I called the producer, I was in a pretty flat but there was nothing in my vicinity which resembled a production house even remotely. I went towards the apartment gates, like most DHA flats, the gates left no space and the houses inside appeared very shady. Amidst all of this I got a call and saw a woman waving from a balcony. Oh. There it was! I went towards the production house, it was not shady. It smelled heavily of smoke and was congested and confined inside. A person told me to wait in a room. I walked inside the room and it was quite lavish, there were film books lying around. The AC was extremely cool and the interior of the office was very pretty. I noticed an extremely antique and sophisticated wall clock. There was a cool TV plaza situated on the wall. It was kind of antique. There was a glass water jug on the table. Rooba had the urge to drink water and I had one to instantly grab one of the books and read them. I felt so excited all of a sudden, this was nothing like SO’s office. It looked like it was occupied by intellectual people. The woman came in and told us she needs to eat and that she will be back soon, she was constantly smiling.
And then out of nowhere, four five people walked in. And they all sat around me. I was non plussed for a moment. I thought I was only talking to that woman? But here was an entire bunch of middle aged people who looked ready to be impressed by me. And what about the NDA? How do I fish it out in the middle of this chill mahol when they were being so enthusiastic and treating me like their child. The old uncle sat next to me and the woman said, “Chalo. Tell me about yourself Aiesha!”
I started with my background. I was an SSLA student and I loved history but now I wanted to venture into film. She laughed and congratulated me on having such clarity. I smiled. And then she was like “Acha story sunao!”. And I suddenly found myself surrounded with a group of people who wanted to hear my story. I was suddenly blank. My mind was racing. Was this a trap to steal my idea? Did they want to rip me off? I just kept on wondering about all of this and suddenly I started talking about my protagonists. And they kept on pausing me to explain to me how happened what? And when happened when? And sometimes I blurted out unclear answers because the story wasn’t linear in my head. It was in the form of a graph and I really wanted to explain it through that. But I couldn’t. There was no whiteboard or paper. I was possibly the most horrible story teller who had entered that room because I felt so unprepared and overwhelmed. My mind was racing constantly. I didn’t prepare for this. And then the man next to me said something about my male protagonist being a prop, and I took a huge breathe. I wanted to explain to him how his character arc connects with the girl’s but then the other man started telling me about how this man was one of the greatest in the industry currently and suddenly I felt a huge sense of imposter syndrome kicking in. I just listened quietly to him. And then we walked out and they told me to write the script and send it in. I wanted to say so much more, explain to them that I was smart and knew my shit about Acts and character arcs and meetcutes but I just shrugged and came out. There was an old woman who was supposedly the CEO. She walked in and I suddenly froze. What was I supposed to say. They introduced me and I haphazardly said Assaulumaikum. She smiled at me, she had read my proposal too. Everyone had….What was I supposed to say? Aadab?I think I almost crouched down but then stopped myself. I felt extremely stupid. God. The producers had another important meeting so they told me to make myself comfortable in the lounge and I waited for my Uber. My mind was still not entirely sure. Was this for real? Were these people fake? Were they actually nice? Did they like me or were they pretending? I thought I will figure it out later and hopped into my rickshaw.
Occasional Roznaama 