In 2007, I had bought a second-hand Esteem car in Mumbai. At that time, I was shooting for Subhash Ghai’s Black & White. I had woken up at 1.30 am to leave for the shoot, but I discovered that my car had been stolen!
My brother Shamas and I went to the police station to lodge a complaint. The policeman asked us, “How much petrol was left?” I said, “Two litres”. He then said that the car cannot go beyond Juhu on this side and Jogeshwari on the other. The police didn’t promise any help, so my brother and I went in search of my car. It was 2 am, and raining heavily. We saw a car zooming past towards Jogeshwari. It was my car! Jogeshwari has small bylanes. We went through every bylane, but couldn’t find it. It was 6.30 am, we were frustrated by our futile search, and I was exhausted. My brother was then informed that the car would definitely be in an impossibly small bylane where you would never imagine a car could ever fit through! But we did look and we found the car parked there! I later learnt that the same person who sold the car had stolen it.
The search left me very sleepy and tired by the time I arrived for the early-morning shoot. I was shooting for a scene in which my co-actor Shefali Shah had to slap me. I told her to slap me hard to wake me up! She did, and that worked!
As told to Sravasti Datta
