Bombay. January 1993.
The premiere of Aag aur Ashoka was not just a film release. It was a coronation. Astra Films' first major production, a historical epic wrapped in masala, starring the nation's new sweetheart Madhuri Dixit and the rising rebel Salman Khan. The posters were everywhere. The hype was deafening. And at the center of it all, in a simple black bandhgala amidst a sea of sequined saris and flashy suits, stood Rajendra Shakuniya.
He was holding court in the lobby of the iconic Regal Cinema, looking less like a film producer and more like a diplomat at a particularly noisy summit. Ad-men, distributors, and starlets swirled around him, but his eyes were scanning the crowd.
He found her near the popcorn counter, arguing passionately with a film critic from Screen.
"You're missing the point entirely!" Priya Singh's voice cut through the lobby's din. She was all of twenty-four, dressed in a simple but elegant silk sari, her eyes flashing behind her glasses. "The dance sequence in the third act isn't just spectacle. It's a direct homage to V. Shantaram's Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje! The choreography of collective joy as political subversion! You're reviewing it like it's a Dharma potboiler!"
The critic, a portly man used to being feared, sputtered. Rajendra watched, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He'd met Priya Singh twice before—once at the film's mahurat, where she'd correctly identified the cinematic influences behind the cinematographer's lens choices, and once at a dull industrialist's dinner where she'd spent the evening dissecting the socialist undertones of 1970s Bollywood with him while her father, the Finance Minister, discussed fiscal policy.
He excused himself from a polyester-clad distributor and walked over.
"He's right, you know," Rajendra said, arriving at her shoulder. Both Priya and the critic turned. "About it being a potboiler. That's exactly what it's supposed to be."
Priya's eyes narrowed. "Mr. Shakuniya. So you admit your 'epic' is intellectually bankrupt?"
"I admit it's designed to make crores," he said mildly, taking a glass of juice from a passing waiter. "The homages, the subversion—that's the scaffolding. The emotion is the product. You don't sell scaffolding to the masses. You sell the dream built inside it." He nodded to the critic. "Your review was fine. Four stars. Everyone's happy."
The critic, grateful for the escape, melted into the crowd. Priya was left fuming, but intrigued.
"You're a businessman who talks like a film theorist," she accused. "It's disorienting."
"And you're a finance minister's daughter who dreams in celluloid. That's fascinating." He offered his arm. "The film is about to start. Let's see if the scaffolding holds."
They sat in the balcony. Through the three-hour runtime, Rajendra watched Priya more than the screen. He saw her lean forward during the complex dance sequence, her lips moving silently with the lyrics. He saw her frown at a historical inaccuracy, then smile despite herself at Salman's rakish charm. He saw her wipe a tear during Madhuri's climactic sacrifice.
When the lights came up, the hall erupted in applause. Rajendra remained seated, turning to her.
"Well? Did the product deliver?"
She was quiet for a long moment, gathering her thoughts. "The craft is impeccable. The heart is… calculated. It's like you built a perfect, beautiful machine to simulate emotion. But I could hear the gears turning."
It was the most astute criticism he'd ever heard. She'd seen through the spectacle to the merchant's ledger beneath.
"The gears are the most interesting part," he said. "Come to the Film City editing suite tomorrow. I'll show you how the machine works. How we take raw chaos and cut it into a story that a billion people will believe."
The next day, Astra Films' Editing Suite 3.
The room was a temple of analog technology—flatbed editing machines, racks of film cans, the sharp smell of celluloid and ozone. Rajendra had dismissed the editors. It was just him and Priya.
He threaded a reel of raw footage from Aag aur Ashoka—the unsweetened, unstabilized shots of the war sequence. Horses stumbled. Extras looked at the camera. The magic was gone, leaving only expensive chaos.
"This," he said, as the grainy images flickered, "is the truth. A few hundred confused men in itchy costumes, waiting for lunch."
He then threaded the final, edited sequence. The same shots, but now spliced with close-ups of Salman's determined face (shot weeks later in a studio), with stirring music, with sound effects of thundering hooves. Chaos became epic.
"And this," he said, his voice soft in the dark room, "is the story we sell. We take reality's broken pieces and glue them into a shape people want to see."
Priya watched, mesmerized. "It's manipulation."
"It's direction," he corrected. "The same thing your father does with the economy. He takes the chaotic data of the market—inflation, growth, despair—and edits it into a policy narrative. A story of 'India Shining' or 'Liberalization.' The tools are different. The craft is the same."
The comparison stunned her. She'd never heard anyone link her father's dry econometrics to the magic of film editing.
He walked to a locked cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a pristine 35mm film canister. He handed it to her. It was heavy, cool.
"For your father," he said.
She read the handwritten label. *"Mughal-e-Azam. 1960. Director's Print."* Her breath caught. It was her father's favorite film. He'd once told her it was the only thing that made him cry after a long day of fighting cabinet ministers.
"How did you…?"
"A good editor knows what ends up on the cutting room floor," he said. "And a good… observer… knows what matters to people. Your father isn't just saving the economy, Priya. He's trying to save a certain idea of India. A grand, epic idea. Like this film." He tapped the canister. "He deserves to be remembered not just as a policy-maker, but as a patron of that epic. A king of the quiet, difficult, necessary work."
The word king hung in the air between them.
Priya clutched the film canister, her academic certainty crumbling. This man wasn't just a shrewd businessman or a clever filmmaker. He was a narrative architect. He saw stories in spreadsheets and politics in song sequences. He saw her—not just as Manmohan Singh's daughter, but as a fellow believer in the power of the crafted story.
The attraction was sudden, terrifying, and intellectual. It felt like looking into a mirror that showed you a vastly more powerful, dangerous version of yourself.
"Why are you showing me this?" she whispered.
"Because," Rajendra said, turning off the editing machine, plunging the room into silence save for the hum of the air conditioner, "someone needs to understand how the story is cut. And one day, someone will need to know how to edit the reel themselves."
He held her gaze in the dim light. The offer was unspoken, but clear. He wasn't just showing her behind the scenes. He was offering her a seat in the editing room of reality itself.
Priya Singh, daughter of the scholar, believer in clear narratives and moral arcs, felt the solid ground of her world tilt. The most dangerous man in Bombay wasn't a gangster. He was a storyteller. And he had just handed her the pen.