Sit With Hitlist: How not to be the ‘minimum guys’

If this was a Bollywood script a la DDLJ wersquod start from the exact moment Raj first locks eyes with Krishna since no Simran mdash perhaps coming down the steps of Tirupatirsquos Sri Venkateswara University College of Engineering SVUCE on their first day in college with an imagined mandolin tune playing in the background Somewhere knowing because destiny is such that theyrsquod live together to make Bollywood movies for babies happily ever afterBut of course this is not a Bollywood script Neither do the typically indielooking understated Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK former engineering classmates from SVUCE seem like massy Bollywood directors But theyrsquore as Alist as it gets If you consider their filmography that features topshelftraditional to new Bollywood altogetherKrishna DKStarting with Saif Ali Khan Go Goa Gone 2013 then pairing Saif with Govinda Happy Ending 2014 going berserk with Sidharth Malhotra A Gentleman 2017 a lirsquol bit Casting Rajkummar Rao Shraddha Kapoor in the yearrsquos sleeper superhit Stree 2018Not to forget placing late rsquo90s Satyarsquos Manoj Bajpayee back into stratospheric stardom with The Family Man Seasons 1 2019 amp 2 2021 Therersquos also a Shah Rukh Khan film lined up which will go on floors they say once SRKrsquos schedules match mdash since the superstar has enjoyed their script narration and is very much up for the partWhorsquore these guys man and how did their stars so align in a city where everyone sits around with a script No there was no meetcute moment in college when they first met Of which they donrsquot even remember exactly when or how As it happens only in desi Nerd Land they were quiz teammates in college ldquoNot those general knowledge type quizzes haanrdquo DK clarifies ldquoMusic and movie quizzes mdash where they play songs and ask to identify the singer or composer or name the movie from a clip or who is the director that kind of stuffrdquoEntertainment editor Mayank Shekhar connects with the filmmaker duo over ZoomThis is where Irsquom guessing they got to collectively express their film geekery mdash about as much outlet the Nerd Land in the rsquo90s allowed you once yoursquove signed up for an engineering programme I guess The next destination is obviously a lsquostarting salaryrsquo lsquopackagersquo best if earned in dollars pursuing computer programming in the US living thence the great suburban American dream Ditto for Raj amp DKBoth are originally from Andhra Pradesh Telugu is their mother tongue although English is as much their first language Theyrsquore trained engineers of course who eventually moved to Mumbai to make movies Starting off with an independent film 99 starring Kunal Kemmu in Hindi mdash hardly their strongly suit in fact decidedly their weak link gradually veering toward more mainstream BollywoodSounds like both Ram Gopal Varma and Nagesh Kukunoor to me Whatrsquos happening in Andhra mdash you hardly hear similar stories about directors from other states in the South ldquoWell I donrsquot think Ram Gopal Varma is the same graph as us He went directly with an explosive startrdquo Raj corrects me And hersquos rightVarmarsquos debut Shiva 1990 was indie only for a Hindi audience It starred Nagarjuna which is blockbustergrade in Telugu cinema already The stunning response to which had Bollywood roll out the red carpet for Varma Although Raj admits ldquoWith Kukunoor initially yes as engineersturnedscreen writers we were seeing parallels quite a bit actually Because he produced Hyderabad Blues when we were making our debut film Flavors in the USrdquoWhat was the flavour of Raj amp DKrsquos debut film like It had a very American Born Confused Desi ABCD vibe to it mdash a growing subgenre in the early noughties with stories about Indian expats and migrants before IndianAmerican found more mainstream space in American popculture about a decade afterThese movie DVDs were usually available at side sections of desi rental stores in Indian neighbourhoods abroad that otherwise stocked popular Indian cinema Lowbudget English language indies would include titles like American Desi American Chai Green Card Fever Leelahellip With local female actors like Sheetal Sheth Purva Bedi and often a male character called Krishna snipped to Krish whorsquos confused between both his identities At least thatrsquos my perfunctory memory of itManoj Bajpayeeled The Family Man is one of Amazon Prime Video Indiarsquos most successful offeringsFlavors 2003 as an ensemble cast slice of life comedydrama is superior to its then subgenre I realise having caught it on YouTube recently This is also the same time a shrub of English language Indian films made by directors for an audience more at ease with English was growing in India as well Possibly helped if not heralded by the cultlike success of Kukunoorrsquos Hyderabad Blues 1998Rahul Bose was almost the poster boy of this Mumbai subgenre mdash English August Snip Split Wide Open Everybody Says Irsquom Finehellip Soon enough Bose once told me producers in Bombay figured that if they simply changed the filmrsquos language from English to Hindi in say a movie like Jhankaar Beats the audience multiplies few times over automatically That was the end of the English vinglish shrubRaj amp DK suggest they knew this already They knew their ldquosensibilities were nicherdquo to start with especially making a ldquosmall filmrdquo about IndianAmericans in America which was not going to be ldquomainstream commercial anywayrdquo If they stuck to English even that small audience would get shaved off by many eventually picking up the picture pirated online How do you widen that niche ldquoBy at least taking the whole country as our audience rather than one state Telugurdquo Hence Hindi which is what Flavors is mostly inA decadeandhalf later with the advent of OTT platforms in particular DK says ldquoWersquove come to a place where we are letting the characters speak the language they are most comfortable in A case in point being The Family Man Season 1 amp 2 While the primary language is Hindi there are characters who speak English Tamil Malayalam right Thatrsquos a nice space to be inrdquoIn fact given the setting mdasharound hideouts of Sri Lanka among militants of LTTE mdashThe Family Man Season 2 could for a fair portion pass off as a Tamil series altogether And no one seemed to mind even as it was aimed at a mainstream family audience mdash bachhe boodhe jawaan mdash otherwise unused to subtitled entertainment The other thumbrule The Family Man Season 2 broke was the lsquocurse of the second seasonrsquo mdash the sequel never living up to the love for the original The postscreening excitement went a few notches up in factBut wersquove jumpcut too far Might be a good idea to go back to DDLJrsquos Raj amp DK college mates from SVUCE who went their separate ways although within America They stayed in touch with each other and with their shared infatuation for filmsRaj hated his job ldquoIt was a huge struggle for me and it kind of gets reflected in Shrikant Tiwari in The Family Man being stuck in a jobrdquo ldquoActually yoursquoll find this comment on corporate culture in a lot of our filmsrdquo DK says although he wasnrsquot particularly going through a hard time He jokes ldquoBy now if we hadnrsquot got into movies Irsquod be the founder of AmazonrdquoThere are many such sarcastic ones slipped in with a deadpan expression throughout this conversation Which is quite emblematic of their works too mdash all of which in some form or the other have been comedies Even while they deal with zombies ghosts spies or Shor in the City DK seems the more funchilledgregarious one while Raj comes across as the serious sort Although itrsquos hard to tell for sureIn the US working their corporate jobs living out their longdistance friendship still Raj was based in Detroit DK was in Minneapolis ldquoa significant distancerdquo At some point they decided to test their filmmaking skills with a short film that they shot in DetroitDK recalls ldquoEvery Friday I used to wrap up my software job have a flight to catch land in Detroit wersquod shoot Saturday Sunday and Irsquod catch the first flight back on Monday We did this for about six to seven weeks in a rowrdquo ldquoAnd he holds the record for missing the return flight seven times in a rowrdquoRaj remindsThe wrap party after the schedule may have been the reason Irsquom pretty sure ldquoNo manrdquo sighs DK ldquoI am telling you we are engineers We didnrsquot know the concept of a wrap party We were these people sitting around and planning stuffrdquo Raj chips in ldquoWe are probably the sanest filmmakers you would associate with a film like Go Goa GonerdquoEven after their debut feature Flavors Raj went back to his dayjob and DK had been a consultant all along anyway This prompts DK to offer a piece to aspiring filmmakers ldquoDonrsquot quit your day job just yet mdash keep it going You will need money once yoursquove used up every ounce of savings to make your first movie You wonrsquot know when you are going to make that money backrdquoThis is a cautionary practical note to keep both Indian parents and the bank teller happy mdash quite separate from the lsquo3 Idiotsrsquo credo of simply chasing a chimera in a vacuumBut you gotta get a regular job first no Raj amp DK held highly employable professional degrees Itrsquos not common among artistes Especially if you consider the popular although debatable theory on the right and the left brain mdash wherein the former primarily controls our creative impulses while on the latter rests the analyticallogical side Both never being equal for allIn mentioning this theory I may have chanced upon how Raj amp DK actually function as a successful writerdirector unit Not that DK can have another nickname unless you add Bose to tick him off Raj says ldquoDK is also known by everyone as Logic King I am extending logic to a broad sense of the term mdash understanding sensibilities structure of a script and if it makes sense for a scene or character to be somewhere Thatrsquos his core strength With him around Irsquove stopped using the left side of the brain He is just technically supersound mdash from cinematography that is dealing with the DoP to editing even VFX That would be where Irsquod fall back on him and not think too much afterrdquoOn his part DK believes ldquoPart of being a film director and I say this as a writerdirector involves art yes But it involves structuring planning andanalysing everything else as well Itrsquos not a pure artform as say composing a song or painting perhaps mdash those are pure art forms which need only that burst of creativity Of course as a filmmaker you need that burst of creativity too But creativity alone will make you look like a madman going around mdash with a bunch of ideas in your head that are not structured right You need to bring them into a format that makes sense as a story mdash one scene flows to the next and a character graph that follows There is also so much organisation involved Itrsquos everything around that makes the art happenrdquoAs for Rajrsquos role in the separate right and leftbrains seamlessly complementing DK says of his partner ldquoI am trying to find the right word I think the word is lsquodisruptrsquo Right when you think it is all good Raj is mdash no this is not good and that is not good Letrsquos redo all that He is looking at all these small things mdash this guy doesnrsquot look like a millionaire not oldyoung enough hersquos not saying it right not wearing the right clotheshelliprdquoRaj obviously has a complaint He doesnrsquot think DK is making him sound right mdash after hersquos heaped his partner with all the compliments But of course DK is referring to perfectionism I guess mdash a clicheacute Aamir Khan has lived with all his life for similar reasonsBut Raj agrees ldquoPeople from the set will call and say lsquoI think sir you better come to the locationrsquo And DK will say lsquoYou better I have said okay to it but donrsquot complain laterrsquo Invariably I have gone to a place that was donelocked and said lsquoI like this and this doesnrsquot workrsquo People are like lsquoF I knew itrsquordquoAlthough Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar never formally directed films as Bollywoodrsquos most successful screenwriting pair the same was said of their individual strengths too While one that is Javed looked into the minutiae of scenes the dialogues and the unsaid the other that is Salim was more into getting the wider expanse and the larger picture rightIt helps that Raj amp DK write films together first and by the time theyrsquore on set ldquomost issues have already been hashed overrdquo The approach to filmmaking that is common between both though and this they attribute to their educational training is ldquoreverse engineeringrdquo Which is really how they learnt to make movies As Quentin Tarantino says when asked if he ever went to a film school ldquoNo I went to the filmsrdquoUp until Goa Goa Gone Raj amp DK say theyrsquod never been on a film set mdash as opposed to shooting on location Let alone assisted anyone or trained under a master DK feels ldquoThe engineering background came in handy in structuring and analysing whatever good creative ideas we could get And then we reverseengineered how somebody else made a movierdquoRaj explains further ldquoWe had to teach ourselves You are so familiar with the films you watch That is the only familiarity you have mdash to say Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg or whoever you are watching that you can connect with Now the question is can you make it as good or even close enough The idea was to figure out how a scene was made and why is it looking so goodrdquoScorsese or Spielberg are obviously the more obvious examples to emulate or learn from But if you glean through Raj amp DKrsquos top 40 favourite films of all time as they listed in a blog recently therersquos essentially a wide smattering of late rsquo90s indies chiefly American but also otherwiseInvariably a list of popular cults within it too mdash Pulp Fiction Fight Club Boogie Nights Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels etc There is hardly an Indian film mdash okay I spot Varmarsquos Siva 1989 in Telugu Oh no Bollywood movie at all There is Hrishikesh Mukherjeersquos Gol Maal 1979DK admits ldquoHonest truth be told Gol Maal also I watched first in Tamil the Rajinikanth version Then someone said oh you loved the Tamil version You should watch the Hindi movie now And which was really good Thatrsquos why it made it to the list Otherwise the Tamil version would haveRaj ldquoCorrection here There was only one Hindi film yes but quite a few regional films That is what we were watchingrdquo DK ldquoWe used to watch Khuda Gawah 1992 mdash just one big marquee film used to come where we were anyway Thatrsquos all we would get to see And our knowledge of Hindi is not exactly lsquoMahabharat Hindirsquo so you pick anything you understandrdquoThis might sound like a handicap But itrsquos proven to be an advantage for Raj amp DK in Bollywood The voice thatrsquos developed seems wholly nonderivative to popular Hindi cinema from the past The western indie influences are strong alright again not in a sense of a rehash mdash as writers they tend to look within to mine stories still In each of their spheres whether in corporate jobs or two young men in Mumbai out to make Hindi movies theyrsquove operated like the observant outsider mdash piling on experiences into entertaining fictionDK says ldquoEven if you see our earlier films until a few years ago I could draw parallels to each character and say where those traits were picked from mdash from real life mostlyrdquoWe go over a few instances Starting with Bombay films itself The scene for example in Happy Ending where Govindarsquos character who plays a Bollywood star is offered two DVDs for a script mdash Meet the Parents first half Meet the Fockers second halfThis happened to them ldquoIt might be slightly exaggerated but the idea came from the fact that these tapes were given to us by a producer to direct The exact same movies And when we said not our genre he immediately came up with two more DVDs mdash Analyze This first half Analyze That second halfrdquoEven the names of characters in Stree Jana Vicky Narendra etc are picked from their friends growing up in Tirupati including the ldquobizarrerdquo refrainidea of ldquomaking friendship with a girlrdquo which had become buzzwords around them ldquoShe is available for friendship What does that even mean How far does this friendship gordquo Raj laughsThe young girl Dhriti Shrikantrsquos daughter in The Family Man is inspired by Raj amp DKrsquos friendrsquos daughter although she has disowned the character since the second season The boy Atharva is partly based on Rajrsquos nephewLikewise the pesky boss lording over Shrikant Tiwari in The Family Man 2 is an amalgamation of all the crappy techie bosses theyrsquove worked with and wished to publicly drill a hole in their heads What about ldquoDonrsquot be the minimum guyrdquo Irsquove come across a few websites explaining the lsquominimum guyrsquo matrixconcept as a legit HR principle Itrsquos something that Raj amp DK simply came up with Raj says ldquoWe were just looking at different quotable quotes on walls All of which we had seen before mdash donrsquot be this or that or rise up stuff like that We just wanted to coin a word in a kind of incorrect English slogan inspired by TrumprdquoItrsquos a sort of continuation too DK recalls ldquoThere was another phrase in Go Goa Gone where the characters say lsquoWhat do we know What have we learntrsquo They keep saying this Itrsquos a slogan from the telemarketing company they work at We also wanted to do a little ode to Steve Jobs so we put his picture up there with that Steve Jobs quote that we made uprdquoIrsquom actually quite curious about how Go Goa Gone got made at all for wide theatrical release with Saif Ali Khan in the lead mdash a movie ahead of its time since there hadnrsquot been an Agrade zombie Hindi film thus far in order to do a sendup of the genre itself Itrsquos like the comic spoof appeared before the real thing That greenlighting seems easy peasy enough Kunal Kemmu had already been cast in the film He took Raj amp DK to meet Saif who first wondered will people in India watch a zombie filmDK says ldquoWe told him only half the story At that interval point he was literally rolling on the floor laughing Especially when he heard his gangster character with the name Boris who is Indian pretending to be Russian to blend in because hersquos in Goa That wersquod spike and colour his hair blonde hersquoll have tattoos and a shot gun Halfway he said lsquoYeh toh chapa hai aur mujhe yeh karna hai got to do this dumbferyrdquoThe film remained within its original zone despite the mainstreamBollywood frills attached to it Just as their second film in Mumbai mdash Shor in the City 2010 a manic taketribute to the city itself that brought them critical notices and probably first placed them on the BandraAndheri mapWatch the complete interview hereThey had already planned the film as a lowbudget indie with multiple newcomers and funds sourced from friends mdash a big chunk kept aside for having the IndianAmerican star Sendhil Ramamurthy on board who was already charging significantly less than his market feeEkta Kapoor was looking for scripts for her label ALTBalaji Raj amp DK gave her the idea they could work on while casually mentioning the movie they were going ahead with anyway She came on board Shor in the City The film was a smooth sail although DK says it took them five years to cast for their first film in Mumbai 99 2009 which also had Vinod Khanna in a key cameoThere are two ways to decode the unlikely Bollywood success of Raj amp DK in a city thatrsquos traditionally been wary of attempting too many untested concepts in the mainstream For one they simply donrsquot sit on scripts I cite to them the example of a friend who once met the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa Kurosawa told him yoursquove got to be like a magician pulling out scripts like playing cards from various pockets mdash from under the shoe behind the collar mdash depending on whatever might interest the producerThatrsquos really how it works for us DK says Theyrsquove been constantly writing all these years Raj remembers ldquoWe were talking to a few filmmakers the other day and they were struggling to make another film We went back and counted scriptsideas like poker chips and realised we have 20plus scripts and 70 ideas at various stages of development The energy goes thererdquoAlso the mental distance from Bollywood allows them to approach their work without preconceived notions for better or worse Of all their achievements Raj amp DK may go down as rare filmmakers to pull off a shoot with Govinda without delays and no heartache whatsoever ldquoOh no he was amazing mdash only so happy to back before the camerardquoDK admits ldquoWhen I see Rajinikanth or Chiranjeevi in the South or Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan that aura stays no matter what you say But if you are going to work with somebody you get into the nuts and bolts of it We were meeting Kamal Haasan last week and we kept thinking after the long meeting if we should take a selfie but we couldnrsquotrdquoRaj extends the same worldview ldquoI donrsquot think we are fan boys that way Even people used to ask us who is your favourite actor director Well I like this film and this is what I learnt from that film But there are of course a few people actors musicians we are in awe of I have basically made a list of seven people I would not shy away from asking for a picture withrdquoSubsequent interviewers must ask Raj who those seven are I realise itrsquod be an intrusion on their time You can barely profile Raj amp DK looking back since therersquos just so much theyrsquore working on simultaneously DK lists ldquoOur series with Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi is in production We wrapped up work on a cool period satirical comedy series set in 5th Century called Golconda We have another series on the floor We have Citadel produced by Russo Brothers that we aim to start shoot in a few months Then there is The Family Man 3 There are a couple of films to start as well since they took a backseat because of the pandemichelliprdquoSpeaking of the Russo Brothers the most commercially successful director duo in the world mdash in fact all other director teams we know are siblings whether in Mumbai AbbasMustan Burmawalla or abroad the Coens Wachowskishellip Not Ashwiny Iyer and Nitesh Tiwari but they are spouses A natural creative chemistry that is hard to match Very nonDDLJ Raj amp DK 48 only three months apart Raj is elder in that sense are exceptionsThis conversation over Zoom is taking place from their respective homes which is to say that while they seem like brothers from other mothers indeed sharing their left and right brains they do live separatelyRaj has to leave the chat early since his guests are over for his fatherrsquos birthday party DK wishes ldquoSay happy birthday to your dadrdquo Raj replies ldquoOkay cool Please say happy birthday to your mom too same dayrdquo Okay then