Filmmaker Homi Adajania recalls his bizarre freelancing stories.
Filmmaker Homi Adajania recalls his bizarre freelancing stories.
Filmmaker Homi Adajania‘s stories cannot be predicted as to where it will lead to.
To cite an example – A fake fakir, a campaign in Venice, a rugby match in Pakistan, and a film featuring Farhan Akhtar
all a part of the same story that happened years ago. The filmmaker happily recalled in an interaction with the media.
On his podcast Cyrus Broacha
opened up on the time he started ‘freelancing’ on projects and emerged a ‘hustler’ of sorts prior to making his entry in the world of films. He would be called in for ‘specific things’, which included bizarre campaigns.
Cyrus went on to add that there was a creative head of Benetton, who was fired because he put people on death row on billboards. This was years back – he was a maverick. He wanted to shoot with people with no limbs found on the roads of Mumbai as a campaign. It never happened; it was too out there. So stuff like that, like he took a fake fakir to Venice for a campaign.
Cyrus Broacha then asked Homi to elaborate the story of the “fake fakir”, whom he said was an unemployed painter from Jogeshwari. So this was in 1998-99, when an art gallery got a fax of a guy upside down, with his head in the ground.
The fax read , ‘Please find above exactly what we want.’ This was sent to the film company he used to work with. Then he had to look for a person, who could shove their head underground with their body sticking out for hours.
He assumed it would all be at Kumbh Mela or Allahabad and such places. He deployed two people who would provide them with junior artistes from Allahabad, Rishikesh, and other places. By that time around, the company had paid him and he paid a small percentage of that money to these people and took the rest of the money and went to Pakistan to play a rugby tournament. By the time he returned back, he thought there would be a long list, but these guys said a guy like that was impossible to find!”
The filmmaker further added that the people who could actually pull off stunts like that were operating on a “different realm”, and they were probably living somewhere in the mountains. He why doesn’t narrate story to these guys that they would be able to go to Venice. They said,they have tried that, but these guys are saying we can go to Venice while sitting here!’
Homi recalled how one day, he got a call from a junior artiste called Pappu Lekhraj, who said, “Sir Le Fakir-O mil gaya!” with an Italian twist. The filmmaker met the man, hoping he would have dreadlocks, but was shocked to find an unassuming-looking fellow with a jhola, two kids and sister standing in front of him. “He was Abdul Sattar Sheikh. He used to be a busker at Juhu beach, who would bury himself underground, with just his hand sticking out, like a samadhi. He would be in the sand like that for two-three hours, and people would give him money. His job was painting buildings, but on Sundays he would do this.”
Homi continued, “In fact, this became a movie (The Fakir of Venice), where Fahan Akhtar played on him. They had heard the story and wanted its rights.
He doesn’t know what happened to the fate of the film, but he asked them for a nominal fee and went to South America. He quoted them the exact amount that was required for his trip to Machu Picchu and return.
On the work front, Homi’s mystery comedy film, Murder Mubarak, starring Sara Ali Khan, recently released on Netflix.
News Edit K.V.Raman
