After making films for almost all the big brands in India in almost every product segment I was a few years ago taking a break in Hyderabad when I got a strange request. Could I please make a film for a local Hyderabadi Client who had no budget except to advertise in vernacular newspapers like Hindi Milap and Siasat. The product was an energy tablet that promised improved sexual prowess and according to the manufacturer was more potent and reliable than Viagra. While this claim was interesting the client’s definition of the target audience was fascinating. He was selling mostly in the old city prompting me to wonder whether the residents there were handicapped or hungry. The tone of voice that the client was comfortable with was the tone we had grown up listening to at the Numaish (Exhibition) with a mix of street quack jadee bootee walla kind of spiel.

My creative juices were sufficiently stimulated for me to accept the assignment at a hugely reduced fee but I laid down a few conditions. I would not look for the female model. I had no intention of getting to meet hundreds of unsavoury characters in the search for the woman who didn’t mind being shown as the woman who gives her man the pill knowing that she stood to benefit. I would not make a trashy film however much the client felt it would work with his audience.

We learnt quite a few things while planning the shoot. According to the Censor Board Official (at that time) we could not show a man atop a woman.

After we shot we learnt that as per Censor Rules, a woman biting a man’s ear is seen to be overtly sexual.

And while we were shooting we realised that a half day stubble can be hell for the girl who in the throes of passion had her neck caressed and her cleavage sand papered into a rash.

The film was shot in a guest house in Jubilee Hills which today hosts an educational institute of repute (talk of irony).

While I was scripting for the film my dear friend the late Dr. Hari Pai casually asked me if I could weave in a cameo role for him in the film so I created the end customer stereotype who has to ooze lust as he asks the medical shop fellow to give him a strip of the tablet Mighty Forte.

Take a look at the film. It is nothing great cinematically and not something that I feel should be a part of my show reel. But it is definitely a film I had ‘fun’ making. After years of seeing how high I could go in search of excellence it was quite a refreshing change to see how low I could fall in terms of scripting and film making. In all fairness when my client told me that market feedback was that the film was classy and not massy enough I realised I had failed.

The sadder note was when I was informed that the girl who acted in the film was harassed by society with offers of the ‘let’s go to bed’ type so many times that in sheer frustration, she apparently committed suicide.

Mighty Forte–Shouhar ko banaye Sher!!! Don’t miss the pure Hyderabadi Scripting.