Meeting with Saif Ali Khan

 It was Friday evening in New York and it seemed that the sky had just been ripped open to pour rain on the cabs scurrying around Manhattan. It is good to be able to spend a weekend in the city. The sights were familiar. I was trying to refresh my memories and was going against the check list in my brain.That's Port Authority between 8th and 42nd. I used to spend three and a half hours a day commuting to work. I used to dread the long commute. And then my life changed. I got a mp3 player for my birthday. I would board the New Jersey Transit bus and then insulate myself from the world through the headphones. Now I am back again for two weeks for a business meetingAfter two previous attempts at turning my book into a movie fizzled out I have decided to take this up as an ongoing project ! If you really have a dream, the world will pool its resources to make it happen. It is so true. So everyone I meet and all friends, colleagues and relatives have been told that I am looking for people I could talk to who could possibly produce/ finance/ direct/ act/ edit/ in short, do anything to turn my book into a silver screen version. What is that bit about reaching anyone through six degrees of separation? The day before I left a friend told me, "I could set up a meeting between you and Saif Ali Khan in New York on Friday evening. Would that help?" Sure." I am shooting at the Brooklyn College Library at 2900 Bedford Avenue. Come over."said Saif.Saif and Rani Mukherjee were shooting for the Tara Rum Pum Pum at the lovely Brooklyn College Library. This red brick building has a very romantic feel. The film due for release in Jan 2007 is directed by Siddharth Anand of Salaam Namaste fame.In between the shots I pitched the plot of Mediocre But Arrogant to him. Saif read through random pages and seemed to like the feel of the story. He read through the letter from Haathi and said, "Will this have the potential to be a commercially viable film?" Sure. That depends on how skilfully the film is made, I say.Sounds like a Dil Chahta Hai set in the campus is what he summarized the book as. That's a reasonable description, don't you think so? OK, we now have Saif who has expressed interest. Who do you think should play Rascal Rusty? Or Ayesha for that matter. Let me know. I will pitch to them too.The photo with Saif was clicked by my friend Pradip Tripathy who works for MTV in US. This blog entry was written on their dinner table over hazaar food and adda with Pradip and his wife Anu.