Dehke Mere Naseeb!. Review on Nikaah

When I listen to either the Ghulam Ali or Jagit Singh rendition of "Chupke Chupke." I get panic attacks harking back to my miserable experience "working" as a assistant to Dharam Chopra on this sorid melodrama.  I chuckle when I see Francois Truffaut's AMERICAN NOIR(Day for Night) where the hero(Francois himself) plays a director making a film he'd rather not make.

Here's a tad from that experience(working/being present during the shooting of NIKAAH):

As we approached Purani Haveli I was awestruck first by the grandness of the house itself, and then by the circle of Hyderabad police that surrounded the grounds.  In the car the set designer was mentioning that Merchant Ivory would be shooting their film HEAT AND DUST here shortly after Mr. Big and company left town.  Mr. Big had whitewashed the premises for his Bombay cinema aesthetic.  It would later be known that Mr. Ivory, Mr. Merchant and company spent their first day on the location spraying black soot back onto the house exterior to get the “purani” back into the “haveli”.

Inside the location, the Mumbai based film crew had set up for a scene involving the camera dollying on tracks around the actors, two of them, Deepak Parasher and some other "bubba" were sitting hunched in contemplation.

"Poor guys! Having trouble preparing for their roles!"  Mita said from behind me.

"Yeah…lucky if they know what planet they're on given their “maha” egos and lack of any substantial talent other than being fair skinned “bubbas”!" I said to myself chuckling.

I had my first meeting with Mr. Big, who turned out to be a Mr. BR Big(Mr. Paramount Pictures?).  He at first looked at me and turned to my uncle frowning while saying:

"He wants to be an actor?"

"Sure thing!" I said using ESP.

"So do you want to be a director or a cameraman?" he said, now smiling.

"Cameraman!" I said smiling back at him.

Amit Kapoor shithead and his fellow "bubbas" were now smiling and laughing amongst themselves.  I immediately sensed a future source of trouble.

Mr. Big's son Ravi, some other "bubba", my Movie Uncle and I left an hour or so later.  Hyderabad at night was never so beautiful.  I realized that this City was my "non-biological" mother - having been biological born in 1964 at the Neelofar Hospital.  Neelofar was the Turkish born princess of this one-upon-a-time realm.  I thought of Her and its beloved Musi River as Mr. Big's son and my Movie Uncle were having some sort of business related conversation.

Near Nampally Station I asked to be dropped off as I sensed they probably wished to continue their conversation within the confines of the Taj Banjara where they were all shacked up with a card playing comic named Asrani hosting a perpetual crap shoot in his room.

I caught an auto rickshaw from there to Secunderabad Station where I boarded a Bolaram bound local train which would stop at Vidyanagar.  The train itself was an old steam locomotive - perhaps the last of its kind for this sort of local commute.  In the compartment where I sat a middle aged man was reclining on the opposite seat munching on peanuts and having a conversation with his wife.  After a period of silence looking out at the dimly lit platform he turned to me and smiled: "Hai, where are you coming from?"

"I just returned from Purani Haveli."

He turned to his wife smiling and then pulled out a concealed whiskey bottle and offered it to me.  I took a swig.

"Yes, " he said thinking he was entertaining some sort of drunk or addict "beautiful house!"

"I'm leaving Hyderabad.  I'm really going to miss this City."

"Are you going back to America?" he asked, making a valid assumption from my Baltimore WASP accent.

"No, " I replied, "I’m going to Bombay to seek my fortune in films"

He once again smiled and now really thinking I had one too many said, "Bombai.ah, yes, very big city!"

I felt like crying at that point.