So here I am-- the Rollywood reporter. So what is Rollywood actually? Rollywood is a collection of motley crowd concerned with filmmaking set on the Eastern side of the now silted Ganges just before it plunges into the Bay of Bengal. Rollywood is also an utopian community that fancies itself at par with the best in Indian showbiz but nonetheless churns out mindless copies of Tamil dvds for the greater part of the year.
So here it is. I have been lucky to be privy to the workings of an orgnisation which we will henceforth call RollyControl. This RollyControl (RC) has a VP whom we will call, a la fakeiplplayer, Lordie, though he has not been in very good terms with the original one for quite sometime now.
And now to the story. Lordie does not enjoy being ruffled. But he was when the weaklings, or so he thought, of RollyControl suddenly decided to organise a charity football match in aid of the Aila victims of the state. They had Fuckda with them. They also had the support of QueenBigO (henceforth QBO) who has been trying to get even with Lordie for the last ten years since their much publicised but yet secret tale of carnal romance became staple food for the media. They also had with them the upcoming hero, whom we shall call Gambat. Then of course, there was the organisation called BananaCopulation owned by the impressario Hablu Oarsman, who promised any help and even went forward to book a stadium for the match well in advance. Hablu by the way is also not a favourite with Lordie, since he had once had the gumption of rescuing QBO from his advances when the aformentioned romance was on the wane.
Yet all this while, Lordie was vacationing out of the country. And he came to know of the effort only after touching base. Lordie was elated. The whole thing provided enormous opportunities- ifthat is - all went as he planned. Firstly, it could give his ditheringevent management company a chance to prove its worth. Second, it alsoheld the prospect of bringing back his almost outcast event managerfriend BuddhaJain-- who may later turn out to be his prospectivefund-manager once he floats his production company-- to themainstream. BJ by the way had a year back been indicted in a policecase when he with a friend got too drunk in a district hotel andreportedly toppled a man from the rooftop. The man, an employee of thehotel, had apparently asked them to stop and paid for it with hislife. Since then BJ has been out on bail, but still not quite acceptedin mainstream entertainment.
Fuckda (FD), the wily fox that he is, saw that there was a prospectiveclash of interests in place. So he simply announced that he was alwaysavailable, but that the members of RollyControl should now takecharge. Lordie took the opportunity and proposed that his eventmangement company would handle the logistics. However, a few membersof RC saw red- since that would mean the effort that they had put inuptil now would go unrecognised by the media. Also, it would mean thatHablu may be unceremoniously dropped. Now that would be bad, since notonly had the man volunteered when nobody else had, he has also beeninstrumental in providing for quite a few other members of RC in thiertime of filmi-recession. In the face of strong opposition, Lordie'sfirst idea got dumped.
Meanwhile, the celebrity count for the match was increasing. Even theoriginal Lordie was approached, and he even gave a verbal consent. Soour Lordie rolled out the second bait. He proposed that with so manycelebs wishing to join the cause, they needed a professional eventmanager and suggested Rollycontrol members sought the help ofBuddhaJain. BJ even held meetings and also went to check out thestadium. But the stadium authorities started fighting shy of gettinginvolved with a person who is at the moment out on bail. They hadtheir reasons too. The president of the stadium trust holds politicalambitions and no matter if he has a few goons at his beck and call, hedidn't exactly fancy being associated with a criminal out on bail, atleast not officially. Especially since BJ's exploits had receivedenough bad press and he feared that it may have a backlash on hisrepution if BJ was to get actually involved. Lordie naturally had tobend. And that was the time he started getting truly ruffled. Because,believing that he would be successful in using this social platform torevive both the prospects of his grovelling company as well as that ofhis event manager friend, he had already spoken to a whole lot ofsponsors for the event and even set a target of a possible sum thatcould be donated for charity- which was far in excess of what thestadium could churn out if sponsers were to be eliminated and charitywas to be raised from box collections only.
As a last straw, Lordie tried to win over Fuckda, and played on hissentiments of losing face in front of millions of fans if the eventwere to be handled callosly by what he termed absolutenon-professionals. The non professionals, in his consideration wereother members of RC and of course Hablu. Fuckda got the biggerpicture, flew down to base, called a meeting, called a few big guysand temporarily set everything right, announced Lordie will officiallylook after the proceedings henceforth, privately asked the originalinitiators to monitor the proceedings and flew off to his hillsideresort, almost sure that this is a hopeless cause not worth spendingmore than an evening on.
What now ailed Lordie was that despite his best efforts, he had stillnot been able to get rid of Hablu from the scheme of things and thatthe spotlight of the event was still not on him. To add salt to thewound, a media report, giving credit to Fuckda and the original Lordiewas published three weeks prior to the match. Lordie naturally wasfurious. He could very well guess that the real strings were beingpulled by Fuckda, since the media house which reported the event havealways been in very good terms with Fuckda, its newseditor sharing abrotherly affection with him. Fuckda, to Lordie had his reasons forsuch a stance. He had two years back relegated Lordie to the background, churning out one mindless hit after another in theindustry, before, all of a sudden Bollywood woke up to his potentialall over again. The problem is, Fuckda's bollywood ventures had allbeen duds and Lordie feared that Fuckda could any day decide toconcentrate on Rollywood instead. That would mean yet another setbackto Lordie's already fledging career. And he could ill afford that.Lordie therefore had every reason to believe that Fuckda was behindall the attempts to overturn his applecart. So Lordie decided tooverturn Fuckda's applecart instead- though it's still not clear ifthere was one - and played his last bait.
Lordie first asked all his sponsor friends to step back. The he calledan urgent meeting of RC. And finally managed to convince most of themembers that with the kind of money they could possibly raise, it wassimply not worth the do. By a stroke of luck, the group within RC thathad initiated the cause originally was without its most verbosemember. The poor man had been on duty and excused himself from themeeting. Thus, despite the odds being against him, Lordie once againemerged triumphant. Reason why they still call him Lordie inRollygunge. Reason why at 50, he still manages to lead the powerlistof Rollywood.
But will he, eventually? Keep watching this space...
