January is the month for the unboxing of the New Year. Everyone, with renewed excitement, is in the mood to make resolutions, ranging from the most mundane to the most monumental ones. I had already made mine more than a year back, and now I was all set to live up to it in the year 2024. This is why, to me, this New Year looked newer than any of the New Years I had welcomed in the last two decades, at least. Of course, I had a great reason to be partial towards this New Year—because the shooting of my dream, Tanvi the Great, was about to commence in the next month! 2024 was indeed a leap year for me, in more ways than one.
I returned from Delhi on New Year’s Eve with the script draft file saved as ‘TTG-Final-Final’ on my iPad. And that file name pretty much said it all! Once in Mumbai, I was in marathon meetings with my direction team associates and other department heads, while typing or recording some three to four thousand ‘Same to you’ New Year messages on the side.
There was more exuberance than blood in my veins. Prep work was going on with the greatest possible intensity. I wanted everything to be well-planned and well-managed so that everyone had the best and most memorable experience while making this film. After all, we were creating the blissful, utopian world of Tanvi. So, the real life ought to match the reel life somewhere.
A few days later, we had made our travel agent busy too. We were ready with a long list of about 250 names. These were the names of the crew members – across departments – who were going to travel with us to Lansdowne, a small town in the state of Uttarakhand, at a height of 1,780 metres above sea level. Being the headquarters of the valiant Garhwal Rifles, the administration of this little-more-than a-century-old town is also looked after by the Cantonment Board.
Therefore, we prepared ID cards for each and every member of the crew. One afternoon, Pranit Kher, the director’s assistant on this film and coincidentally my nephew, walked in with the samples of ID cards printed for the crew members. The designs looked really nice and elegant, and he wanted my approval.
‘Hotels have been booked,’ he informed further. ‘We now only need to make a list of who is staying where – the room allocation, basically.’
I nodded, smiled, and gave a go-ahead look. This somewhat measured response from me betrayed the enthusiasm I had been wearing on my sleeve by that point. I don’t think Pranit noticed it; only I knew the reason for this.
I had been trying to reach out to the gentleman who had agreed to come on board as our chief financier and co-producer of the film. For the last few weeks, for reasons best known to him, he was being evasive – or so I felt. A lot of my calls were not being answered promptly, and the replies to my messages were also getting terser by the day. And yes, we did exchange the mandatory, saccharine-sweet New Year wishes a few days back, but now was the time to discuss something far more urgent –the transfer of funds.
I had been following up with him, reminding him about our agreement for a few months. I could sense that things were moving at a pace slower than expected. And one expected a lot more curiosity, involvement, and participation from someone who had expressed great interest and passion in the story. I assumed that being a busy and successful businessman, he must be really hard-pressed for time. But now it was our turn to be hard-pressed for time.
We were travelling to a location where no film crew had ever shot anything before. We were going to be the first ones to shoot a full-fledged movie there. We, as producers of the film, were responsible for the safety and comfort of these 250 people who had come together to make a dream come true.
In the midst of all this logistical madness and excitement, I was still chasing down our main financier, hoping everything would come together soon. Finally, after much relentless persuasion on my part, our chief financier responded, and he refused to transfer the money at that juncture – just 25 days away from the shoot. Yes, he had pulled out of the project!
Think about my plight as the producer-director! Two hundred and fifty people were waiting for the shoot to begin, and dozens of invoices from technicians were piling up in the inbox of Herman D’Souza. Meanwhile, I sat in my cabin, staring blankly at a map of Lansdowne on my laptop screen. To me, the height of Lansdowne looked way higher than 1,780 metres above sea level, as mentioned on the screen.
We had everything and everyone geared up for the shoot, except the money and the co-producer, who now said that his board of directors did not agree to spare funds as they were hesitant to invest money in a film venture. He sounded like a scratch card saying, ‘Better luck next time.’ The journey to make Tanvi the Great had become an uphill one indeed.
Suddenly, I noticed something I had scribbled long ago on a piece of paper on my desk. I pushed it to Herman. He read it: ‘Life likes surprises. But it loves the stubborn.’ If his silence didn’t, the look on Herman’s face said it aloud – this was the time for action, not philosophical reflection! After that pregnant pause, he suggested we postpone the shoot. Much to my disappointment, I had to bury the moment loaded with great cinematic poignancy and explain to him what I had on my mind.
After being on the roller coaster of life for more than six decades, I knew that throwing surprises was life’s favourite pastime. It really likes to do so with everyone – only the frequency and intensity vary. But what it truly loves is the stubbornness of those who do not give up easily. After all, like all of us, life too doesn’t enjoy one-sided matches. It exults when someone is ready to give good competition as a worthy opponent, even with their back to the wall! And hence, I decided to pull out my old pair of boxing gloves— metaphorically, of course.
Excerpted with permission from Different But No Less – The Unscripted Story Behind the Making of Tanvi the Great, Anupam Kher, Hay House India.
