Bedtime Stories

‘‘Pehle hi shot mein bahut glamour dikha de,’’ he tells Kaushal, the effeminate dance director, before stepping aside to survey the rural setting. The manufacturing of rain is on and soon, a dry heroine will get wet for Garam, the latest of the director’s 90 films.

‘‘The film opens with the Man Jal Raha Hai, Tan Jal Raha Hai number. I want to capture as much viewer interest as possible with this bold beginning,’’ says Shah who, on closer scrutiny, is slightly greying at the temples and has a hairstyle that went out with QSQT.

We’ll spare you the convolutions of the plot. Let’s just say that it is, at its core, about a woman who wants orgasms (“jannat”) on demand. ‘‘Arre m******, we think only men want satisfaction. My lead character wants it as bad,” says Shah.

“Her stock dialogue—Agar mein aam auraton se garam hoon, to isme kya hai—runs throughout; she even dumps her husband to return to her boyfriend just for that,’’ says the former production manager who claims he’s 40. Shah started off with Mithun Chakraborty in Maardhad in 1981, played the hero in around 10 films, and has directed and produced such front-bencher faves as Jallad No 1 and Daku Ramkali.

‘‘Sex body ki zaroorat hai,’’ says Shah. ‘‘Do you know what happens when you don’t have sex for 10 days? A lot of heat is generated around your temples and it makes you uncomfortable. My films have just one message—don’t suppress the desire.’’

The handful of people who make up Shah’s unit are ready for the take. The rain has started to come on. Kaushal wiggles his hips, drops an imaginary pallu as Sapna, the heroine, watches. The take is on. ‘‘Kaushal, pallu gir nahi raha hai, barsaat kam kar, ’’ she says, as the title track, an earworm, unspools.

‘‘I’m 24,’’ says the heroine. It appears to be a white lie. Sapna is from Nasik and started acting when she was 17. ‘‘I do about 10 films a year and then I also get these item numbers. But don’t ask me which films, I just hop from one studio to another,’’ she says, strategically positioning the little clothing there is on her body.

Our photographer wants a shot of the director and the heroine together, but Shah plays hard to get. ‘‘Please, yeh sab ajeeb lagega,’’ he says, before capitulating to persuasion. Sapna makes eyes at him, nudges his stomach gently and puts an arm around his shoulder. ‘‘He didn’t tell you, did he? I’m his wife.’’

Shah takes the embarrassment in his stride, but the wife-as-heroine comes in handy when you have to stick leech-like to your budget. Shah’s genre of films—around 100 are made a year, each costing between Rs 8 lakh and

Rs 30 lakh—is facing slicker, bolder competition from the likes of Mallika Sherawat and Payal Rohatgi. Less than 20 per cent of these, say those in the business, manage to deliver returns and the number of directors and financiers has rapidly dwindled.Sex might sell, but the way it is presented has to be constantly upgraded.

Shah is used to working with just about four to five people for each movie; the rest are hired for the day.

But now, with the spectre of Jism and Raaz looming large, there is an overall rethink going on.

While he couldn’t get Negar Khan for Garam, he’s shot abroad for the first time, switched from the usual 16mm format to 35mm, plus “glamour (read exposing) bhi jyaada hai”.

‘‘I’m a one-man show, I don’t direct for others. We’ll have to improve, yes, but once you’ve got the formula, sex can’t flop,’’ says Shah. ‘‘But what makes me happy is when people tell me ke Mahesh Bhatt aur sab ab Kanti Shah ki level pe aa gaye hain. Mujhe unke level pe jaana hi nahi pada.’’

Murali K Menon

On the sets of KC Bokadia’s Bold

HER grandfather Suman Verma was a journalist, the first one to ask Rajiv Gandhi if he knew that his Congress was full of goondas, she claims. Perhaps journalism is in Tanvi Verma’s genes. She dismisses all the chatter about exposure and going topless in her debut film Bold with a concise ‘‘Seducing is no longer about eye-to-eye contact’’.

Verma says the second half of Bold is going to ‘‘make everyone very hot’’.

‘‘After the interval, I’m only seducing. I’m seducing the hero, the villain, everyone…’’ The former Miss Madhya Pradesh recently hopped on to the low budget, lower necklines ride.

Today’s neckline is a deep V, cut from lavender lycra that clings to her ample breasts before snaking up to her nape in a backless halter. Her father, a Bhopal-based industrialist who runs a tannic acid factory, doesn’t talk to her these days. ‘‘He doesn’t like what I’m doing,’’ she says. Mum, an active BJP worker in Bhopal, is in the running for mayor.

For her first meeting with veteran KC Bokadia, who’s directing this film, she wore a short skirt, another plunging neckline and no make-up except the regulation kajal. Over tea and a discussion on the importance of good family background, Bokadia offered her the role.

Bokadia, who is 20 years and 50 films old in Bollywood (he hates revealing his age), explains the title Bold doesn’t have everything to do with exposure.

He’s a great storyteller. The dusty suburban studio evaporates in one swift phwoof as he whisks you into the opening of his first sex thriller.

‘‘Ladki bhaag rahi hai. Uska rape ho raha hai. Suddenly ek ladki aati hai aur usko bachati hai.’’

Er, ladka or ladki?

‘‘Ladki, sir, ladki.’’ Bokadia, who made the eminently forgettable Lal Badshah with Amitabh Bachchan, is truly excited now. ‘‘That is the whole point of my woman-oriented picture.’’

So Girl No. 2 rescues a deeply grateful Girl No. 1. ‘‘Learn to fight your battles,’’ the tigress growls. ‘‘Khud ko karo majboot… be Bold. Then, sir, the titles roll.’’ The director who calls everybody ‘sir’ sits back spent on his white plastic chair.

The Rs 2 crore film, a remake of his ’80s Phool Bane Angaarey (a Rekha starrer), is vintage Bollywood—the story of a rape victim who turns seductress to avenge herself.

This is the high end of the genre, dominated by established names like Mahesh Bhatt (remember Murder?) and Pankaj Parashar (Inteqam). Here, the money rarely crosses a couple of crores, returns are almost assured (Bold has already been sold across India) and the sleaze doesn’t quite hit the ceiling.

Bokadia, an unassuming gent in all white who drinks tea out of a plastic cup just like the rest of the unit, says the bigger stars are increasingly indisciplined. It’s easier to get work out of the newcomers, he believes. The director, who once stuck to producing, has seen his share of shelved movies.

The film’s two male leads—Samir Kochhar and Dev Gill—are not as easy with sex and sexuality. Yet, when he’s not on the sets of a sex thriller, Kochhar, a six-foot-plus hunk of chocolate, hosts a television sex show five days a week. The 24-year-old says Bokadia gave him first shot at the roles. ‘‘I picked the goody two shoes who comes from the village because I’m not comfortable doing those scenes yet.’’

Kochhar has worked his way up from the days when he lived as a paying guest above a dance bar in Bandra. He’s been the host of some 200 roadshows to launch everything from cellphones to cars. ‘‘The last one I did was the Oscar awards night for a Delhi hotel where the awards were linked to the number of nights you spent at the hotel.’’ He’s done theatre, radio and two television travel shows, but now, Bollywood is calling. You’ll see him soon in Mahesh Bhatt’s Zehar, in the same genre. ‘‘There are at least 35-40 films being made with the same ‘married couple, wife not satisfied’ theme,’’ he says.

Twenty-six-year-old Gill, who snagged the part of the rapist (‘‘Please, call me an anti-hero. I don’t rape her with any bad intention.”) began his career with the Gladrags contest in 1998. Gill is also in Prime Minister, Dev Anand’s next, and Anant Mahadevan’s Aayega Aanewala.

It takes a while to convince Gill that sex thrillers are the rage and it’s okay to play the bad guy in one. Then he loosens up and reveals that he had never met Verma before they made out in front of 50 people. But they soon found their groove.

‘‘If anyone watches the lovemaking scenes, they’ll say ‘I want Dev to make love to me like this’.’’

Priya Ramani