USS DIN SHAKTI SAMANTA KO EK JAWAAN LADKE NE THAPAD KYOON MAARI ?..... BY ALI PETER JOHN

I was passing by Natraj studios at 11 am when I saw a huge crowd and a convoy of policemen armed with guns and lathis outside the office of filmmaker Shakti Samanta. I got off my bus and ran to the campus where I'd spent half my life meeting and exchanging ideas with some of the biggest filmmakers and stars. I asked the policemen and others in the crowd what was the matter and Shakti Samant asked the police to send me to my cabin. I had never seen him so trembling and scared before.

Panic was all around the studio and the offices were yet to open When Shakti Samanta regained his composure, he said. “I had just entered the premises of Geek Studio and was on my way to my office when I saw a young man running and before I could think what to do next, he fired his gun at me. Fired and luckily his bullet did not hit me and then the police arrested him and took him to the Andheri police station and the officer on duty told me the story of the boy.

He was horrified when he saw the open cell and before asking any questions, he told the police that he had come to Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh after seeing the roles played by Ajay Devgan in some of his early films. And he took the first train to Bombay. He thought the same thing all the way from Jaunpur to Bombay Central. He angrily thought that if Ajay Devgan could be a hero in films, he could not. He told the same thing to Shakti Samant and the filmmaker told him that it was kismat (fate) and God and a little talent that made stars out of youngsters like Ajay Devgan and even Mithun Chakraborty, Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan.

The life of that boy from Jaunpur could have been ruined if Shakti Samant had not told the police to take a lenient view of the whole situation in which the boy was trapped. Inspector Kulkarni gave the boy a few light slaps and told him “Aaj ke aaj Jaunpur ki gadi pakkad aur phir rehiye yahan dikhi nahi dena. Do you know how difficult it is to make Ajay Devgan?' The boys' name was Pyarelal. Batata Wada and some tea and two constables took him to the Andheri railway station and pushed him into the luggage compartment and told him, 'Bombay Central Station hi uttarna aur gadi pakka kare bija jaunpur hi pahunchana. Otherwise, he will get lost and neither Ajay Devgan will become nor Pyarelal will become." That was the last time Pyarelal was seen in Bombay...

Pyarelal would have been doing well for himself in any profession in Jaunpur but lived in Bombay to try his luck or gun his gun to become another Ajay Devgan, be it Ajay Devgan or spot boy of any other production company. How can there be another star that rises for a while and sinks into the dark sea never to be found again? This is the only true story that my eyes have seen and don't know how many Pyarelal's who dream of becoming Ajay Devgan throw all their happiness and all their dreams in the innumerable dustbins of Mumbai and go home without ticket or Mumbai. I only die. This also happens in the city of dreams.