Friday, December 7, 2007

THE DUBAI CALLER




THREATENING CALLS WON’T STOP THE DOUBLE OFFER FROM BEING PUBLISHED


By
Flynn Remedios (author of The Double Offer and of this blog)



Since I put up excerpts from my yet-to-be-published book The Double Offer on this blog and since it was highlighted by
Buzz18.com (Thanks a ton CP – you are really a darling) and IndiaFM (Thanks a million all at IndiaFM), I have got as many bouquets as well as brickbats.


Well, I don’t mind the bouquets and brickbats – I have long known that it’s part of being an ‘outspoken’ journalist.


But what has disturbed my family and me are the half-a-dozen-odd crank and threatening calls I have got in the last two days - two of them from a Dubai cell number. The Dubai caller called twice and first abused me with the choicest gallis. The second call was more direct. He said that if the book was published mentioning names, I would pay for it with my life. He didn’t have a problem though, if names weren’t mentioned. He even offered me a big gift if I deserted the book.


He said that one of the “item girls” I was vaguely referring to in the excerpts published online, sounded or felt like his legally married wife. When I asked him what the name of his legally married wife was, he said that he had three wives and it was none of my business to know their names. When I asked him who he was, he said he was one of the biggest ‘private party’ organizer in the Gulf region and that most ‘item girls’ from Mumbai were his ‘girl friends’.


Buoyed by that response, I then asked him if all his three wives featured in my work as item or call girls and that’s when he lost his cool. He said that if the book was published, and if ‘his wife’s name’ appeared in it – as he felt he was sure I was referring to his wife who no longer is a ‘call girl’ and had turned a new leaf – he would personally kill me.


He actually admitted that the woman was earlier sleeping around, but now she is “just doing some small modeling work” and is completely reformed.


But he unknowingly gave me an interesting bit of information - many entertainment journalists and industrywallas already know about this – He informed me that about 80 per cent of the item girls and small time models who perform in Dubai at private shows also sleep around (some of them voluntarily) to make an extra quick buck, during their stay in Dubai or the other Emirates. He said that most managers who arranged and co-ordinated shows for Dubai and other middle-east performances were told to send girls who were willing to do double shifts. The girls expect to do some shopping which they can barely afford to with their official fee. The only option for them to make some extra money is to accept "the double offer" and come back with their bags loaded with clothes, jewellery, electronic goods and much more. Their patrons take them shopping and treat them like queens.


He told me that many girls ‘go to bed with the organizers and patrons’ of their own free will. They not only sleep around, but even keep in touch through SMS later on. Their patrons shower them with gifts throughout the year and in case they happen to be traveling to India, their favourite girls are called to ‘perform and satisfy them’.


In fact, he chided me for making this an issue because according to him it was a symbiotic relationship betwen the item girls or stage performers and their patrons.


Then there have been other calls from PCOs around the city wherein the callers have dared me to publish the book. Besides, there were a few SMS messages sent from free websites (which offer Web to SMS services and which rarely track the IP addresses of the users sending SMS messages from their servers) that called me names and cautioned me not to put up any more articles on my blog. They all ended with the same thing – that I would have to pay a very heavy price.


I just want to tell all these callers that the book WILL BE PUBLISHED. I am just doing my job as a journalist reporting and writing what I have seen,heard and found out after a lot of ‘probing and digging’.


At this juncture, I want to thank my parents for their support and a very special and dear friend whom I shall only identify as AC (for she isn’t on talking terms with me right now for some damn reason only known to her) who has been a source of great inspiration and strength. THANKS A TON ANGEL.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Casting Couch – Why blame producers and directors?


By Flynn Remedios


Much has been written about the casting couch. I remember my days at Island magazine (from the Magna Group for those who came in late), almost 12 years ago, when we tried to “trap” some “seedy” producers and directors, by sending in some decoys. This was much before News Television and if I am mistaken there weren’t any news TV channels around then. When I did that story, I was like a knight on a mission, all fully charged. A mission to expose the exploiters and protect the exploited. A mission to change the world of Bollywood. For me then, the exploiters – meaning the directors and producers who lured nubile young things to their casting rooms and dingy offices in Oshiwara, Four Bungalows – MAHADA and at Adarsh Nagar were the culprits who should have been hanged.


Twelve years later, while I don’t condone such acts, my views have drastically changed. Today, I wouldn’t do a one-sided casting couch story. I am of the opinion that the girls are equally to blame. Many girls will walk into a dingy office at Adarsh Nagar, with all their artificially augmented booty falling out and openly say that the old man behind the desk can take a look at all her goodies after he parts with a signing amount and/or signs a contract with her.


After this book is published or if this blog becomes a hit, I am sure many PYTs and not so PYTs are gonna accuse me of the same – of offering them “plum roles” and big assignments in return for special favours. You dear reader gotta be warned that it was all in good faith. To find out which girl would go to what extend to get a “big film” or a “big modeling assignment”, I had to play the villain myself. I had to masquerade as a big producer or a director in the making. Now, now, I do aspire to be a big producer some day myself and would love to direct some great movies, a la Spielberg, but what I was doing the last two years was part of an elaborately planned sting operation and was research for my book.


Dear reader, you will be surprised. Some girls who come from really good families and have a great education were also “willing to sleep with me” just to bag a big film project. I was surprised and shocked that educated, well-bred, beauty contest winners with mirror-cracking looks were willing to “have coffee” with me. And I don’t think I am such a great looker myself, neither did I drive a Merc, nor did my last name sound like an Ambani or Tata, or Chopra or Bhandarkar. I was stunned myself, when out of every ten girls I contacted with offers of films or modeling assignments, about six of them agreed to my ‘terms’.


There were enough girls in Mumbai who would let me “do anything to them” for a movie or for that matter for even a music video and some of them were willing to drop all their clothes for a few thousand rupees. And these were not professional call girls. Some of them were as young as 17 and most of them were in their twenties. There was this girl from Delhi, who came with her mother for an ‘audition’ and both mother and daughter were willing to ‘take good care of me’.


Then there was this lady in her fifties (who claimed that she was only 35) and herself a small time “C” grade actress who came with her 16-year-old daughter. The mother is now a bar dancer and also organizes “private parties” where out-of-work bar girls (after the ban came into force) dance semi naked in small halls for about Rs 5000 each night. She offered me both – herself and her daughter for a hold your breath threesome. She claimed her daughter was a virgin and I should be careful while breaking her. I was shocked, but I had to continue with my act. We met at CafĂ© Coffee Day at Lokhandwala and then she dropped me off in her Maruti Van. I am specifying all these details (which are not a figment of my imagination, but are facts meant to corroborate my story) . All she wanted was a leading role in a good music video for her daughter.


Then there was this model and Bhojpuri ‘actress’ who let me audition her in her car – a nice red Honda City or Civic (I don’t exactly remember). She actually was willing to let me touch her all over to ensure that she didn’t have any artificial stuff. All this in her car on a deserted road behind near Lokhandwala. She insisted that I ‘touch and feel’ her assets to make sure that she had “genuine maal”. “How many girls today have such genuine assets, she asked me after that, insisting that I could have everything, if I paid her a signing amount of Rs. 50,000/- . She immediately gave me a bank account no. in Dubai where she wanted the money transferred. Since I was putting on an act, I pretended that I was being financed by some rich Sheikhs in the Gulf and all my cash was abroad. She even had an account in London, she told me.


It’s true that some girls chastised me, some of them fired the hell out of me. I couldn’t tell them that it was research for a book for then the cat would have been out of the bag and since it’s a very small world, all of them would have known that Flynn Remedios was doing an investigative book on Item Girls.


Now that my research is complete and my book is almost out, I would like to apologize to all those nice girls who were offended by my “indecent proposals” – there is this really sweet and cute singer and stage performer who lives near Versova whom I asked if she would do a wardrobe malfunction – like get her top fall off – for a hefty price. She flatly refused and stopped talking to me for a month. I had to profusely apologize, but I guess things were never the same between us after that incident. If you read this dear, please remember that it was only research for a book.


Now coming to the point! The producers and directors are NOT to blame. There are many, many girls who will throw themselves at even the sleaziest, pot-bellied, half drunk, almost bankrupt, balding man merely to get sometimes even a small role. I am sure – as it was in my case – that after the producers and directors get such “indecent proposals” from the girls, they begin to enjoy all the fun and then start ‘demanding’ the same from all the others. And sometimes they get caught.
(some spelling and gramatical errors may occur in these articles as my spell checker decided to take a break)

Item girls or call girls or con girls??



By Flynn Remedios


Ask any PI (Crime) at any police station in the Andheri East/West, Oshiwara, Seven Bungalows, Jogeshwari and Goregaon belt - of course you gotta know him well for this - and he will tell you that an item girl in his jurisdiction means trouble. He will immediately name some of them in particular and wish they had to shift their residence someplace else generously infusing his conversation with the choicest of gallis, not to forget expletives and adjectives for the women concerned.



I emphasize on the word “some” as I have mentioned earlier and continue to re-iterate that a majority of item girls are nice, decent, beautiful women who after their work on stage is done, go home to loving families. But then there are the black sheep or the rotten apples and this book is dedicated to them.



However, not all are so genteel and lady-like and some of them have at least one complaint registered against them in the local police station where they reside.



A select few of them are professional con women. And if you ask me as to how do I know this, I would immediately say “by sheer experience”. Well, I don’t want to narrate all my “experiences’ here, but you can definitely read them all in my soon-to-be-released book titled “The Double Offer – the secret lives of item girls”.



However, I would like to share a few spicy details. Most item girls have a god-father. Barring some of them who have made it on their own steam by sheer hard work or given the fact that they are exceptionally beautiful or talented or both and not to forget business savvy and up-to-date in the industry, the others “need” a god-father or a rich boyfriend to even make it.



While there is nothing wrong in having a rich boyfriend, the way some of these aspiring item girls go about trapping such “rich boyfriends” is really criminal. Targets are identified after meticulous search and research and even “tested” before an attack is made. Some of them share information among themselves as members of a crime syndicate would share data on a potential target. Then there are the sleazy co-ordinators who are in the words of another well-known item girl “nothing by glorified pimps”.


The co-ordinators will also help the “upcoming item girl” identify such a rich bakra. It’s part of his brief and job. The modus operandi is to ‘trap’ an unsuspecting victim like a spider trapping a fly, then invite him into her parlor (read bedroom) and then milk him dry monetarily before dumping a sometimes dead, sometimes drained (mentally, financially and emotionally) and sometimes destroyed victim back on the streets.



More often than not, these bakras are middle-aged married men, who have families, wives and kids and are God-fearing (do pooja everyday and even visit temples and other places of worship regularly with their wives and families). And after the “poor men” have been duped and milked dry, they think that they have been paid for their philandering ways and prefer not to complain for fear of embarrassment and a possible divorce, not to forget loss of esteem and self-respect. Others may resort to violence and may “want to teach the woman a lesson” and some brave souls may decide to take the con woman head on.



I personally know of at least about 20 such gentlemen (actually most of them were not so gentle in the first place) who have fallen prey to the pleasures of the flesh and have lost everything. Two of them have lost their wives and their children, another four lost their businesses – when their partners found out where the money was going – and another two unfortunately unable to bear the pain and stigma committed suicide. In all the above cases, the abettors or perpetrators viz. the item girls got away scot free. One of them is a well-known and sort of respected “actress” today. Another is married and settled in London and many others are yet doing what they specialize in – gyrating on stage and conning rich bakras on the side.

Are some Bollywood item girls’ high-class call girls?



By Flynn Remedios

The answer to this question is a capital Y-E-S. And if you don't belive me, you must have a nice, lengthly, friendly, off-the-record chat with the DCP-Enforcement of the Mumbai Crime Branch, under whose jurisdiction the Social Service Branch falls.
But before you reach for your lawyers, let me clarify that not all item girls are dhandewallis and most of them are decent, nice girls who may gyrate to spicy, racy music and wear little or nothing while performing, but go home to their families (husbands, boyfriends, brothers, mothers) after their “shows” are over.

Many of the girls who also do “private shows” are also nice, decent girls, who may have a colored personal life but are not full-time call girls. They may have a new boyfriend every six months or sometimes every month, but then as long as they are with one man, they stay committed to that man. Most item girls expect financial support from their boyfriends and choose their boyfriends accordingly after “checking out their financial status”, but then that is a normal thing and most fathers would do the same before giving out their daughters in marriage.

However, we are not concerned with these nice girls. This chapter deals with the lives of those who lead the double life and who always will make a “Double Offer”. For the uninitiated, The Double Offer refers to when a girl agrees to perform on stage or at a private party and also agrees to go to bed with the organizer, the sponsor or sometimes both, for double or even five times the normal amount she would perform for. This means that if “sonali” would normally be paid Rs 15,000/- for a 14-minutes-two-entries performance, she demands Rs 50,000/- to Rs one lac for also sleeping with either the co-ordinator getting her the assignment, or the sponsor or the organizer of the event. The saddest part is some desperate girls stricken by the lucre of money, fame and glamour will go to bed with all three, sometimes in one night itself to “get the assignment”.


While I am not really sure about this, according to information obtained from several co-ordinators, rival item girls and even organizers, item girl, model and stage performer Moon Das allegedly was also in this lot. Let me specify that I am not making any personal allegations. I am not trying to tarnish her character or outrage her modesty. I am only doing my job as a journalist, which is to present before my readers the collective opinions of many people in the know - people whom I have interviewed over two years and who have shared (some on them in strict confidence) many, many other "juicy" details which I obviously cannot put out on an open blog. I am only putting on record what I have heard from several others. I am only recording a “so-called known secret”. It is a different thing that my personal investigations have confirmed these rumours, and I have solid proof to back my claims, but I do not wish to emphasize on this right now. For all the details of my investigation, you gotta buy my book dude.