Lamhe's Memories - The Station Problem

24^th January 2014

Wintry wind ruffled my hair as Dhyey veered his bike left and right over the road. A heavy travelling bag, full of clothes was stacked between his legs. All over the way, I feared the bag would misbalance our bike, and send us rolling. Fortunately, Dhyey managed to escort me safely to our spot for the shoot – Anand’s Railway Station.

Within few moments, more bikes got stacked in parking area and we gathered near the station.

The scene we wanted to shoot was a simple one. According to our script, Taral was a newcomer to the city, arriving in train and hiring a rickshaw to reach our college. That’s all.

We were about to dash towards the platform when…

“Aren’t we supposed to take permission for shooting?” Nikhil asked.

Who cares? I thought.

“He’s right,” Taral agreed. “I don’t want any issues while we shoot. We’ll ask for permission if it is necessary. Dhaval, Nikhil, Niraj, come with me.” Shoving the streaming crowd aside, they disappeared, leaving us behind.

The big clock of the station attracted my attention. It showed – 10:00 a.m. “We are lagging behind in our schedule, guys.”

“Can’t we shoot without permission,” Vishal asked, “I mean, it’s a public place and we could have save time for other spots.”

Momentarily, I reconsidered his views but Nirdesh cleared my blooming doubts.

“Though it’s a public place,” Nirdesh said, “it falls under government control. That’s why we need an official permission.”

“And what are the consequences if we break this law?” I asked curiously.

“They can fetch away our camera, in our case, Nikhil’s camera,” Dhyey answered, dropping the travelling bag.

“And if we don’t co-operate with them,” Aakash added, his tone sounding serious, “they can put us behind the bars.”

I blinked in surprise. “Seriously! Just for a minute shooting they can put us in the jail. I don’t believe this! You guys must be kidding.” I looked at them. “Wait, are you serious?”

They all nodded in unison, while passengers from just arrived train flowed from our sides. I felt my jacket getting heavier. “This is stupidity!”

“This, my friend, is our government,” Nirdesh grinned. “And there they are.”

I whirled around and found four familiar faces emerging from the crowd – Taral, Dhaval, Niraj and Nikhil.

“Did we get permission?” Vishal asked anxiously, rubbing his hands.

“Yes and no,” Dhaval said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Yes, if we write a letter to Vadodara’s Railway Manager and if he sanctions our request,” Nikhil revealed, tapping lightly over his camera.

“But that’ll take more than a day,” Aakash said, “he won’t respond immediately. And we don’t have that much time.”

“Yes,” Nirdesh agreed, “Shooting must get complete by today itself. We still have many events that needs lots of practice.”

“So it’s basically no for us,” I said, “they won’t permit us.”

“So what are we going to do now?” Vishal asked.

For few moments, none of us spoke. I don’t know what it was, may be it was stress or insufficient sleep or hunger, but I broke this awkward silence. “Let’s go and have some cane juice. May be our empty bellies are affecting our brains.”

With fractured hopes, we all crossed the road and ordered our juices. While the vendor was crushing the sweet canes, we grouped to discuss what to do.

“We can shoot at the main gate,” Dhyey suggested.

“No, it won’t be possible to fit the whole station in frame,” Nikhil said.

“May be we can just take a long clip of station alone and then add narration about it during editing,” Niraj said.

That, according to me was a promising idea.

“But the station-cops are aware about our presence,” Nikhil said, “We can’t risk it.”    

“And it will look more like a documentary rather than a short-movie,” Taral said, taking his sweet-drink from the vendor.

When you haven’t eaten anything from 12 hours, believe me, you can feel the first gulp going into your throat and deep inside. Same thing I experienced when I sipped the cane-juice. It was like an elixir of the day.

“There’s an old staircase of over-way ahead,” Taral said, “We can shoot there. Atleast that staircase will hint audience that the scene was taken at railway station.”

Our eyes brightened with hopes again. With no more time to waste, our bikes’ engine groaned and we moved towards the staircase. And finally we shoot the two scenes – Taral descending and Vishal too stepping down.

“Pack-up!” Dhaval shouted.

“So where are we going now?” I asked.

 

“Amul.”