A Survivor Speaks

Hi. My name is Subh. And we need to talk.

And since they are not letting you talk to me directly, I am presenting my thoughts here for those who wish to know what’s happening. In short, if someone is doing everything in their capacity to gag you from talking to another, you should be knowing who the bad one is.

I am an ordinary man. The regular lost-in-thought type of face. I was born, like most of you, in a middle class family in India. I was lucky enough to grow up in a very good boarding school after having lost my family at an young age. I owe everything to my school. It taught me how to not just study well but also be my own person at all times. Human is the only animal that refuses to be himself. If we find happiness in life at every corner, it is because we run into those exceptions there, who can’t be anything but themselves. And I am proud of being one of them. Other than that I have no riches that I can claim as my own.

Please do not mistake me for the conventional Bollywood or South Indian filmmaker trying to test waters in the US. I grew up on a steady dose of not just Hollywood and British films but also a healthy diet of World Cinema from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Iran, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Africa and South America and modern literature and print media. The boarding school upbriging pushed me towards achieving high grades and eventually a seat in Computer Science and Engineering at a prestigious college in India and readily available jobs in software industry through campus recruitment. But I felt like following my heart, quitting IT to join advertising industry as a copywriter. I worked for a few well-known ad agencies like Lowe Lintas, SSC&B Lintas, O&M and RK Swamy BBDO. Soon enough, I realized I didn’t want to write to make people buy things I wouldn’t recommend them buying. So I quit advertising and started making industrial films. The typical 10-to-15-min-long films commissioned by software companies, real estate firms, granite quarries -usually about their work culture or a product launch or tech videos. And I would invest the earnings in the indie films I started making in English at around the same time. English, not Hindi or Telugu or other languages that thousands of films are made in in India every year. And with theater actors and film students and non-actors, not the inaccessible big name film stars. And I did this for years despite knowing there was no market for such indie films in India and despite knowing I was set to lose all my savings every single year. I simply was never was interested in joining Bollywood or any other regional film industry as my sensibilities and aptitude were different. I enjoyed watching some of them but I am not capable of making such films. I believed in more urban subjects, more of an understated treatment of the subject, more realistic settings and subtle performances and an unhurried pace. The kind that wouldn’t insult audience’ intelligence or exploit the lack of by manipulating their feelings with melodrama in a dark and captive theater at a high volume. And since my films wouldn’t bring my investment back, I had to do most jobs on the set and in post-production myself. And I loved learning and doing the same online and in the field. Trial and error and YouTube. I wrote, directed, produced and edited a few full-length features diverting the earnings from the many 10-min-long films I made for IT companies in India and Boston, MA. And when the my scripts demanded bigger budgets that I didn’t have, I turned them into theater plays to rehearse on low budgets with actors from National School of Drama, New Delhi and perform in small auditoriums like that of Alliance de Francaise, the French institute, EFLU, English and Foreign Languages University, Goethe Institut and art galleries. The audience entry was always free. I burnt my fingers because I wasn’t able to stop myself from doing it. I just had to learn the craft and prepare myself for a better place, a more mature industry and a healthier ecosystem than what I was surrounded by in India. I knew only such a more mature and open-minded world would let me thrive in my chosen line of work without compromising on my tastes, abilities and market expectations. And that’s what brought me here to US. I pretty much lost everything and learnt pretty much everything I needed to learn before moving from India with a backpack. I managed to raise funds for the company’s infrastructure needs thorugh a trusted investor and acquired all the audio and video equipment necessary to make small budget films as a one-man-crew with a small cast. I was in the process of testing all the dozens of devices, one after the other, in the garage-turned-office when you entered the picture. Please allow me to explain:

One of the reasons why I wasn’t able to continue making independent English films in India on my own terms was the fact that I rubbed some big names in one of the South Indian film industries the wrong way. It might be hard for an industry outsider to find any credibility in what I am saying now but one of the big film families in the city I grew up in wanted me to accept their daughter’s hand in marriage and take charge of the family film business and course the company into the new age a few years ago. This, after they tapped my phones and computers for years since my first student film hit the front page of local English newspapers. They have a war room of their own and on their payroll are a few tech people as well as some bad apples in law enforcement agencies. “Galileo” is one of the many remote espionage softwares they have owned and used for years. It’s made by The Hacking Team, an Italian company that sells many such products to law enforcement agencies like FBI and KGB across the world and, at the same time, to many oppressive regimes in Africa and Middle East as well as many private customers from business, political and entertainment industries. It’s a public secret within the film industry and every big camp owns such war rooms and tech to protect their own business interests and hurt others casually. Trample or be trampled over. You never know who the good man is or which side to support because each camp commands its own set of powerful contacts in every field and nobody is incorruptible even in the highest tranches of even departments like law and law enforcement. Tracking a nobody like me was as easy as swatting a fly on one’s hand. And they did.

They tracked my every move, meeting, conversation and work location to make sure I was of the right character and mind that they heard and hoped I was. And when the lights turned green and they felt confident, they came into the open and offered to ‘invite’ me into their fold -both family and business. Anybody in his right mind would jump at such an opportunity and be grateful. I grew up in a different mold. I was interested in neither a marriage of convenience nor a career in Indian films. My refusal didn’t reflect well on their ‘reputation’ since the word was already out in film circles that they were courting me. And I can be blunt and on-the-face and fearless. And they come with a feudal mindset that doesn’t know how to accept a ‘no’ gracefully. All the more reason for me to stay stronger about my decision to refuse their offer. They continued tapping my phones, tracking my offline movements and started influencing my career and personal spheres adversely. They thought I would feel the heat and eventually budge. But I didn’t. I lost a few crew members and a couple of location permits, many business contracts and a woman I was interested myself. But I never changed. I could only be and remain myself. Bad chromosome. Years passed. I stood by my decision. They stood by their unethical tactics. One fine day, having failed repeatedly, having seen their strong campaign for years to lure me failing, and knowing time isn’t stopping for anyone, they decided to have their daughter married into an equally wealthy and influential family from a different city. And I thought that would be the last of it. But it wasn’t.

With the daughter married and sent to her new home and family, they turned their full attention to me now. Showtime. They wanted to make ‘an example’ out of me and show the industry insiders what kind of fate would descend on those who go against their wishes. Pent up anger and grudge of high degree had to find an expression for the world to see. Time to ‘restore reputation’. But they didn’t have the liberty to harm me physically since quite a few business rivals of their own and a few journalists from my own circles were aware of what happened between them and me, and I, in my own small and private life, faced threat from nobody else. In addition, the then Chief Minister of the state, who came to know through friends, of my lone fight against the big fish, because we were living in houses on the adjoining streets in a hilly neighborhood, had me listed as a family member to attach me to a shadow security ring who would watch my movements from a distance and ensure safety all times and, for the same reasons, even keep my phone communications and GPS location tracked. And some of these empowered people in this department too are bad apples who had pledged their loyalties, during a power shift in the government, to the very film family that was hell bent on turning me into an example of what could happen, if you rubbed them the wrong way. I had never even met the man in the CM seat or requested him for support. I had survived, a few days earlier, a physical assault that was meant to only warn me and that was enough for the alarm to go off in both the streets our houses were located on. Didn’t ask for help but very thankful to every anonymous help extended.

With these dynamics in place, the film family simply wasn’t able to resort to another physical assault. So they did the next best thing. Or, the worse thing, from my own perspective. They chose to attack with a long and well-sustained character assassination campaign: killing the image and perception of a person in the eyes of people around him in personal life and workplace through a smearing campaign that incites baseless but strong fears in people who are connected to him or potentially would be. It’s a very well-proven war tactic in political, business and film industries that ended many careers and drove many towards suicide. The family and their war team are veterans of running such malicious campaigns against enemies to preserve their business and social interests while hurting those of others. They are one of the top-5 film families in South India with loyal and powerful friends in politics, media, PR, government, police department. Not to mention an even more powerful and crazy fan base, a sizable chunk of which has presence in both East Coast and West Coast. Also, not to mention, the religious groups and caste and community associations that they are highly active in and have been funding for decades. They know how to go to war. It took a few months before I started noticing the effect of the character assassination campaign they had launched. But I chose to focus on building my new company. And once the campaign found its buyers, it started to take off, it turned into a wild fire. I started losing my business associations, personal contacts, technicians who always took my call, and cast and crew members who were working with me for the first time in their lives. Then even friends. The virus claimed a few of my best friends that I thought I would grow old together. It made me realize what kind of test a friendship needs to go through before you know for sure how strong it was to begin with. Suddenly you are not optimistic about a new friendship with someone who actually looks like and is your soul mate. You just say a dry hello and let go. Because you know, he or she can’t stand the test they, in a way, devised for my own benefit. Life makes you laugh. If it doesn’t, you are not getting the joke.

Fun aside, the kind of disinformation they started spreading about me, the kind of heinous rumors and fears they had planted about my character made my life hell in the neighborhood I was living in and my career growth virtually blocked. I was wading though miles of mud they poured in my way on a daily basis. Theirs was a well-oiled machine with its influence reaching far and wide and into every industry and state. And I was a nobody with dreams nobody could see but me. And a stranger who wouldn’t talk but does stare a lot at passing cars wherever he moved to. Who would you trust? The big boys with megaphones or the small fish with its lips sealed?

I changed cities. Their campaign and influence reached every place that I moved to with hopes to rebuild life. Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune. At one point, it became very hard to even rent a house for more than 3 months in any new place in India. Their PR mafia and gossip specialists would swoop down, get in touch with their local friends, and their corrupt friends in law-enforcement, and they all join the local community WhatsApp groups, or get in touch with apartment association members and neighborhood watch groups and spread fear-inciting rumors about me, the new tenant in the neighbourhood. Three months tops and and the red-hot influence the house owner finds himself under is enough for him or her to change his or her mind about lending the apartment to me. I never questioned them when I was asked to vacate. I knew what they had been subjected to. It’s always a tell-all face. Ditto, new friends. Not possible to make even a single friend. Even if one or the other dares to come forward to introduce himself or herself to me, he or she will be contacted and asked to ‘take it easy’. And I am not yet a success in my line of work to feel confident about seeking political asylum from any country. They would laugh me off. Offer a cup of coffee, at best. And the local law enforcement agencies of any city are good at only ensuring my physical safety when I step out for a long walk or a bike ride or a coffee shop break. They don’t know how to enter local WhatsApp groups and weed out the people that are spreading the disinformation campaign started by people they haven’t even met. And I continue to suffer. And silently. Like a victim of a predator on National Geo, I simply sit and watch my organs slowly slip and fall out of my punctured abdomen and learn not be scared of the sight of blood anymore in the process.

The last three years have been the darkest -I was spending more time defending my business and personal interests than actually making films. And when I realized that it was a losing battle between an introverted middle-class man with no support system and a nationally recognized film family, I packed a few clothes and hard drives and left India. 6 years after having left Boston, MA when I was young and making industrial films on East Coast.

Luckily the prior experience making corporate films for software companies and my multiple journeys between East and West Coasts helped. I came here and shared the news with my old classmate from engineering days and he allowed me to use his garage and limited funds to start building a new indie film company here in California that had been registered five years ago in Delaware as a partnership between him and me. I worked like a mule for the last few months and brought the company to shoot-readiness. I can start selecting locations and actors and begin filming my first feature film on a shoestring budget in a month’s time. But only recently I realized how far reaching that film family’s influence actually is and how infested with film-star-crazy Indians even an industry like IT can be. They got in touch with the many friends they have here in the software community and started using them to run a fresh disinformation campaign against me on local community WhatsApp groups, Indian groups and office groups. Most Indians, despite their high education and high-paying jobs, have very impressionable minds -they exercise no original sense of judgment. And they crave for their daily gossip and drama. One good school, one good college and one good job offer and one single move to US and they think they have seen life. Or at least, behave like they have. Even worse, they assume the other person hasn’t seen any at all. It’s like wrapping a sponge with a tissue paper hoping it would stop absorbing the stink in the air. And you can tell a man by the jokes he laughs at. My misfortune to have been born in the same country as theirs.

The film family and their loyal friends in the local IT community here managed to get in touch with their own contacts in every neighborhood I moved to or visited. They managed to plant and spread the kind of false and fear-inciting stories of me that were unspeakable. It’s scary when you run into someone you have never met and he thinks and treats you like someone he has known all his life and you simply are not that someone at all and you both are not allowed to talk to each other. Not just scary but counter-productive when you want to build a new company, make friends and progress in career and life. I can ignore an idiot. I am not scared of a zombie. But everyone is scared on facing a pack of a hundred zombies. Humans who accept and react to disinformation are like zombies. One is always at the risk of losing one’s life to such a zombie. And the worst part is, once you give in and accept as truth the disinformation they have fed you, they turn you as an agent, a new member zombie, who advances the same piece of disinformation as truth to a dozen more people. They are the virus. You are the medium. Garbage-in-garbage-out is not an excuse but a threat. You are not a computer. You are a human with an original sense of judgement and morals. Exercise your right not to be a zombie of disinformation.

My every single career move and personal or work travel is being tracked by them. Some of their friends even stalked me in cars every time I stepped out for a long walk or visited a cafe to work from during my early months when my friend’s garage wasn’t yet ready for me. I am still being tracked and filmed randomly when I walk or bike alone or meeting a friend or an actor or scout for a filming location or two. And video with an added narrative in the post-production is a powerful tool. Voice-Over is your Big Brother talking from the dark. Never trust VO. VO is their M.O, modus operandi. I already lost three lead actors who were willing to work for free in my next indie. They know how to fabricate an extraordinary lie around a daily image. Manipulation is their weapon and you are their dough. The daily gossip, tracking of movements and tapping of my phone communications are making my life hard, and any work meeting or networking attempt for cast and crew impossible. Not to mention the pressure it is putting on my business partner and lifelong friend. You have no idea how hard it is for him to deal with all the new and baseless fears his mind is being fed with through the channels they dug in order to influence his business and personal decisions regarding me. Not to mention the pressure he is made receive from neighborhood groups.

Cutting one off from one’s investors, cast and crew, and alienating one from one’s near and dear in personal life are the two primary goals of any character assassination campaign. Research. And as a new guy in a new city with a new career beginning on limited sources, I have very very few people in my personal life and almost zero in work circles -I haven’t even made my first film here yet. I’m a very easy and silent target for them. A sitting duck near a pond that it doesn’t even belong to. And they are doing everything they can to halt my progress in the new country. Because they know I can scale fast once I have one film under my belt on US soil. They don’t want that to happen. So they are attacking me firing on all cylinders. And the fact that I am a shy person by nature and socially awkward aren’t helping. I try to keep quiet and mind my own work in the garage but the false stories they are spreading in the community are hurting my focus and peace of mind. It already started influencing my own friend’s mind who is a private person like me, a family man at that, and he is scared of what might happen, if he continued to be my business partner. And that would mean I would be losing my first and only investor in US, resell all the new equipment purchased over the last few months that cost thousands of dollars at a loss, vacate the garage office I built with him, walk out of yet another city that failed me because it had people like you as its citizens in the community I lived. And move to another community or another city to start rebuilding my life and career from scratch all over again. Which I can do and will. Or, commit suicide like those few upcoming actors and directors who also went against the whims and wishes of old families in Indian film industry. Google. But I am not of the weaker heart type. I am a product of a boarding school and son of a good man who died young and confident of the originality he had created. I will continue to fight for my liberty and freedom. And when I am made too powerless to do it by weak people like you, I will continue to flee to a safer corner on earth. But I am losing time and resources in the process. I am also not getting any younger. One is known to create one’s best works in their 30s. Not to mention, I haven’t made love in years or been in a relationship with a good woman who could stand by me in the face of the horrors I have been facing. First reaction is to run. Or they will make sure she does. My own secret LOL moment. Horror and romance are two different genres. Mix them and you have comedy. Fun aside, I miss love. I miss warmth. I miss the touch another human. And I am not allowed, especially that: finding love after I turned down the marriage proposal they had offered me. Keep him high and dry. Not just alienated and careerless. Their diktat. I miss the little joys even the poorest of personal lives can guarantee one. Not that it matters, for, especially, a boarding school product that can be emotionally detached and love being alone without actually feeling lonely. Except it does sometimes. And they are the few moments they are counting on and want to bring to my life as often as possible in order to drive the target into taking an extreme step in life. Except, again, I am a boarding school kid. Beat the sh*t out of me and you will still find me playing cricket the morning after or penning love sonnets under a tree. We are incurable romantics who believe in happy endings. And that makes them even more determined and their campaign even more vicious. Years. Years we have been at this -them and I. People like you that they use as pawns in their game are just floating population that keep changing as I change places. And it’s you the powerful pawns that keep in their favor a game that has always been in their favor. I simply stand and watch in amusement even when my a** is bleeding.

I never was a threat to their business. I never had any ambitions that matched their own that in turn matched their own inflated and fragile egos and feudal mindsets. All I ever wanted was to write and direct honest indie films that would motivate a small set of like-minded audience like you from across the world into taking only right decisions if and when they are at crossroads in life, and into wanting to become better people, in the process. And if the people who are after me don’t allow me to do it in this city and its golden sun rays, and in the middle of the biggest free market in the world, and sitting literally 20 miles from 3 of the biggest of streaming apps’ headquarters, and surrounded by a community of the smartest people in the world who have the brains and logic to judge what’s true and what’s not, I doubt if they would allow me to do it anywhere else in the world. But I shall keep fighting. And quietly. For as long as I can. Think of a slave woman they used to command to fetch water climbing up the hill from a pond below in an earthen pot. Only to kick the pot into pieces at the final stair and making her go do it again all day. And everyday. I am that woman. You are one of the many pots I tried to build my life with that they broke today. You don’t know how it happened and you wouldn’t remember it like the many pots that they’ve broken in the last few years. But, this time, I wanted to tell the pot what exactly happened and why it shouldn’t forget what happened, before I go down the the hill to fetch my next pot of water in another city where I know they are already waiting for me.

Thank you for your time.

Subh,

California.