Day 510: End of an Era!

11 April, 2011

Today was the last day of Mausams screenings in Singapore and it was one exciting screening! We were completely choking with last minute bookings and we ran a full house show. I was literally running up and down, arranging for tickets, collecting cash, managing people who simply turned up at the door without any bookings and making sure that everyone who wanted a ticket got one by hook or crook. Finally when things settled down and the movie progressed, I stood at the back of the theatre and watched my film as well as the audience watching my film.

It felt surreal. Standing there, gazing at all those people and the movie on the big screen, it dawned upon me that this was it. This was the end of an era. This was the last official screening of Mausams in Singapore - something that I had been working on for such a long time.

When I think back about the time when I started on the script... it feels like so long ago! From the script to auditions to casting to costumes to props to locations to storyboarding to shot breakdowns to scheduling to shoots to cinematography to multiple takes to editing to dubbing to music to even the final DVD burning, it has been such a terrific experience! There were some very tough times that I would definitely not want to go through again, no doubt, but mostly they are all pleasant memories.

And I can predict that I would suffer from withdrawal symptoms pretty soon. I will miss the constant buzz that was around me all these months - be it with the cast around for shoots and dubs or the crew around during the post production phase more recently. I will definitely miss all of the excitement but having said that, let me stress that I have no intention of starting on another project very soon. This was way too hard with a full time job and other responsibilities and I want to settled into a routine, low-excitement life revolving around work, home and yoga for a bit! Let's see how that goes!

Work on Mausams is still far from over - we still need to figure out screenings outside Singapore but for now, this feels great. Am satisfied, relieved and absolutely on top of the world.

I think I will end this post by repeating my Facebook status message:

"And thus the era ends. Thank you Team! Thank you God! Thank you World! This shall never be forgotten."

490 more to go.