July 2009. I was desperately trying to reach Saif Ali Khan for our special on ‘Romance in Hindi Films’. The idea was to set down a wide-ranging interview that could be the centrepiece of the issue. Saif’s film on love down the ages, Love Aaj Kal, was round the corner and he seemed like the perfect loverboy to throw my questions at. So, as I have been doing in more than a decade of covering films in Outlook, I sent him an SMS with my standard opening: “Hi. Namrata Joshi here from Outlook magazine, New Delhi....” What I didn’t know then was that the number I had saved under Saif’s name was actually his mother’s. So no prizes for guessing where the SMS landed. Always prompt in her replies to the press as the then Censor Board chief, she quickly forwarded my request to him and texted me his number. Which I then realised I had mistakenly saved under “Sharmila Tagore”! I eventually did get to speak at length to an articulate Saif (a colourful bandana on his head and Kareena Kapoor’s name tattooed in Hindi on his left hand) in his airy Bandra balcony, over tea, papaya, cookies and some smashing sandwiches. And to this date I genuinely believe that his efficient PR person notwithstanding, it was surely this cross-connection and his mom’s word that may have pulled off the interview for me.
I don’t quite remember who was the first Bollywood celebrity I ever spoke to but I do distinctly recollect the first one to call me himself, on my earliest device, a Siemens. It was the script-writer of Satya. His directorial debut, Paanch, had been banned by the censors. I wrote a couple of pages on the controversy and saved his number, one of the earliest filmi ones on my contacts list. Ironically, since then it’s the one contact that has mutated the most. Anurag Kashyap changes his mobile number more often than his toothbrush and doesn’t inform most of the time. Right now I have five numbers listed under his name and it’s entirely possible that he might not be using any of them anymore. But I will still manage to get in touch with him if I want to. The Kashyap network extends wider than Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and what have you, all put together.
Another number that landed on my mobile through the star himself was Abhishek Bachchan’s. I had done a piece on his long run of bad luck and he wanted to talk about it to me. So one fine Monday morning, I entered the office to find the receptionist all aflutter: “Abhishek ka phone aaya tha,” she crooned. I geared myself up for the worst as she connected me to his office landline. We had a long, amiable chat in which he expressed his displeasure with the headline but felt the piece itself had been fair enough to him. He also shared his mobile number so I could reach him directly in the future. In the said article, a number of people I had quoted spoke of how they found Abhishek to be an extremely nice guy. After that one conversation with him, I couldn’t help agree more.
My longest conversations, invariably, are with scriptwriter Jaideep Sahni. Here’s a man who vanishes from your horizon for long stretches, his number ceases to flash on your mobile for months together. And then one fine day at 11 in the night he’ll call and discuss everything under the sun—media, maids, politics, books, sports, technology, movies and more (in between microwaving his dinner and eating it too) till it would dawn on you that it’s 3 am and you have office to attend in a few hours.
You cover Bollywood out of Delhi? People often ask me disbelievingly. Mobiles have made my long-distance relationship a lot easier. And, of course, some of our biggest stars—Amitabh, Aamir, Anupam Kher, A.R. Rahman—are extremely prompt with their mobile responses. But what amazes me is how producer-director-actor Rajat Kapoor—the only one I know in Bollywood who has chosen to lead a mobile-free life—manages to still remain so well-connected.
One often wonders what happens to people when they pass away. In the world of mobiles they often stay alive, as their own phone numbers. Dev Anand still lives on mine. I have often wondered if I should ‘delete’ him and then stopped myself. Just a few days ago, I did something very macabre. I called up Devsaab, just like that. Only to hear: “The Vodafone number you are trying to reach is temporarily unavailable.”
