CHAPTER 3

KODAMBAKKAM

Tweaking Hollywood movies a little to make Tamil audiences happy is one of the

traditions of Kodambakkam. Accordingly, a young producer named Chiranjeevi met the

famous writer Kachirayan, handed him a DVD, and said, “This is my next film; it isn’t

gonna work if anyone other than you write the script.”

He’s heard about Chiranjeevi. Both of his previous films made decent money. Now

he is directing this film; He is the hero; he is the producer.

Kachirayan got the biggest shock of his life when he saw the DVD Chiranjeevi

gave. Because the movie, UTurn’s story is like that.

If you’ve seen the movie Jennifer Lopez starred, you would have understood the

trouble by now. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll tell the story briefly.

A young man named Bobby is taking a huge sum of money to repay the man he’d

loaned it from. On the road, his car breaks down in a town. At that time, he loses all his

money in a robbery attempt at the shop he entered.

The loan shark had cut off two of Bobby’s fingers for not paying his due on time.

Which organ will he lose If Bobby doesn’t pay up?

A couple living in the same town is Jennifer and her 54-year-old husband, Jack.

Jack says he will pay a large sum of money and save Bobby from trouble if he kills

Jennifer.

But the story Jennifer tells is utterly horrifying. She's not just Jack's wife; his

daughter too. Jack, who has been sexually abusing her since childhood, killed her mother

and kept her as his wife.

"I'll pay you a fortune if you kill Jack," Jenny tells Bobby.
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What happens at the end is not necessary for the story you are reading now.

Rayan who saw the DVD fell over himself in a haste to see Chiranjeevi. In the

literary world, his name is in ruins already. Lives his life drunk out of his mind; a

pervert—so many rumors circled about him, calling him this and that. Even if his eyes are

red from a long read, ‘wasted?' they will ask. He would say in Vairamuthu fashion, "My

eyes are bloodshot from reading, not from drinking." But who believes all that? The lie is

hotter than the truth, isn’t it?

To top it all, he’s written a couple of stories with ‘incest’ as the theme. Isn’t this enough?

The world took fiction for the truth.

This is the backstory behind Kachirayan's mad dash to Chiranjeevi's office.

But Chiranjeevi is a master of speech. "We will tweak the story to match our Tamil

clime. Don’t worry.”

"How?"

“Instead of father, uncle."

"What's interesting about that? Uncle means Genie will become his intended,

won’t she?”

"Okay, let's say it's a foster father. And, we will kill the villain by the story’s end.

What else?"

When Kachirayan was lost in thought, Chiranjeevi placed a stack of money in his

hand.

“This is just the advance. 10,000 Rupees. After finishing the script, I will give

another forty. This is a very small amount. But the film will go viral. I will treat you like a

king then…”

Rayan thought what is this ridiculous fifty thousand when his peers are getting paid

in lakhs---that too in fives and tens? But he is a film freak. So, he decided to talk about the
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pay later. Not just that, if he talks about money in the get-go, the name 'he’s a pain' will

come into the industry, won't it? Thinking about it, Ryan shook his head at the paltry sum.

Plot discussion started. You can write a thousand pages about the Kodambakkam

plot discussions alone. Since this is a short story, I will say it briefly. First, an office is set

up at an apartment in K.K. Nagar. The discussion will start at midnoon. By then an

assistant (director) would have left to buy lunch.

Chiranjeevi was surrounded by six assistants. Among them, there was a chain of

seniority. The name of the senior was Nathan. More than 65 years old. He looked like

Ennathe Kannaiah from the old times. He’s been an assisting director for 45 years. In the

early days, it was a puzzle for Kachirayan. Then he slowly began to understand. And so

will you understand during the course of the story.

Nathan has worked along with Shivaji and those like Thuyavan who wrote scripts

for Shivaji’s films. The curious part here was that Thuyavan and Kachirayan were both

from Nagore. And so, Rayan listened to the details about Thuyavan with great interest.

Who are the famous people from Nagore? Nagore Hanifa’s politics and

spirituality. Apart from him, the person who became famous in the cinema world was

Thuyavan. Farid Kaka entered as a stunt master. He planned stunts for some of

Ravichandran’s films. I will be the one after these people, such a thought reared its head in

Rayan. But every time he sees Nathan, he gets restless. What kind of world is this if a man

spends 45 years as an assistant director?

But one. Not even a single millionaire in Tamil Nadu could have as much

experience with food as Nathan. Not just Nathan. If you ask Rayan, food is one of the

chief perks of being in the film industry. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known about

several good hotels in Chennai.

On that day, the assistant had gone up to the Safari Hotel in Rayapettai. That's where the

fish biryani is good. If they brought safari’s fish biryani one day, the next day brain

biryani from Alwarpettai Samco Hotel. Likewise, mess foods from the Kodambakkam and

Vadapalani will be brought.

"This is way better sir. The previous director Sabarish would ask me to buy fish

biryani, and quail fry at Samco, and from there I should go to Cenotaph Road, Dhaba

Express to get Shami kebab. Like this, I had to drudge up to four hotels so that he ate a

meal. He left me stone broke," Chiranjeevi would lament. He also said he decided to be

the director because the old director was a torture. Maybe he decided to star as the hero

because of the heroes' torture. Rayan didn’t know.

Apart from this, another perk of working in the film industry is the ample gossip.

You might think, what's the big deal? But Kachirayan didn’t think so. A gossip said by

one of Chiranjeevi’s assistants, Kiri left his mind reeling. Friends who were looking for an

acting chance, who worked in IT companies, and who were searching for work were

lodged in a single room. One night, a roommate came in quite nervously. He was a

groupie to a now-famous actor. That actor and a few other groupies held a drinking and

dunking party at a beach outside of Chennai and returned home. Something appeared on

the way. The car turned straight to an orphanage. Our actor is one of the trustees who

donates to that orphanage. They loaded a blind woman from the orphanage into the car

and went to their farmhouse. Four men. After finishing themselves, they threw the half-

dead woman by the orphanage and left.

Kiri's roommate finished saying this. "That's probably what all loaded men do?

What's the problem with you? Didn’t you join the orgy?" Kiri asked him. He immediately

glared at Kiri with anger. That is, the four of them finished off the girl, leaving the

roommate to guard the farmhouse door. Finally, they called him. When he went inside, she
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was breathless and without voice. He got scared and came out. Everyone except him was a

child of a VIP.

"Maybe if there's a problem, we'll give money. Will you go to jail?" They asked

the roommate. He got scared out of his wits and went into hiding for two days.

Fortunately, the girl survived and the roommate was out of trouble.

"It's been ten years since this happened. Now where are those roommates? What

are they doing? I don’t know. That orphanage still exists. That actor is very popular," Kiri

ended by saying this.

Like Tirunelveli Iruttukadai Halwa, a flood of whispers kept falling into his lap.

Kachirayan often thought if he hadn’t entered into small press and serious literature, but

became a gossip writer, he might have stirred up quite the din by now. He thought he

could have dragged the question of who that actor might be over several issues.

The discussion starts at three o'clock after lunch. Intermission is at seven o'clock in

the evening. After that discussion will begin with liquor. R.C. Colt for Ryan and

Chiranjeevi. For the other aids Old Monk, M.C. Brandy, and M.G.M. Vodka will come as

per their liking. But none of the helpers will get totally drunk and wasted. That offer is for

the director and writer only.

Everything happens with military order and discipline. If the role of assistant

director doesn’t exist, the whole film industry will come to a standstill. Has to pick up the

leaves after everyone eats. Has to put away the tea glasses. Clean the ashtray. Hundreds of

chores like this. All for what? For the dream of being Shankar and K.S. Ravikumar one

day.

The second session with liquor will be more heated. Sometimes it will stretch till

three o’clock in the night. Moreover, Kiri and Nathan never got along. If Kiri says
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something, Nathan will say the complete opposite. At times, we feared those two might

fall onto the floor and begin beating each other.

Other than this, if the director says something about the plot, Nathan will block it.

When one says ‘block’, it’s not a casual objection. It’s like throwing a wooden block at a

speeding bike; that’s the kind of objection he’ll raise.

If the director gets heated and says something, "Why am I doing all this? The film

needs to run. That's why I am struggling. If I should suck up to the director, tell me. I will

nod my head to everything you say. Tell me how I should behave?" saying such things,

Nathan will corner the director himself.

He wouldn't say it so bluntly. He will speak as if his heart and soul were melting.

And that is not even posturing or acting. Reality. I will say just one thing. No one in this

world loves anything as much as these people love their moves. That is my firm

conclusion. People give up their lives for language, for race. But I couldn’t compare

anything to the devotion these filmmakers of Kodambakkam have towards their films.

To top it all, Nathan himself will become a character in the film. When the villain,

Jack, rapes his wife—that is, his daughter, and tries to kill her, Nathan will turn into Jack.

During those times Kiri will act as Genie.

"Nathan's commitment is the reason he is still tolerated," Chiranjeevi will say.

Also, Nathan had another use. At points in the film, when all the assistant directors

are at a dead end, unable to solve the problem, Nathan will suddenly create a way out.

At a key point in the story, Jack pushes Genie off a mountaintop. “The villain

already pushed the heroine from a mountain top in S.A Natarajan’s Mantri Kumari,”

Nathan objected. Others knew the matter only after hearing him, but the objection was

accepted.
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This film was a complete remake of a Hollywood film. As if that was not enough,

a separate department with two assistant directors was functioning to steal scenes from

various Hollywood films. However, they won’t let a scene that appeared in one Tamil film

into another.

If that was so, then how else to kill Genie?

For this alone, the discussion ran for two weeks. Various types of murder. All of

Rayan’s dreams were of death. In the end, it was Nathan who told the way. The villain

takes the heroine to the top of the hill. Some people fear heights. It is a kind of phobia. So,

the heroine falls down and dies.

Usually, when Nathan starts talking, it is Kiri’s custom to ignore it and get busy

with something else—or at least pretend to. Even Kiri could not bear his curiosity that day.

He opened his mouth and asked, “What is a phobia?"

"Fear," Nathan said with no emotion in his voice. “But that phobia has a name. I

have read about it in piraknai. I forgot.”

Kachirayan hit a goal with “acrophobia.” Everyone gathered around became

shaken. But Rayan was intrigued about Nathan. 'Rascal. This man has read piraknai!” It

was a serious literary magazine that was in circulation about 30 years ago.

After hearing what Nathan and Kachirayan said, Chiranjeevi turned very

emotional. That day, everyone had R.C. Colt. Meanwhile, Kachirayan was careful that the

villain and the heroine should not be father-daughter. He didn’t want the villain to be

the foster father either. In this way, the relationship was rotating between father,

stepfather, and uncle.

Chiranjeevi argues that the villain can be the foster father. "Didn't a woman take

her husband on a honeymoon and kill him with her secret lover? So many scandals happen

in the society. Shouldn't it be shown in the cinema?" He said.

That was the time when the Munnar Matter was causing a fuss in the papers. These

days, he would have asked, “Didn't a woman cut up her son and hid him in the fridge

when he asked her about her secret lover?”

Even when the dialogue portion of the film came to an end, the relationship

between the heroine and the villain had not been decided. Chiranjeevi said, 'Okay, we can

take care of that later' and started looking for actors.

No matter how hard one tried, a suitable actor for the villain’s role wasn’t found. If

an actor was found, the salary wasn’t affordable. If the actor was okay with a low salary,

his schedule wasn’t flexible.

In the end, it was decided that Kachirayan would play the villain’s role. Since

Kachirayan's age was 54, that was suitable too. He was happy about the sudden

opportunity to act, but there was the question about the relationship and its headache.

The heroine was a new actress. The first qualification for an actress was glamor

and beauty. That actress had it. She also has something new that other actresses don't have.

She was of an intellectual type, of those who acted in experimental theater troupes at

Mumbai's Kala Ghoda (Black Horse Square) area. She agreed to act because it was Uturn.

Since she was an intellectual, she had smoking and drinking habits. Others should not be

angry with Adiyan. Although some of the non-intellectual actresses have a habit of

smoking and drinking, they do not like to do it in public, in front of others, or with others.

But she drank with Chiranjeevi’s set. If it is two or three o'clock in the night, she will sleep

there and leave in the morning. In short, she socialized without male-female distinction.

Nathan and Kachirayan’s lives were in summer. Through film discussions, they

joined with that Mumbai woman and spent hours debating about many 'skis' like

Stanislavski (theater), Kieslowski (cinema), and Tchaikovsky (music). Needless to say, no

one else participated in those discussions.

About six months of Kachirayan’s film debut went this way. Step by step, they

even decided the shooting spots. The film has been named. Hero Chiranjeevi also got a

new name. How can there be another Chiranjeevi when one Chiranjeevi is a superstar in

Telugu? But even after all this, the relationship between the villain and the heroine could

not be decided.

At one point, lunch began coming from a simple mess in K.K. Nagar. Kachirayan

understood when there was not even a fried egg as a side dish. Many changes were seen in

the company. Earlier a car used to come from K.K. Nagar for Rayan who lives in

Santhome. But now, an assistant director came to pick him up on his old bike. Then the

bike stopped coming too.

Kachirayan came back to his literary world and returned to his position among

fellow literates.

All this happened, about six months earlier. One day Kachirayan met Kiri by

chance. Kiri ran towards Ryan with interest, "Do you know the matter, sir?" he started.

“What?”

"That Bombay girl is not... Our heroine... Our people showed their true

colors...Director or that Nathan. No one else could have done that job. (pointing to the

stomach) Four months... Life itself came to a risk. The director used to be very careful not

to get his name dirty... Is this necessary?"

After hearing the matter, Kachirayan was taken aback. Didn’t we tell her

repeatedly to take the I-pill? She seems to have forgotten while she was drunk… oh no…
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