The Beginning The winters of 1971, we have just shifted to our new address at Juhu Vile Parle Development Scheme (JVPD Scheme) from our old residence which was in our factory complex in Vikhroli which was an industrial suburb in Mumbai. JVPD Scheme was built on a reclamation land and was already popular for housing some of the greats of the time like Dharmendra, Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Guru Dutt etc. Just donno how it happened, but some producer walks into our house Nagi Villa and requests us to let him use our premises for film shoots. Here our stuff was being unloaded for grihapravesh and lo we were being greeted by film production into our own house. Like most of us, my dad Late S Shamsher B Singh Nagi too had fascination for the celluloid medium and got carried away with the requests of several producers and the process of shootings started in our bungalow. Little did he know then that this was the beginning of history which was being written and the writing was on the wall. Nagi Villa had arrived and was welcomed by the film industry with open arms. New to the industry, my dad allowed few shoots to happen without charging anything only with the excitement to see our location on silver screen. What started as passion soon turned into a flourishing business. Today when I sit back and retrospect how could shootings in bungalow become a trend ? Only a place like Bombay (then) could give opportunity to this kind of business. Shootings were very popular in studios. It was expensive to pay rentals of the studio + the cost of the set + paying for the days you were not shooting. Seventies, eighties and nineties saw actors shooting by the hours and hopping from one location to the other. The producers would have to wait endlessly for hours only to be disappointed that the actor had either cancelled the shoot last minute or was coming for an hour or two. This was a major contribution to the costing of the films. This was the time when lakhs were big and crores were unheard of. This is where we filled in the blanks. Our location was popular for the sense of interior decoration my parents had. Here they were blessed with rich taste and class. The producers did not have tension of making sets, paying big rentals and were getting ready set to shoot at short notice. This was a win win situation for all. Often producers/ directors would just come to shoot closeup shots or patchwork shoots. Many considered our location lucky for their films and would atleast get the camera rolling at our place for a shot or two. Thus we have had the opportunity to have maximum directors, producers, actors and actresses to shoot here. It will not be an exaggeration by me to say that Nagi Villa must have featured in more than 500 Films/ TV serials in the span of last four decades. Post 2000, the focus shifted from films to TV serials. Nagi Villa was seen in all the major serials. Now was the time when movies had bigger budget and TV serials had its limitations. Films were going back to studios. There were times that whenever I surfed from one channel to the other on TV , there was some serial or the other showing our location. I started this page/ group so that i can share piece of history with all my friends and wellwishers in and outside the film industry. I do not have records of most of the films shot here and the films I remember are not in YouTube. I will share my insight to whatever material I get hold of. What was made as a residence for us, destiny changed its course and made it popular in its own way. Every place has its own karma, this place had perhaps its own.
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 09:37:49 +0000
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