Behind the scenes of "Hello"

Watching a movie on it's first Fridays is no more a luxury given the full time status of my job (and well as half of them didn't even survive their first week) so have thought of writing a Behind the scenes post. And that way I might even be able to use a little bit of creativity as well (otherwise most of the reviews are almost the same phir chahe wo Masand Sahab hon ya Raja Sen).

Anyways, this weekend I took the liberty to watch "Hello" in PVR where 80% of the seats were empty. That too in Mayanagari Mumbai on a Saturday evening show. Great! Now even if the producers claim ki "2 weeks mein 40 crores kamaya" then just understand that woh audience ko "KIDNAP" kar ke laa rahe hain theaters mein. (For those who didn't get the pun, I recently saw one ad that Kidnap has earned 40 crores by the end of second week, hahahaha kya majaak hai bhai)

Behind the Scene(s):

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Saaman, Aghaaz, Solaill and Atul all on a conference call with Ketan Bhagat.

Sallu bhai - Bhai Ketan, apan ek movie banana chah rahe hain wo tumhari book hai naa "One night stand bolke" us par?

Ketan - Arre sir, I can't believe ki aapne bhi mera novel "One night @ call center" padha. I can't believe this.

Aghaaz - Arre Ketan bro tune apne bhai ko anpadh ganwar samjhela hai kya? Apna bhai ka novels me full interest hai.

Ketan - Oh No sir, you are taking me wrong. This is my dream come true sir. I use to dream about making movies even in IIT. Sir, meri to saari stories hee filmin rahti hai. You won't find any reality in that sacchi!. It's all about Masala. I think you'll give me the chance to write screenplay as well.

Sallu bhai - Yeah, Yeah, woh sab to tuhi likhega, the only thing is ki apne bhai kaa naam aana chahiye tumhare saath mein as a screenplay writer.

Chetan - Which Bhai? That big brother from Dubai?

Solail - Arre yaar, fansayega kya, phone hai bhai and waise akal to tere mein kam hee hai (whispers to his brothers - teri books padh ke pata chalta hai) but anyways Atul Bhai ki baat ho rahi hai. Resume kuch kamzor ho gaya hai bhai ka, wo kaafi dinon se koi film nahin mili (chali) naa. So, bhai ka resume strong banana hai.

Ketan - Okay okay brother in law. Fine with me. I will still get the credit right? Let's do it.
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Another conference call

Atul - Bhai I have never seen a call center from inside. Do you think we should do our home work and visit some call center to see how things work?

Sallu - Bhai hamne nahin dekha to kaun sa pure India ne call center dekha hai. Whatever you want to show just do it. Whatever we will show waise hee ho jaiyega. Karan Jauhar ko dekho bhai middle class family ko bhi helicopter mein bitha ke ghoomata hai apni movies mein.

Atul - How many people normally work in the call center at a particular time?

Sallu - How many stars are there in our movie? Arre yaar! it's no use showing more people than the number of our main characters. How does it matter? People are coming to watch a movie and not a call center.

Atul - Okay okay one last question bhai. What is a computer Virus?

Sallu - Bhai you don't even know this. How dumb you are. Anyways ask Ketan. He will give you the correct answer.
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Once they were done with screenplay the shooting started. I think there was a lot of pressure from Salman Khan for a guest appearance and aajkal Salman akele to kahin jaate nahin (I am not talking about his bodyguards) so katrina also got a guest appearance.

Atul - Saalu! (he has the right to pronounce Saaman Khan as Saalu and not Sallu) yaar tera woh simple guest appearance where the girl narrates the story to you is not looking good. What do you say?

Sallu - Yeah you are right. What the hell you people are thinking? You don't have any item songs planned for me?

Atul - Yeah yaar, we have a item song but that would look nice in a female voice (Bang bang bang, zamana bole) and Ketan is saying that bhabhi jaan will be good in that. Waise bhi she is the best pole dancer I have ever known.

Sallu - Arre yaar, you people are just too much. Look, fit me somewhere in that song. Waise bhi Shahrukh is doing item numbers only these days and jab Amitabh sir item number kar sakte hain to hum kyon nahin? So I will take it and Bhabhi ki jarurat nahin hai. I can do something that she even can't.

Atul - what?

Sallu - Arre jiju, all these years of inactivity has made you dumb. I can even dance topless idiot.

So that resulted in a half baked song which makes you feel like you should have reached the theater half an hour late. Man! how many times you reach the theater late and not feel guilty for that?

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Atul and Ketan brainstorming on the ideas -

Ketan - Sir, the movie is short of two hours. Atleast make it two hour movie.

Atul - Okay, I have an idea. We will show the titles and credits for 10 mins. Waise bhi, people take time in settling down in the theater.

Ketan - Whatever you say. You are my "mai baap".

And in low tone he whispered, you dumb I have already got another movie deal and thanks god! it's Amir Khan this time.

So here it is. A movie in which hardly six people work at a time in the call center. The cafeteria is always empty but next moment you see hundreds of agents popping up from neighborhood to attend a conference, call volumes suddenly increase with hoax calls from the agents (to hell with regulations and ethics). Well, anyways the purpose of the movie is achieved from the crew's end.

Salman gets to remove his shirt.
Amrita gets 10 minutes of Camera.
Sohail his chance to play the best role and the luxury to spoil it
Atul and Chetan gets a couple of lines in their resume each.

Well, looking from this point of view, the movie is atleast 50% successful, Isn't it?