound. He opens his eyes in shock.


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Scene 14.

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Next day. Office. 10.00am.
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Ragavan comes to his seat & sits down. He is quite dull. He settles down, opens the draw, searches for that particular file & finds it missing. He is shocked & tries to search more carefully. His colleague Raju approaches him & enquires abt his restlessness. Ragavan tells him abt the missing file, for which Raju remarks that Ranjani could have taken it with her when she was found searching something in Ragavan’s closet the previous day. When Ragavan says that the key is with him, Raju chuckles & mentions that Ranjani has a bunch of duplicate keys for all the lockers in the finance department. Ragavan is surprised & he expresses doubt abt it. Raju continues by saying that even during the previous week, when Ragavan was absent on a day, Ranjani had opened his draw to refer to an important file. Infact he mentions that she took off some file away with her.

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Ragavan realizes that she could had taken the file with the porn book all by herself. Ragavan is completely shocked. He could not digest the news. He gets up slowly & walks towards the washroom.

Scene 16.

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Office. Washroom.
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Ragavan is standing in front of the washbasin mirror & is staring at it. He bents down to splash water from the tap onto his face. As he wipes his face with hand-kerchief, he notices something at the corner near the wash basin. A spider spinning a web meticulously.

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He stares at it for a while. Turns back slowly, walks out of the washroom. The door closes…

My script - version 2

I just wanted to try the same premise from a different angle, having takem my friend Girish's suggestion into consideration. I changed the characterisations slightly & treated the screenplay differently. In the process, I learnt 2 important lessons abt script-writing (which I will share later after seeing a feedback).

The new version of my story goes like this -

(Yet to be titled)

Main characters

· Ragavan – 52 yr old person, working in a private finance company as Accts manager – Very hard working, loyal, sincere, honest etc – Family man with an ailing wife, 1 daughter who was recently married to a U.S based s/w engineer, 1 son – who has scored very poor marks in his +2 board exams.

· Ranjani – 40 yr old attractive woman, working in the same company as GM(finance) – Divorcee with no children (or) maybe she has a family in Mumbai– Lives alone – Good mannered, Strict & well dressed decent lady.

Situation
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Ranjani has offered a loan to her family friend(a big amount) with a personal guarantee, but the guy vanishes after taking the loan. Only Ragavan knows abt the personal assurance of her & he has that particular file. An external audit team / M.D are visiting the company in 2 days & Ranjani wants that Guarantee form to be removed from the file, so that it would look like another default case.

Stake

Ranjani - She is expecting a promotion & a transfer to Mumbai, her beloved city. This scam might spoil everything, including her career.

Ragavan – His son’s desired education.



Scene 1

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Ragavan’s house. 7am.

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Ragavan is completing his puja (Gayathri jabam), a daily ritual. His wife hints about their son Vishnu’s desire to go to engineering college. Ragavan sneers at her, accuses his son for his poor results & wants him to forget all those desires. His wife talks about payment quota & he gets even angrier. He points out that they went overboard recently to get their daughter married to a U.S guy. Apart from the bypass surgery expenses (for his wife), so much of unpaid loans, his ineligibility to acquire new loans, his less salary etc. His wife keeps quite. Their son Vishnu is lying on the bed & listening to it all with teary eyes.
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Scene 2
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Office. Day. 11am

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Ranjani summons Ragavan into her room & reminds him about their MD Mr.Kothari’s visit & the external audit. While talking abt the formalities, she brings the case of her personal assurance (looks like, she had already discussed this with him earlier itself). Ragavan doesn’t budge. He says he cannot become her accomplice in this scandal & requests her to face the consequences. She pleads him, but he is unrelenting.
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As a last resort, she mentions that she had come across his loan application by chance & she states that he do not have a slightest chance of getting it sanctioned, as he had already taken a lot of loans earlier. But she is willing to help him by recommending it & getting it done for him, all for a small favour from him. He looks into her eyes, nods his head in negative & leaves the room.

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Scene 3

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Ragavan’s house. Dinner table. 8pm.

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All 3 of them are having their dinner. There is a strained silence in the room. Their son Vishnu slowly mentions that his close friend’s father has paid 5 lacs to a pvt engineering college & has got a seat for his friend. He looks at his father with pleading eyes. Ragavan continues to munch without responding. After a while, he asks Vishnu if he had submitted the application for the B.Sc maths seat in Vivekananda College. Vishnu gets up from the table without eating & leaves. His wife looks down & Ragavan continues to eat.

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Scene 4.

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Office. 3pm. Ranjani’s room.

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Ranjani & Ragavan are discussing abt the audit & she brings out her point again. Ragavan is stubborn. Ranjani asks him if he is expecting any other favours from her & looks at him inquisitively. He glares at her & says that he has immense respect for her & warns her not to provoke him any further. She looks defeated, apologises & pleads him again. He gets up & leaves her room.

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Scene 5.

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Office. Ragavan’s place.

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Ragavan opens his closet & takes out the file. He looks at her personal assurance form, stares at it for a while & puts the file back in there. His colleague comes near him & tries to chat with him, some other office gossip. Ragavan is not interested, continues with his work.

Scene 6.

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Ragavan’s house. Night. 9pm

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He enters the house from office & explains to his wife that due to the next day’s auditing, there was a lot of work at office. His wife tells him that their son had not eaten from yesterday & is refusing to come out of his room. Ragavan says that Fasting is good for health & goes into his room.

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Scene 7.

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Ragavan’s bedroom. 10pm.

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Ragavan is flipping thru a magazine, lying on his bed. His wife enters the room & he enquires if Vishnu had eaten anything. She nods her head saying ‘no’. He looks unperturbed & continues with the magazine. His mobile rings & it shows ‘Ranjani Madam’ in its display. He picks it, listens to it for a while & says calmly ‘ Please don’t try to cover a mistake with another’. Then without continuing, he says ‘Good night’ & cuts the line. His wife is watching him with confusion.

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Scene 8.

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Ragavan’s house. Morning. 7am.

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Ragavan is doing his puja. (the puja room is a part of the kitchen). His wife brings his mobile & calls/disturbs him hesitantly. He looks at her angrily & she informs that it has been ringing for more than 15 minutes & she felt that it could be important. He takes the phone from her angrily. It is Ranjani on the other end. She apologises first for the early morning call & then informs him that she had withdrawn all her personal savings of Rs.3.5 lacs the previous day & would be bringing it to the office. All he had to do was to destroy the paper & she would give the money to him, either as a gift or as a loan according to his wish. She pleads him again & requests him not to let her & her career down. She cuts the line.

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Ragavan keeps the mobile down & tries to continue with the jabam. But he stutters & the flow is not there. His wife glances sideways to acknowledge his lack of concentration.

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Scene 9.

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Ragavan’s house. 8.30am

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Ragavan is about to leave. He enquires about Vishnu & his wife says that he has already left. She says that Vishnu has gone to a new/unknown Engineering college in the outskirts, which could be offering the seats for a very cheap price. He wanted to enquire & if the payment is high there too, then he would be going to Vivekanada college from there directly to submit his application. Ragavan takes his bag & leaves.

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Scene 10.

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Office. 11am.

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Ragavan comes out of the toilet. He washes his face in the wash-basin, opens the washroom & comes out into the office. He walks towards his place & the intercom buzzes. He picks it up & listens. His MD is on the other end. Mr.Kothari says that the auditing team has arrived at the office & asks Ragavan to hand-over all the files to them & co-operate with them. Ragavan says ‘OK Sir’ very respectfully & keeps the receiver down.

Scene 11.

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Office.

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One person from the audit team approaches Ragavan & asks for the files / other documents. Ragavan gives the closet keys to him & asks him to help himself. The person opens the closet & starts to take all the files / documents outside.

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The intercom buzzes again & Kothari asks Ragavan to come to his cabin.

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Scene 12.
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Office. MD room.
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Ragavan enters the room & he finds his MD Kothari behind the table in his seat. Ranjani is sitting opposite to him & both of them are looking grim. Ragavan is asked to sit.

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Kothari just stares at Ragavan for a while & suddenly he lets out a broad smile. He extends his hand out to Ragavan to congratulate & Ragavan is confused. Kothari starts to talk – The entire episode of Ranjani’s scandal is a drama / setup. As Ranjani wanted to get transferred to Mumbai immediately, they were looking for a good prospect to replace her here at the Chennai office & Ranjani had referred Ragavan’s name. Before he gave Ragavan the responsibility, Mr.Kothari wanted to get totally convinced of his integrity/honesty. (Kothari apologises to Ragavan for suspecting him, but mentions that it is a standard procedure in this company right from its inception by his Grandfather during the early 20’s. He knows that this approach is quite unrefined, but mentions that this method has worked always for them. After all, Crores of rupees are at stake & one dishonest person with the sanctioning abilities can destroy everything, he says).
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Kothari mentions that Ragavan would be promoted as DGM & would get a house / car / allowance / pay hike etc.

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Ranjani is happy too & congratulates Ragavan. Ragavan is stunned & is speechless.

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The attender brings in the file, places it on the table & leaves. Kothari & Ranjani exchange smiles & Kothari tells Ragavan that the whole file is a manufactured one. He laughs about the entire process & jokes about it. He asks Ranjani if she remembers the plot that they had used on her before selecting her. She laughs & says ‘How can I forget?’. Mr.Kothari casually opens the file & start to browse, even while talking & laughing. He gets serious slowly, his expression changes & browses the file again. Ranjani looks at him in confusion & Kothari looks at Ragavan. Ragavan is sweating profusely & looking down now. THE PERSONAL ASSURANCE FORM IS MISSING.

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Ranjani takes the file & leafs thru it hurriedly. She asks Ragavan abt the missing document & he does not speak. Kothari is in a state of shock & he too asks Ragavan abt it. Ragavan is still not talking. As a background score, we let the toilet flushing sound play (He has flushed it. Infact we can even show a paper ball being flushed in the toilet, watched by Ragavan as an intercut scene OR just the flushing sound).

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All 3 characters are silent now. The camera zooms out to the side top angle very slowly & capture 3/4th of the room with 3 people in the middle, standing / sitting across the table. The file is in the middle of the table with papers flapping. There is just the whirring noise from the a/c in the entire scene. Fade out…..

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My Script - Kamalhaasan screnwriting workshop

This is the script that I had given to Anjum on the 3rd day of the workshop & he liked it. Remember the premise was discussed the previous day by Mr.Hariharan & it was like this " an elderly person working under a young lady boss catches her red-handed for doing some malpractice in the job ". Thats it & nothing else. There are various possibilities for developing a script / characterisations based on this premise & I chose this.

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It will be a little raw & might lack finesse, but remember that I conceived it & typed it within 7-8 hours straight. Your feedback is welcome.

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So near, Yet…..

Characters

· Ragavan – 58 yr old person, working in a private finance company as Accts manager - About to retire in 2 weeks – Family man with a fat / uninteresting wife, 2 sons, 2 daughter-in-laws & a couple of Grand children - Honest, pious, Hard working, but has one weakness: porn magazines – He is sexually deprived & these magazines keeps him going – He buys them from a road side vendor secretly & reads them after dinner in the pretext of working officially or reading something else.

· Ranjani – 40 yr old attractive woman, working in the same company as GM(finance) – Divorcee with no children – Lives alone – Good mannered, Strict & well dressed decent lady.

Situation

Ranjani has offered a loan to her family friend(a big amount) with a personal guarantee, but the guy vanishes after taking the loan. Only Ragavan knows abt the personal assurance of her & he has that particular file. An external audit team is visiting the company in 2 days & Ranjani wants that Guarantee form to be removed from the file, so that it would look like another default case.

Stake

She is expecting a promotion & a transfer to Mumbai, her beloved city. This scam might spoil everything, including her career.

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Scene 1
Office. Day. 5pm

Ranjani summons Ragavan into her room & reprimands him for doing some mistake in his job. He comes out cursing her & leaves for the day.

Scene 2
Roadside. A book vendor shop. Evening. 7pm.

Ragavan is glancing at various magazines & from the corner of his eyes scans all the porn magazines kept in the side. There are people around him buying magazines & at that time when no one is there in the shop, he picks a couple of those books, stuffs inside the bag, pays & rushes off.

Scene 3.
Ragavan’s house. Night. 8.30pm

Dinner. Entire family present. They chat abt his retirement day, which is 2 weeks away & abt his after retirement life. His sons & d-i-l’s are hinting at the retirement money, but ragavan does not talk abt it.

Scene 4.
Ragavan’s bedroom. Night. 10pm

His wife is sleeping in the bed, while Ragavan slowly gets up, take the books from the bag, keep it inside a file, sits in a chair away from the sleeping wife & starts to read. His face is a myriad of expressions - pleasure, pain, anguish, relief etc. He looks longingly at some of the pictures of models dressed in flimsy clothes.

Scene 5.
Office. Day. 11am

Ragavan is summoned into Ranjani’s room & this time she looks ill & worried. She slowly brings out the subject (loan, her personal guarantee etc) & the external auditing. She wants Ragavan to help her by removing her guarantee form from the file. Ragavan refuses. She pleads & begs & tells him that she will do anything for him to do that. He stares at her for a while & asks “anything?”. She nods helplessly. He grins slowly & tells her that he will get back to her shortly. He leaves the room & she looks beaten.

Scene 6.
Office.11.30am

Ragavan in his seat. Checks on that particular file. Sees the assurance form, smiles, puts it back in the locker, locks it & pockets the key. Thinking abt the issue & the various possible outcomes. He is certainly aroused now & wants to use this opportunity. He is scared but still formulates a plan. He gets up. Sits down. Dilemma. Finally he makes up his mind, gets up & walks into her room.

Scene 7.
Office. 12 noon

Ragavan is very uncomfortable. But gradually tells her the favour that he wants. He wants a sexual favour. She is shocked. He tries to justify. Talks abt his wife, the sexual deprivation etc. She asks him to leave the room. He looks defeated & leaves the room.

Scene 8.
Office. Ragavan’s seat. 3pm

He is squirming in his seat. He is sweating. Keeps looking at Ranjani’s room door. Gulps down water. Totally uneasy. He tries to get up, when the intercom buzzes. He picks up.

Scene 9.
Office. Ranjani’s room. 3.15pm

Ragavan enters slowly. He looks a mess himself. Ranjani looks a lot composed now. He was abt to open his mouth to aplogise, when she speaks “Where & When?”. He is shocked. Realises her decision & is Jubilant. She is expressionless, stone faced. She asks him for assurance abt the file & he promises to remove the form the next day morning first thing. The auditing is in 2 days & she wants things to be done asap. They agree to meet at her house (she lives alone) by 7pm that same day itself & he can leave by 9pm after finishing his business. She pleads him to maintain secrecy, admonishes him for his ruthless demand. He is remorse yet happy. He just could not believe his luck.

Scene 10.
Office. Ragavan’s place. 4pm.

He is ecstatic. He cannot believe his luck. He calls his house to inform that due to auditing he will come late that night. He takes permission & leaves the office early by 4pm.

Scene 11.
Textile shop. 5pm

Ragavan is buying a flimsy nightie. He calls Ranjani & asks her abt her favourite colour. She is angry to know abt his purchase & slams the phone down. He smiles.

Scene 12.
Ranjani’s house. 7pm.

Ragavan rings the bell. Ranjani opens & he enters happily. He is a little shy, but nonetheless happy. She is still expressionless. He sits in the couch, asks her for a drink, asks her to sit besides him. She is angry & shouts. He smiles & gives her the parcel. She opens it to find the flimsy nightie & gets agitated. Refuses to wear it & asks him to finish things & leave immediately. He doesn’t budge, compels her, even threatens her. She relents, takes the cloth angrily & goes into a room.
She comes out wearing that.(we don’t show that, but just the door opening & Ragavan’s expressions). He is dumbfounded. He goes wild & could not control himself. He gets up slowly & walks towards her like a zombie. He goes near her & she is looking away, still expressionless. He smiles, then laughs, slowly lifts his hand to touch her. She closes her eyes.
Bam! A noise & Ragavan is in the floor catching his chest & convulsing. HEART ATTACK!

Scene 13.
Hospital. 11am.

Ragavan is lying with a lot of tubes attached, monitor, this & that. He is partially paralysed as well & his face is a little distorted, especially the mouth. He is unconscious. His wife is sitting near him with a sad face. Her mobile rings & she goes out of the room to talk. She explains to the person on the other end that Ragavan had gone to his boss’s house to handover some important file & he got a heart attack there suddenly. Heavy work load, pressure etc.

Scene 14.
Hospital room. Next day. 11am

Ragavan is awake, still with all those attachments. Ranjani enters. He looks at her with pleading eyes with a lot of guilt. She assures his wife abt his recovery, his insurance policy etc. As his wife gets another call in her mobile, she goes out.
Ragavan & Ranjani are alone in the room now. He avoids her eye contact. She comes near him & bends over near his face. Now he looks at her & with tears in his eyes, says “ Sorry” slowly with a distorted mouth. She hushes him & asks him to forget it. He asks her abt the audit & she says that it is over. He looks at her enquiringly & she says that she got rid of her assurance statement. He signals “how?” & she sits down in her chair with a sigh. She slowly lifts her head, looks at him & says “The auditor covered everything. He was quite young & he did not suffer a heart attack while doing so”.
Ragavan is shocked. His mouth opens in astonishment. His wife is about to enter. Now Ranjani gets up, comes near him & whispers in his ears “ But Ragavan, I wish it had been you, instead of the auditor. I had always liked you”. She turns & leaves. Ragavan is completely shocked.

Scene 15.
Hospital corridor. 11.30am.

There is a flurry of activity. Nurses running & Ragavan is brought out of his ward room in the stretcher & they push him along the corridor into the critical care room. Ragavan is still gasping with his mouth open & salivating profusely. His wife, sons & daughter-in-law’s are running behind the stretcher wondering aloud “What has gone wrong suddenly?”.
As the stretcher enters the critical care room, the door closes with his family crying outside. Ragavan is still gasping, the spikes in the monitor attached to his chest going berserk (up & down). The scene slowly fades off…

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Kamal haasan's screen-writing workshop

Long time. I would not blame it on the lack of time, but my lack of interest & most importantly LAZINESS. But eventually I had to write a blog because something very important had happened in my life. YES! I attended a screen-writing workshop conducted by none other than the great Kamalhaasan. I had the opportunity to spend 6 days in the same auditorium with him & I was a part of a 250 member team, who got the chance to learn something wonderful.

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When I applied for this workshop, I only had a faint hope of making it thru' & I wrote the synopsis of "Salangai oli", my favourite film (the synopsis was the selection parameter along with your resume). There were close to 2000 applicants & I was fortunate enough to be selected among the 250 candidates. Even after getting selected, I was in a dilemma for almost a week, if I should attend or not because of my tight office schedule. I did make a decision of attending it after a lot of consideration & BOY! what a decision it turned out to be, atlast.

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It was an outstanding workshop conducted by Anjum Rajabali (Pune film institute), Hariharan (Chennai film institute) & Atul Tiwari(Mumbai script-writer). Kamal was there thru'out all the days & sessions. The workshop would begin by 9am & go on till 6pm everyday, after which an acclaimed international film would be screened in a different auditorium. Inbetween there would be a lunch break & 2 tea-breaks. There were people from all parts of India, people of all age groups & belonging to different industries. But there was only one language that we all spoke for the 6 days: the language of script-writing & films. It was amazing to see the kind of respect & admiration these people have of Kamalhaasan. He was almost like a Demi-God for most of them (including myself) & they were treating him like royalty.

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In the workshop, they covered diverse topics abt the art of screenplay writing & saw to that the session does not get boring by showing us a lot of visuals. Kamal would also talk abt his films & share his knowledge often. He was very down-to-earth (surprise!) & was easily accessible. He had tea with us in the same pantry & anyone can approach him & talk to him abt his films, beliefs etc. Infact I had a one-to-one session with him for 90 seconds inside an empty pantry & you could not even imagine my joy during those moments. Kamalhaasan looking at me (& me alone) & talking to me, answering my question(s) with a smile. It was like a dream. I asked him 2 questions - Why did you choose archaelogy as the profession for RAM in the movie Hey Ram, since it did not have any connection with the movie? - If you were to make the movie today, would you do it differently? He gave me some amazing answers, but truly speaking, I was not concentrating as I was in a state of trance. BTW, almost all the participants wanted to ask Kamal questions abt 2 movies only, Hey Ram & Anbe Sivam.

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One interesting thing happened on the 3rd day. While Mr.Hariharan was conducting a session, he took some situations as examples to explain the principles of characterisation & characteristics. While doing so, he gave us a situation like this - ' An elderly person working under a young lady boss catches her red-handed for doing some malpractise in the job ' . He went on to define abt characters, habits, traits etc , but my mind started to assess the situation & slowly a short story formed in there. I skipped the 6pm movie that day, came to office, typed the story in a screenplay format & took 2 copies(hard copy). I went home only by 11pm that night from office.

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Next day, I was waiting for the right opportunity to give my script to Anjum & Hariharan (I was scared to approach Kamal). I did find a suitable opportunity when they were alone & gave them the hardcopies. Anjum read it then & there itself and he was surprised that I came out with a script in such a short notice & that too he said was a decent script. (Hariharan never read it till the last day of the workshop). Infact Anjum approached Kamal with my script & they were seen discussing looking at my papers. I was watching it from a distance & I was perspiring profusely that Kamal might just take it & read it. But it never happened & Kamal just nodded his head and went on stage to announce that the next workshop would be an advanced one on screenplay writing & 30 students among us would be short-listed based on a short film script that we should be submitting. Till this moment, I do not know that if my script was the one that prompted the idea of short film screen plays (Now he has already announced it & has given all of us the topic "Chennai" to make a script on).

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I didnt leave it at that. The next day, I gave Anjum another hardcopy of the same story with a different ending. He, although, liked the first one only but nevertheless appreciated me. He did point out some flaws in my writing & my characterisations. Some of his points made sense & some didnt (to me), but I did not have time to discuss more abt it, personally.

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I made few friends there, I mingled with different groups & most of the times I just kept quiet & was only observing things. Few sessions were, ofcourse, boring but on the whole it was a great experience. I learnt few nuances abt film making & got exposed to some renowned film-makers & some fabulous international films. Abt screenplay writing, I found out a secret on the second day itself : ' SCREENPLAY WRITING CANNOT BE TAUGHT '. Its more of your common sense & your intellectual ideas transforming into intelligent scenes. These things cannot be taught, especially in 6 days. But we can learn them only by watching a lot of good films & reading a lot of good scripts. And thats exactly what I have started to do now.

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I also have to mention the professional manner in which the entire workshop was conducted. it was inside the IIT campus & the hall, food, service, co-ordination & everything made it look like an international business meet. Kudos to the IIT staff & Rajkamal team for this fantastic effort.

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The last day of the work-shop saw many celebrities like Shekar kapur, Rituporno, Shyamaprasad, Balachander, Balumahendra, Rakesh Ommehra, BharathBala, Ameer, Dharani, Balaji sakthivel, RadhaMohan, Sreeram Ragavan, a couple of American script writers, a French writer & many more (Kamal seems to be having amazing contacts all across the world & they too respect him just like the Indians). The final moments were very touching with Kamalhaasan asking us all to "prepare to bleed in order to take Indian cinema to the next level". Infact he mentioned that he has been bleeding for the last 20 yrs & is prepared to bleed the next few yrs also for the same purpose. Amazing guy. There was a thunderous applause at the end of the day, especially for Kamalhaasan as he had pulled off something unthinkable. What an initiative! As Balumahendra mentioned, even if 1 or 2 of us(participants) go on to make some path-breaking scripts, this workshop would have served its purpose.

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I can go on & on abt this experience,but most of the things I experienced there cannot be explained just like that. It takes time & better sense of writing to do so. I would always be treasuring these days in my heart & I sincerely hope that I go on to make full use of whatever little knowledge I gained during these fantastic 6 days. These are some memories which will stay with you always & you can talk abt them with people forever, till you die. Take a bow, Mr.KamalHaasan ! You are a real life hero.. Unlike many other fake ones....

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BTW, I would be posting the script I wrote in a couple of days. Dont worry guys, its a short story & you can read it within 5 minutes. Till then....

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