Raj B Shetty suffered a shock trying to steal wires

Maker of fun film on baldness on the many things he did just to watch movies.

My brother sat on my shoulder with a sickle in his hand. My hands and legs were trembling. We were on a mission to earn some money so that we could watch our favourite star’s next film.

We had sold everything that we could lay our hands on — plastic buckets, iron chairs and cables — to the scrap dealer. The only option left now was to get hold of copper, which we were told would be found in electric wires. So we were on our way to an abandoned house in the neighbourhood, hoping that we could find some electric wires so that we could pull out copper.

We found a wire and my brother wielded the sickle to cut it open. But in the next second, we were thrown on the ground. The wire was a live one and we got a severe shock.

This just explains how crazy we were about films. My parents were from Mangaluru and when I was born they lived in Bhadravathi, where films commanded a manic following.

I studied there till class three and then my family moved to Mangaluru. Here, television was the only way to get connected to cinema. My gang and I watched it non-stop.

As there was no television at home, the whole village was our silver screen. We would go from house to house just to watch TV and if we were chased out, we would move on to the next house. As time wore on, this habit stopped. We all grew up and I ended up becoming an RJ.

After three years of working, I was not satisfied and the void in me kept getting bigger. I resigned and didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, one of my friends, who was doing a short film, asked whether I could write. Curiosity got the better of me and soon I began writing. The product was finished. It wasn’t great but it did well to push me out of my slumber. This unleashed a lot of questions within me and I soon began learning the art of filmmaking.

I thought writing, acting and direction were all interlinked. And after doing nothing but learning for a year, I made a short film with my friend Praveen Syrian. It was only a three- minute film but we were happy.

I had found my true calling and decided that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wrote another short film. This time it was longer at 20 minutes.

By this time we had built a small team and most of us were close friends. We decided to make films.

My first script was for a Tulu film. It never got made into a film, but I persisted and wrote the second script, the third, the fourth and so on. Tired and frustrated, I wrote another short film, ‘Ondu Motteya Kathe’ which became a film.

Whatever I have learnt about filmmaking is what I have gathered from the Internet.

I was a curious kid and that curiosity still continues. I decided that I will stop making films only when that child inside me stops being curious.