Mithun Number 2
Avishesh Jha, Screenwriter, Andheri

I loved Jayant Kaikini’s short story collection. These are written from an insider’s perspective on Mumbai and its inhabitants, without glorifying the struggle and the magic of the mundane. My favourite one is the titular story, where the protagonist is called “Mithun” because of how he mimics actor Mithun Chakraborty. He gets to play the role of his stunt double for an action sequence. There is one moment where the protagonist performs the challenging stunt, and then the real Mithun arrives and acts for the camera. In that moment, the duplicate thinks that, all his life, he had been mimicking the actor, and here is the actor pretending to be him in the stunt.