Starring: Aditi Deshpande, Mukesh Ahuja, Falguni Desai, Sagar Shetty, Avaneesh Sathianathan, Avadesh Pandey, Sankalp Mahant, Taruna Nishad and Varun Jha as Chhutkan. Story, Screenplay, Dialogue: Sankalp Meshram Art: Mitra Design Costumes: Ruchika Oberoi, Radhika Oberoi Choreography: Mayur Vaidya Audiograph: Vipin Bhatti, Anita Kushwaha Editing: Jabeen Merchant Cinematography: Samiran Dutta, Vivek Shah Lyrics: Ashish Vikelar Nautanki Lyrics and Music: Vijay Bahadur Srivastava Music: Ashish Vilekar, Shailesh Dani Production Manager: Kishor Sawant Produced by: The Children's film Society of India Directed by Sankalp Meshram Format: 35mm, Cinemascope. Running Time: 88 minutes

Synopsis

This is a phantasmagoric story of Chhutkan, a ten-year-old village boy, whose dreams suddenly start coming true. All hell breaks loose when he dreams that the story of the Epic Mahabharat has changed and that the warring brothers Kauravas and Pandavas buried their differences and became friends even before the war began! The Nautanki (Folk Theatre) actors, who are performing the Mahabharat in the village, seem to be under a magical spell being unable to recite the original lines of the War Epic. Next Chhutkan turns his bully cousin into a donkey in his dreams and a few aggressive villagers into a gaggle of squawking geese. Finally an exorcist is called to 'cure' Chhutkan but Chhutkan manages to cure him instead by dreaming that the 'real' Pandavas will rescue him. They do. And the real Pandavas declare that the only Mahabharat that will be performed from now on will be 'Chhutkan Ki Mahabharat '

To all desperate souls who are contemplating sending film projects to the CFSI (Children's Film Society of India), I strongly recommend Kafka. You'll get the same experience without losing your hair, sanity & money.

But like all good stories, mine begins many days ago on a strange night when suddenly the story of Chhutkan ki Mahabharat (CKM) descended on me altogether in a flash. I immediately told it to my wife Ruchika, who has always been inclined to doubt whether I can ever be the source of a good idea. But this time she seemed genuinely excited. This is it, she said. This looks like a film. Now don't waste any time & write it out quickly! I was galvanized by her words and promptly did nothing for six months.

Time passed and I continued to wallow in that comfortable sty called Television but off and on I narrated the CKM story to my various unfortunate friends who were kind enough to appreciate it. Some of them even made it a mission in their lives to get me to write it. Jabeen prodded, Shanta Gokhale goaded, my own conscience pinched and Ruchika punched (hard)! Eventually the one page synopsis and the thousand rupee draft was reached to CFSI. The response from CFSI was lightening quick! From the initial approval to the final budget meeting it all took a mere eight months. (Tip: carry every thing in triplicate to CFSI, {including yourself}& always carry your own revenue stamps!)

After haggling and more haggling and even more haggling they brought down a film budgeted by me at 65 lakhs to 40 lakhs (minus tax deducted at source, so that makes it 38 lakhs) But first I had to provide a bank guarantee from a nationalized bank for 8 lakhs. I mortgaged my house for that. Moral of the story - No house - No film.

I needed a village for my film, a happy looking village at that. The villages around Mumbai looked like slums. Unhappy slums. Just then, someone from my unit suggested that I should take a look at the villages near his town in Raigarh, Chattisgarh. I went and was bowled over. The Villages looked happy! (you'll know what I mean when you see the film). Surrounded by gentle hills on all sides, nestling beside gurgling rivers, here was a cluster of villages that were perfect locations for the film. Thank god for the sluggish development of rural India!

Our Cast included 6 children with talking parts, 18 Adult talking parts not counting the 20 professional nautanki actors who I had imported from U.P, one talking donkey & 20 geese with talking parts too. This, not counting at least 10 scenes that required more than 200-300 people as extras. We cast mostly from Bombay, but we also took many actors from the IPTA, Raigarh. Extras were taken from the villages! (Beware - they will most probably annihilate any film unit which lands up there now!).

My shooting plan was really ambitious and our schedule was hectic to say the least. A budget as low as this forces you to cut down on the number of days of shooting & that creates such a tension around the shoot that you can't innovate or improvise at all. I did not innovate or improvise at all; I only compromised.

To, manage a unit of almost 80 people and an ensemble of child artistes & animals almost in the middle of nowhere is a logistical nightmare for anyone and my combined roles as Director & Executive Producer forced me to divide my attention between purchase of Diesel & which lens to use. (At least I think I chose the right Diesel!). But more than me, my unit worked like a magical, maniacal group, eschewing sleep altogether, performing much beyond human endurance. To add to our pleasure, the avaricious & crooked businessmen of Raigarh were behaving like a pack of wolves around carrion. To deal with them was one of the most depressing experiences of my life. We went horribly over budget, My Cameraman Samiran Dutta, of Calcutta caught malaria in the middle of the shoot and Vivek (Saviour) Shah had to be airlifted from Mumbai to complete the shoot. We had to borrow money from Relatives and the Market to complete the shoot.

Through all of the tension, fatigue & helplessness, It was still the happiest time of my life. After all I was shooting a feature film. On Film…35 mm… Cinemascope … no less. There is definitely something to be said about doing what you want to do. It's the best happiness of life - even through all the troubles I had in getting my edit approved by the venereal....oops venerable CFSI script committee, even through all the scrounging around to finish the sound work and get the print out, I just had the one solace, that I was doing what I wanted to do. It felt right - it felt good.

I honestly don't know what will be the future of this film. I am trying to show this film to some distributors who might buy it from CFSI. If not, the film will just do the festival rounds and be shown in a few screenings around the metros, courtesy film clubs etc. But I am not disheartened by the bleak prospects of exhibition for this film. I have done my best and the rest is for destiny to decide. The whole experience has been worthwhile only because of one truth - you can learn filmmaking only by making films.

When I finally saw the film on the big screen I did not cry, I did not laugh. I was impatient for the film to end. You see another idea had suddenly descended on me in a flash. Chhutkan ki Mahabharat was over. It was time to move on…

Sankalp Meshram graduated from The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), with specialization in Film Editing in 1993. Subsequently he has been editing and directing primarily for TV. Some of the films he has edited include the Marathi feature film Katha don Ganpatraonchi and Lokpriya which won him a National Award for Editing in the Non Feature Category. Some of his directorial credits on television include MTV Filmi Fundas, The Good Food Guide, Dil Deke Dekho and Kaleidoscope. Chhutkan ki Mahabharat is his maiden film.