AVAnaanu TARam - Part 1

Call it coincidence/fate/destiny but the birth of Jesus was birth of Avatar for me. While booking for IMAX ticket last week I knew that Xmas eve would be spent watching Avatar but never in the wildest of imagination had I imagined that it could become like this.
As the entire episode was nothing short of a cinema story in itself let me bring in the Screenplay writer inside me to describe it.(Atleast the initial sequence. This can be made full length once I get some producers interested in this venture and have some CGI thrown in. Readers should be advised that some part of this story is to be shot with IMAX cameras and hence for better feel it should be seen in an IMAX or 3D theatre)

Warning : This is bit lengthy and your patience and imagination is required as the movie has to move from one scene to other.

Scene 1 : Location New Delhi. A press conference is going on. Lots of media, Camera flashes main leaders are holding centre stage. Zooming in on Home Minister P Chidambaram. He is holding a paper and reading from that.
PC : " Much has changed after Dec 9. The decision is no longer unanimous. We will be moving forward after only a consensus. I appeal to all political parties to remain calm and do not resort to violent protests"

Scene 2.a - 2.j
Sporadic scenes of violence is seen next. Many slogan shouting "Jai Telangana" "Centre has cheated us" "No going back with Telangana". The usual Stone-throwing at shops, lathi charge and bus burning follows. Images of KCR can be shown, which obviously will be cut by the censor board or welcome the wrath of the TRS bullies.(Ideally this can also create the controversy even b4 movie hits the screen) It is upto the producer to decide whether he wants this to be added

Scene 3: Computer graphics shows Time: 2000 Hrs,Wednesday Dec 23 2009, Amberpet, Hyderabad. Zooming out from bold letters "Eagerly Awaiting Xmas Eve as it would be the Avatar Night,but isn't the idea copied from a Malayalam Movie. Cameron overtook Priyadarshan :D". It is the screen of a laptop(Dell logo should be shown if we get a sponsorship from them. Use the 360 degree shot. Dont show manufacturer name if we dont get the deal).Further zooming out shows shows a young man sitting infront of it and smiling. He is sitting on a bed laid on the floor. The room is a small one and have lots of books are neatly arranged on a shelf behind him.Zoom out to show that this room is in the second floor of a 3 story building. Now go up to the satellite view of the area move up till the region is visible from ionosphere.

Scene 4: Suddenly zoom in back to the location with high speed. Its like a meteorite is coming in and is passing through the ionosphere now. The shot should end at a mobile phone(Again if we get deal cut with Sony Ericsson we can show the Black W902).Suddenly we can hear the initial beats of Boney-M's "Rasputin". It is the guys mobile which is ringing. The guy takes the phone:
G : Hello
Voice from the other end : JK.We have got a situation. Centre has taken a U-turn..
The rest of the conversation is not audible. We can see only the expressionless face of the Hero.

Onto Heros right we have the films title in gizmik CG "AVAnaanu TARam"

"Other Titles to be displayed now " while some more guys join in and an intense and animated discussion goes about.

After the displaying the title we see the Jk is dressing up and running out.

Scene 5: He is infront of a shop and talking to the guy there
Jk: Par yaar, this is urgent. Tum hi to kaha tha abhi ready hoyega.
Guy at Shop : Kyaa Kare sir? Nako ho sakta abhi.(Hyderabadi Urdu slang) Kal subah pakkah deta hoon. Kassam se.
Jk: Par kal subah khol payega yeh? Itna kuch ho raha hain idhar.
Guy: Aapko mere oopar bharosa nai hai saab. Apun bolta kal 10 baje aapko milega.
Jk: Theek hain. (He is exasperated and tired, and silently goes away from shop)

Scene 6: Back to Jk's room. 3 more young guys are sitting there and reading something from laptop. JK enters
Jk: The guy at the shop has not done it yet. He said it would be ready only 2moro. But I doubt with all these whether he will be alive to open the shop 2moro.(Background score rises. Tension is mounting)
Young Man 1: Next 48 hours is crucial.
Young Man 2: Yeah, we cannot trust these people. They are guys without brains. They will not stop at anything.
Young man 3:(In an angry tone) And what a timing for all this to happen. Why couldn't this come after New Year??? Then we would have left this place and there wont be a single clue left. (BGM is at its crescendo)
Jk: Yeah, atleast they should learn the timing of a Bandh from we Keralaites.(Music to accompany) Who on earth in their right mind would keep a bandh on Xmas Eve??? And that too for 48 hours....
And they do this all in the name of Telangana. Come on man, we as Young Indians should rise against this political gimmick.
YM3: Yes. you are rt. In the preamble we have JUSTICE,LIBERTY and EQUALITY for all and FRATERNITY to assure the UNITY and INTEGRITY of the Nation.
YM1: So what do you say that we should we do now?
YM3: We should rise against this atrocity. We should start our planning now. Even if all hell breaks loose we will not stop until we achieve the goal.
Jk: He is right. Come what may, we will never bow down to force. Let us join hands and take the vow that "We will not rest 2moro until we see Avatar in IMAX at 10.30 PM". Even if it means that we have to walk all the way from here to Prasad's and back again.

All join their hands and big "We will see Avatar" is shouted in Unison.

SONG 1:
Now the first song starts (Something like "Kandhon se milte hain kandhein.." from Lakshya).
First Para (Pallavi)
Furious preparations are seen during this. People are washing the clothes, each one taking turns for theirs. Jk is infront of his laptop chalking out the strategies and occasionily toggling to his FB account/twitter account/gmail inbox/chat window. He is all smiles.

Second Para (Anupallavi)
Light is seen in only Jks room, others have all gone to bed. Jk still infront of his laptop watching Golmal from Hrishikesh Mukherji in Youtube. Songs second para should be somewhat similar to Aane Waala Pal in this movie to get the originality. Then it should zoom on the watch in his room (Showing 3 AM). He is slowly getting ready to sleep and YM3 gets up meanwhile (to study) and continues the song.

Third Para (Charanam)
Its early morning and the scenes are shot now in Kitchen. They are preparing the brunch. YM2 and YM1 has gone out and bought Chicken. YM3 is cutting vegetables for Fried Rice. Tune should have a hint of the Jingle bells as it shows the Xmas eve and the festival spirit. (Since we dont have Turkey in Hyderabad we should adjust with Chicken). All these are in FF mode as we have to keep up the pace. Towards the end when the entire dish is ready Jk is waking up and brushing his teeth.

Scene 7:
Location is the drawing room of the house. CG shows time 1600 hrs and Jk is having the fried rice and Chicken. Others are eagerly looking into the laptop and reading a news.
YM1: A fresh update. All the cinemas have been shut down in Hyderabad due to agitation from TRS followers.
YM2:(A rainbow of emotions on his face) Oh no. Thats bad news. Now what will happen to the show and our ticket?
YM3: Keep heart dude. Its the late night show. If the agitation stops they may start the night shows. We can always go there and check.
Jk: But amidst all the curfew and protests wont it be too risky???
YM3: Cmon JK, we have already vown to see the show tonight at IMAX. Now can we backout at this moment? 2 among us can now go to Prasads and confirm whether they have the show. If it is cancelled then it is fate else we will see the show
YM2: But how do we reach there? There are no buses plying today.And no auto driver will risk coming till there.
YM3: There is always MMTS trains for that. We can catch one from VidyaNagar and go to Begumpet. From there we can take another connection to Khairatabad which is the nearest station to Prasads.
Jk: (With a smile of Victor) I had forseen this, so have already checked out the MMTS timings in both the routes and maps for directions from here to Vidyanagar station as well as from Khairatabad to Prasads. By an optimisation analysis I have prepared a ppt which shows the best methodologies available infront of us for this task. It is saved in the desktop itself. have a look.

All the other 3 are wonderstruck at Jk's foresight and open the file. (If needed we can show the ppt for adding some technical gizmo in between). They finally agree on Jks methodology and Jk and YM3 have been chosen to start first and get the info on availability of show.

Scene 8: CG shows the first PPT slide with Map of Amberpet with their house and Vidyanagar shown. A bright red zig-zag line with many U's and loops mark the path to be taken.CG displays :
Date : Thursday,24th Dec 2009
Actual distance b/w House and station : 1 km
Distance to be travelled : 2 km (To carefully avoid possible places where agitations may occur)
Arrival of train : 17:59
Approximate start time : 17:20

Now zooming in on the house, the shot is taken back to reality with Jk and YM3 stepping out of the house
Jk: Oops Just wait a moment. I forgot an important thing.
YM3: Oh whats that? Should we take some protective gears???
Jk: No. I forgot to update the status in Facebook and twitter. I will be just back in 1 min.
YM3: (Nodding obediently)
Jk goes in and comes back in exact 1 minute.

The camera goes back to FF mode (BGM has the Golmal Hai music - "Golamal hai bhai Sab Golmal hai. Seedhe raste sahin, Tedhi hi chaal hain..") and we can see Jk and YM3 making it to the station at exact 17:57. Still panting due to the heavy excercise (Oops I forgot, Since they cud not take a printout they had taken wrong diversions at 2 places making the total length of the path to 5 km). Green light is seen on the Signal and people are impatiently crowding at the platform. Totally breathless Jk barges in to the ticket counter.
Jk: Begumpet ke liye 2 tickets please.
Official : (With Zero Expression face) All Trains have been Cancelled. No tickets
Jk:(Completely wonder struck)Not even a single train??
Official:(Same pose) No trains bola na babu.
Sad song in BGM - Zindagi Kaisi yeh paheli hai..

The next scene shows Slide 2 completely striked out and replaced with another map of Amberpet with a straight line road shown between railway station and House. Jk and YM3 are walking back. The road is without traffic and few ppl are having tea from a tea stall.
Suddenly from the distance a gang of ppl on bikes are seen with flags. BGM stops. They approach Jk and YM3 and their shouts are visible now. The small shopkeepers who had half opened their shutters expecting evening business are seen busily closing those. As they approach closer the shouts are also audible - "Jai Telangana".The riders pass through with these slogans and doesnt care about either shopkeepers or Jk&YM3. The BGM continues and we can see the path marked once agin in the slide.

As they are 500 mts away from house,
JK: Oops. I forgot another thing.
YM3: What is it now?
Jk: I have to get the Xerox from the shop.Remember he said it wud be ready today morning.
YM3: Yeah lets go and check now. He would open his shop, wont he?
Jk: Thats what he said.

CG shows slide 2.a now, with the same map. But with a slight modification. A line perpendicular to the existing route has been drawn.
Mission Xerox
House to Shop: Distance 1 km.

Scene 9: They are infront of a shop and talking to the guy there
Jk: Par yaar, tum hi to kaha tha aaj ready hoyega.
Guy at Shop : Kyaa Kare sir? Nako ho sakta abhi.(Hyderabadi Urdu slang) Kal subah pakkah deta hoon. Kassam se.
Jk: Par kal subah khol payega yeh? Itna kuch ho raha hain idhar.
Guy: Aapko mere oopar bharosa nai hai saab. Apun bolta kal 10 baje aapko milega.
Jk: Theek hain. (He is exasperated and tired, and silently they move away from shop)

Strangely almost all the shops are open in this area. But the mood of JK does not permit him to notice this. BGM of "Zindagi Kaisi yeh paheli" still running. The next scene shows kitchen (in a mess due to cooking) and Jk washing the dishes.
Suddenly voice of YM3 is heard from inside.
YM3:(Ecstatically) Jk, the bandh has been called off.
JK:(On hearing this) What? When did this happen?

Suddenly the entire house is abuzz with activity as every one crowds infront of laptop to see the news. Now the pace is franctic as they suddenly formulate a new plan. Jk and YM3 are again chosen to go to Prasad's in an auto and check whether they have the show running.

Scene 10:
Time on Jk's watch shows 19:30 hrs.
YM3: Lets go fast. We cant waste much time now.
Jk: Oops I forgot one small thing.
YM3: What is it now?
Jk: I have to update my Facebook and Twitter. Please wait 2 minutes.
YM3. (Nodding once again and no dialogues)

The rest of shot is again taken in FF as we see Jk and YM3 get into auto and literally fly through the empty Hyderabad city to reach theatre at 19:50 hrs. Jk runs to the counter to get the tickets. He successfully gives the booking number and shows the credit card to get the 5 priceless tickets. He comes out smiling and both of them enter the Mall.
YM3: There is another 2.5 hrs before the movie starts. What should we do?
Jk: I a having severe throat pain. Lets have something hot. I think it is this cold. I cant bear this.

Camera again shifts to Jks watch. The watch moves slowly from 18:00 hrs to 20:00 hrs as we see Jk and YM3 entering a Pepe Jean outlet and buying a T-Shirt. Jk changes into this new T-Shirt immediately. They then have some more tea/coffee and also buys some movie CDs from a CD shop.

At 20:10 hrs YM1 and YM2 along with another YM comes into the mall. The group assemble infront of the theatre and is impatiently waiting for the doors to open.

---To be continued