Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 147
The arrangement worked for the new couple as Rita had too many memories attached to her Maitri Park building and it would also have been very awkward for her to stay in the same building with another man just a few months after her husband’s passing.
So, Roy sold his apartment in Maitri Park and bought a bigger two bedroom apartment in nearby Chheda Nagar, an area that was coming up and was considerably cheaper.
The good part was that, the double deal left Roy a few lakhs to spare, which he could invest in his future business.
As it turned out, the real estate deals were made at the right time because Bombay was about to go into shock.
On Friday, 12th March 1993, at 1:30 pm a powerful car bomb exploded in the basement of the Bombay Stock Exchange building.
The 28-storey office building housing India’s biggest Stock Exchange was severely damaged by the powerful RDX bomb. Over 50 people, many of them stock traders, were killed by this explosion and hundreds were injured.
Panic stricken traders, some bleeding profusely, ran out of the BSE on to the streets and towards Churchgate and Victoria Terminus stations.
The police and lifesaving services rushed to the blast site to transport the injured among the mangled dead, to the nearby hospitals.
The news of the attack on India’s financial hub spread like wildfire and News Channels went ballistic in their coverage.
But it was just the beginning. In the biggest coordinated blasts of its kind in the world,
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 149
thirteen powerful bombs ripped the heart out of Bombay between 1:30 pm to 3:40 pm the same day.
Most of the bombs were car bombs, but some were placed in scooters too.
Three hotels, the Hotel Sea Rock, Hotel Juhu Centaur, and Hotel Airport Centaur, were targeted by suitcase bombs left in rooms booked by the perpetrators.
Banks, the regional passport office, hotels, the Air India Building, and a major shopping complex were also hit.
Bombs exploded at Zaveri Bazaar, Century Bazaar, Katha Bazaar, Shiv Sena Bhavan and Plaza Theatre.
A bomb placed in a Jeep at the Century Bazaar exploded. Grenades were also thrown at Sahar International Airport and at Fishermen’s Colony.
A BEST double decker bus was very badly damaged in one of the explosions and that single incident accounted for the greatest loss of life— perhaps up to ninety people were killed.
150 Tinsel
Rumours of more blasts and exaggerated death tolls spread causing widespread fear in the City.
Everybody lost someone they knew in the blasts. Young Husain, who had worked as a cable technician in FCN and later did odd jobs for the duo was unfortunately travelling in the ill-fated double decker BEST bus to deliver a package for them in Worli.
The police found a FCN identity card on Husain and called them to inform.
Roy and Chika immediately left for Cooper Hospital in Juhu to identify his body.
There was blood everywhere. Arms, legs, torsos and mangled remains were strewn across the room. Howling relatives were trying to gather parts of the victims that they could identify.
The brutality of the deaths around them was benumbing. They searched soullessly for young Husain’s body.
Then they saw him. It seemed like he was sleeping in the carnage. There was not a single external injury on his body, except for a bump in the back of his head. He was in peace.
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 251
refused to pick up the number or play tough, a few ‘new recruits’ would pay their office a visit, brandish their weapons and give them the international number to call, if they wanted to live.
Then one day what was considered impossible, happened. Raja’s impregnable fortress in Bangkok was breeched.
The timing of the attack was too good to be coincidental. Most of Raja’s dreaded shooters were out on assignments and only the number cruncher Mukesh “Battery” Bhosle, a few trusted lieutenants, and his wife were in the apartment that fateful morning.
The attack was outrageously daring and planned to perfection. It was unthinkable that anybody would dare attack the lion in his own den, and it was exactly that false sense of security that led Raja to be a bit lax.
A dozen shooters armed with automatic weapons barged into the apartment at the break of dawn with commando precision.
Within seconds, six of Raja’s henchmen including Mukesh Battery were shot dead. Awakened by
Later that month Roy and Rita moved into their new home.
Roy, Rita and Chika met Naaz, Afzal’s wife and asked her if Roy and Rita could adopt Shameem’s baby. She was more than happy to oblige as she had four other mouths to feed and long legal battle ahead to save her husband.
A few days later, Roy and Rita legally adopted Shameem’s daughter and brought her home.
They named her Zasha after Zaheer and Shameem.
Only after baby Zasha came home did Roy’s nightmares stop.
Baby Zasha was a bundle of joy. She had Zaheer’s fair complexion and Shameem’s sharp features. Both Roy and Rita doted on her.
Zasha also brought with her a new zest and ambition in Roy’s life.
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 153
He and Chika discussed in detail how they could resurrect FCN, but they realized that things had changed and small start-up cable networks no longer had a place in the metros.
It was during that time that they met Ballu.
Balwinder Singh or Ballu as everybody called him was a Bihari from Bhagalpur, the silk capital of India.
His father worked in a local silk mill, labouring twelve hours a day for a mere Rs 1500 salary. Ballu realised very early in life that he had no future in Bhagalpur. He migrated to Delhi after completing his matriculation. In Delhi, he worked as an assistant to an electrician and became quite adept in that trade.
He had come to Bombay in 1986 armed with a forged diploma in electrical engineering from a non-recognised polytechnic institute and found work in a three star hotel as an electrical assistant.
The lure of easy sex brought Ballu to the television production industry.
He started as a supervising electrician for a light supplier and his job was basically to ensure that
154 Tinsel
all the lights at the shooting set worked and that there wasn’t any short circuit that would burn down the highly inflammable set.
Over the years he had slowly bought his own set of second hand lights, strobes, spotlights, reflectors, stands, etc., and had become a full- fledged light supplier and coordinator.
Being a Jack of all trades, he also dabbled in real estate and was associated with Monty Kapoor, the real estate broker who helped Roy sell his Maitri Park apartment and buy the one in Chheda Nagar.
He had accompanied Monty during the double deal and had become friendly with Roy. During one of the meetings, he had told Roy that there was a great opportunity to mint money in the television production industry. Roy concurred and decided to call him over to the garage to meet Chika.
Ballu turned up for the meeting with a pretty 18 year old aspiring actress whom he introduced as the future superstar Payal. Tall, slim and dressed in a short skirt and a skimpy top, the over made up Payal was aloof and seemed far
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 155
too mature for her age. She was not interested in the meeting and was busy watching her favourite Hindi soaps on the small 14 inch TV in the cabin.
The three men sat and discussed possibilities over whiskey and club soda.
In the course of the last year, Daya Anna had managed to get a Bar and Permit Room license for the Irani restaurant and done the place up with typical Shetty style interiors and partial air- conditioning.
He had rechristened the place CHAITANYA BAR & RESTAURANT.
Being a smart businessman, he had even built an illegal floor over the restaurant and used it as a banquet hall to service small get-togethers.
So, now they
could just pick up the phone and order the drinks and food. The bills had to be paid, of course, but there was no hurry.
Ballu was suitably impressed with the set up.
“All we need is a place like this and an investment of 10 lakhs,” he added confidently, “I can get you the best editors and steady post
156 Tinsel
production work from at least two daily soaps. We will break even in less than 6 months!”
The meeting went on till the bottle of whiskey was cleaned up. By then they had discussed the financials, the profit sharing, and the intricacies to be put on the agreement for founding their firm. It was also agreed that the new firm will be called ZASHA MOVING IMAGES.
As they stood up to shake hands over the deal, Ballu said “Well, you can’t seal a deal without a kiss, can you?”
Roy and Chika were surprised when he then called Payal out and crudely asked her to give each of them a blow job.
What was more surprising was the fact that Payal obliged expertly without batting an eyelid.
An hour later, as he was driving back home, Roy could not help but laugh at the shocked expression that Payal had when she saw Chika’s size.
Then his thought wandered and he wondered what would have made a young pretty girl like
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 157
Payal a slave to a sleaze ball like Ballu? What about her parents? Obviously they were in the know.
“Shit!” he thought, “What a fucking dirty industry!”
And soon he would be swallowed up by it.
The next one month was a déjà vu of the time they started FCN. The garage was converted into an editing studio. Since the garage had a height of fourteen feet, a mezzanine floor was set up to accommodate four cubicles to be used as editing suites. There was a small reception area and couple of workstations below along with a small conference area and a combined cabin for the owners.
Four state-of-the-art AVID systems were ordered. Six young editors were hired to work in shifts, so that the studio would function 24x7.
ZMI was officially launched on 1st January 1994. Ballu managed to invite some top producers and directors from the television industry to show off the computers and software.
Ballu’s focus was on the producers who lived in the Central Suburbs of Bombay for whom not travelling to South Bombay for everyday post production work would be a great relief.
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 159
After the tour of the facilities, the invitees were ushered into the banquet hall of the restaurant for cocktails and dinner. It cost them a packet, but then it was show biz after all.
The business plan was simple.
They would take on the entire post production of two daily soaps on volume based, low margin monthly retainer charge to cover their overheads. And they would charge market rates for Ad Hoc work that came their way.
The plan which was good on paper had one hitch. The industry was notorious for not paying its dues.
Ballu had a solution for that too. He had a ring of aspiring starlets and he would use one of them as an incentive to motivate the accountants to release their cheques on time.
ZMI broke even in exactly eight months and it was time to upgrade their services.
Steven Spielberg had just released Jurassic Park a few months ago and the world was astounded by what special effects could do. People were rubbing their eyes in disbelief! The days of tacky
160 Tinsel
special effects were over and a new era had begun.
Special FX or Computer Graphics (CG) became the latest buzzword all over the world, including India, though India was decades behind in technology and expertise.
ZMI decided to jump on the Special FX bandwagon.
Ballu created an impressive project report with the help of a Chartered Accountant friend and a bank loan of 50 lakhs was arranged from a reputed nationalized bank.
For collateral, Chika had pledged ten acres of absolutely rocky and barren land he had owned near Mangalore. The CA had cleverly enhanced the value of land which was less than 5 lakhs to 50 lakhs.
The fact that the loan officer was sent on an all- expense paid weekend to a resort in Khandala where he realized his lifelong dream of having a threesome with two pretty young things, did help in the dispersion of the loan in double quick time.
Manoj (Vaz) Ramchandran 161
Immediately, two SGI supercomputers were ordered and the latest, astronomically expensive “Inferno” 3D compositing software loaded on them.
The machines were ordered, but they had a bigger problem on hand. There was hardly anyone in Bombay who could operate the software.
Two experienced editors who had some experience working on “Flint” and “Flame” softwares that worked on the same platform were chosen and sent to Singapore for weeklong familiarisation program.
ZMI thus became the first studio in India to provide high-end Special FX services. It was prohibitively expensive and out of range of the TV producers who worked on commissioned budgets, but it did lure some top-notch film makers to Chembur.
The hype was good, but it was an idea before its time. ZMI’s Special FX department got a lot of enquiries and visitors, but not much fructified into business.
162 Tinsel
It was the general view among the producers that Bollywood films worked on star appeal and emotional hook. Indian film goers were not exposed to Special FX and did not expect high quality FX from their films.
Also, it was felt that that there was very little market in India for science fiction films that required a lot of Special FX.
‘If people want to see Special FX, they can watch a Hollywood film!’ was the general thought.
ZMI was feeling the Special FX burden. The equated monthly instalments were killing and the salaries of the FX operators were thrice as much as the AVID operators. The income that was generated by the video editing was getting drained by the FX suites.
An emergency meeting was called and in the meeting Ballu suggested that ZMI expand into television production.
He explained that all they needed to do was find a suitable script and director to shoot a pilot episode. If the pilot was approved, they would be commissioned by a channel to produce the series. The channel would pay them Rs 5 lakh for every episode they approve. Ballu was confident that they could produce high quality content at 80% of the cost. That meant a clear Rs 1 lakh margin from each episode.
Word was spread around that ZMI was looking for good scripts and directors. The next few weeks were chock-a-bloc with narration sessions by script writers. Most of the scripts were “me too” stories and run of the mill. ZMI wanted something hard hitting as their first production and nothing that they heard excited them.
164 Tinsel
Then, on a Friday evening, an unknown young writer came to meet them. His name was Ali Azmi and he came to them with a concept called “Section 302”.
Tinsel Page 10