Have recently developed a new passion - filmmaking, as in short films through my handycam. It all started with that national film festival last year where I decided to give my first shot. The result was "My Funky Date", a ten minute short film based on stereotypes about Northeastern guys. I can still remember its "production phase", when Sharat would stay static with the digicam in his hand tll the shot got over since we obviously didnt have a camera stand. One accidental flick of his hand, and we would have to go through the whole scene again. And since the audio recording of the camera was practically nil, so we had to dub all the scenes again with the help of a near-disintegrated mike and Windows Movie Maker. The dubbing was another scene altogether, with all three of us (me, shardu, and anubha) huddled in complete silence at 3 in the morning as Anubha, our heroine, would try to sync one dialogue after another for her scenes. The dubbing finally ended at 5 am since the heroine had a train to catch at 6.30 am for home!

Good thing, however, that our efforts bore fruit much more than we had ever expected. Two film festivals and one successful film competition later, we were all brimming with confidence and hope. And thus the autism venture got its foundation which we are currently working on. Have also completed another short film, Ranjan's Workout, which me n tannu r thrilled about. Have submitted it for a student film competition. Let's c wat happens.

Oh, and there's another major film competition coming up which seems to be really big deal with names like Subhash Ghai, Vikram Bhatt, Ketan Mehta, for the jury, and bountiful prize money. Am thinking of sending of sending my Autism film for this one if by God's grace, it gets completed before time. Let's see . . .