THE SITCOM

Audio by Paper2Audio

the sitcom

episode 13: "Repu"

== cold open - Panche ==

5 panels engine: Suraj & Kicha, mutual destruction

I.N.T. boys H.Q - morning

[C.1] Morning. The passage outside the bathroom. Kicha,

passing behind Suraj, who is bent over tying a shoe - and

Kicha, for no reason except that the opportunity exists,

yanks the drawstring of Suraj's lounge pants clean down.

S.F.X: fwip

[C.2] Suraj straightens up with the unhurried calm of a man

who has all the time in the world and exactly one thing to

do with it.

He does not shout. He does not chase. He simply reaches out

and returns the favour - Kicha's pants, down, in one

motion.

S.F.X: fwip

[C.3] And now the two of them are locked - each holding the

waistband of the other's pants up with one hand while

trying to pull the other's down with the free hand - a

slow, dignified, entirely silent wrestling match in a

doorway at eight in the morning.

[C.4] ⭐ And Anudeep - who needs something from Suraj,

urgently, and has no idea what he is walking into - comes

around the corner mid-sentence.

Anudeep

Suraj, aa charger-

He stops. He takes in the tableau. Two grown men,

half-undressed, gripping each other's waistbands, frozen,

looking back at him.

[C.5] A very long, very still panel. Nobody moves. Total

mutual awkwardness, held past the point of comfort.

Anudeep, quietly, decides the charger can wait forever.

Anudeep

…tarvata adugutha.

He backs out of frame. The two of them are still holding

on.

narrator (V.O.)

Repu

[1] Boys H.Q. Morning. The recurring wide - and for the

first time in fourteen episodes there is space in it. The

store-room door is open. The mattress is bare.

[2] One suitcase by the door. Zipped. Standing up. Done

since last night.

[3] Anudeep in the kitchen doorway with a cup, looking at

his own suitcase.

narrator (V.O.)

Everything had already been done. That was

the problem with the day.

[4] Suraj comes out of his room, sees the suitcase, turns

around, and goes back in.

I.N.T./E.X.T. the balcony - day

[5] The balcony. The rail on the other side.

[6] Empty. It has been empty for three days.

narrator (V.O.)

She had a site visit in Warangal. She had

booked it herself, on Monday, for Thursday.

[7] Anudeep looks at it for one panel and does not say

anything about it.

Neither does Suraj, who has noticed him looking.

I.N.T./E.X.T. the building - day

[8] ⭐ the parents. His phone. A call from upstairs - from

Jay's first floor, ten feet above his head.

Anudeep

Haan amma… vasthunna… rendu nimishaalu…

Anudeep

(a beat, softer) Haan. Naaku telusu.

Vasthunna.

He hangs up and looks up at Jay's floor.

greater than

E.X.T. Kopitam - day

[9] Kopitam, after the cold open. Three people on a bench

with eleven hours and no task.

Suraj

Flight enni gantalaki?

Anudeep

Raatri padakonda.

Suraj

Appudu manaki roju antha undi.

[10] Suraj, expansive, planning, entirely certain:

Suraj

Manam andaram airport ki velthamu. Cab

pedataam. Padi gantalaki bayaluderataam.

Kicha

Nenu camera testhanu-

Suraj

Camera vaddu ra.

Kicha

(beat) …sare.

[11] Suraj's phone rings. Then Kicha's, four seconds later.

[12] Two men, both standing up, both on the phone, both

saying the same two words in the same tone.

Suraj

…ee roju aa?

Kicha

…ee roju aa?

[13] The desk has put them both on the second shift - noon

to eleven at night. The flight is at eleven. It is not

negotiable and they both know it before they have finished

arguing.

Suraj

Sir, naaku ee roju-

(cut)

narrator (V.O.)

Two to eleven. The flight was at eleven.

Somebody at a desk had done that without

knowing they had done it.

[14] Kicha, three feet away, having a different version of

the identical conversation and losing it identically.

[15] They hang up within a second of each other and neither

of them looks at Anudeep.

[16] wide. Three men at a bench. Ravi anna crosses behind

them with an empty tray and puts nothing down, because

nobody has ordered anything, because nobody wants anything.

[17] ⭐ unspoken act one - Jay. Cut away. A corridor. A

noticeboard. The roster.

[18] Two columns. night and day. A hand with a pen.

[19] He signs day.

(Ep 3: thumb on it, doesn't tap. Ep 10: pen hovers. Ep 14:

he signs it. Three years, ended on a noticeboard, alone, on

a Tuesday.)

[20] He walks away. Nobody in the series ever learns this

happened today.

I.N.T. boys H.Q - day

[21] The flat. Suraj has produced a carrom board from

somewhere and set it up on the floor without announcing it.

[22] Kicha sits down at it. Anudeep sits down at it.

[23] Wide, still: three men around a carrom board, playing

badly, nobody trying, nobody keeping score. The "nothing"

page. Give it the room.

[24] Close on the clock on the wall. Twelve forty.

Nobody has looked at it. Two of these three people are due

at work in eighty minutes.

[25] Two men getting ready for a second shift - two p.m. to

eleven - badly, in a flat where somebody is leaving at

eleven that night.

Suraj

Shift padakonda ki aipothundi.

Suraj

Flight kuda padakonda.

Kicha

Manam airport lo kaluddam ra.

[26] ⭐ unspoken act two - Suraj. Anudeep takes his lunch

plate to the sink out of twelve weeks of habit. Suraj -

already late, one shoe on, bag over his shoulder - takes it

out of his hand.

Suraj

Vaddu.

Anudeep

Nenu chesthanu ra.

Suraj

Vaddu.

[27] He washes it. Dries it. Puts it in the rack. And then

runs, because he is now genuinely late.

It is the same plate Anudeep picked up unasked in Ep 2,

when nobody was looking and nobody commented. Suraj does

not know that is what he is doing. He has never known. He

just didn't want him doing dishes today.

[28] The door. Both of them halfway out of it, walking

backwards, talking over each other.

Kicha

Padakonda pathi ki akkada untamu-

Suraj

Padakonda pathi enti ra, padi nalabhai ki-

Kicha

Sare, padi nalabhai. Kaluddam ra.

Anudeep

Sare.

⭐ the spine beat - an absence. Kicha's bag goes out of the

door with the camera in it, and it has not been open once

today, for the first time in fourteen episodes.

(There is no line about it. There is never a line about

it.)

[29] The flat, noon. Muddamma, at the stove, exactly as she

has been at noon in every episode since Ep 2.

Anudeep is the only other person in the flat.

Anudeep

Ee roju special emaina chesthunnara?

Mudamma

(not turning around) Ledu.

[30] Close on the vessel. ⭐ She has made the same thing, in

the same amount, as always. Nothing added. Nothing marked.

[31] And then, still not turning around, still cooking, in

the voice of a woman lodging a complaint with a municipal

office:

Mudamma

Nuvvu abroad velthunnav ani naaku bhayam ledu

ra. Nuvvu bagunte chalu.

Mudamma

Naaku bhayam - ee illu gurinchi.

Mudamma

Aa rendu kothulu unnayi kada. Nuvvu vellaka

ee illu ela nadusthundo naaku teliyadu.

[32] She goes back to the stove.

That is the entire goodbye. She does not stop cooking, she

does not turn around, and she has gone home by early

afternoon as she does every day, and she is not there when

he leaves.

[33] Anudeep goes down the outside stairs on his own

without saying where. There is nobody left in the flat to

say it to.

[34] the swing. The one behind Jay's building where people

have accidentally told the truth all season.

[35] He sits on it.

[36] He says nothing.

(Four wide, still, silent panels of a man on a swing not

saying anything. No caption, no thought balloon, nothing.

All season this object has made people tell the truth. He

sits on it on the last day and has nothing left, because

there is nothing he hasn't already worked out.)

[37] The store-room. He checks it one last time and finds

it already clean.

[38] The bathroom shelf. One thing left on it - the

toothpaste tube. Flat as paper, creased white along every

fold. Fourteen episodes of infinite effort and zero

toothpaste.

He picks it up and drops it in the bin.

[39] The wall calendar. The crossed-off block has reached

the bottom-right corner. There is no more room on the page.

A hand comes into frame with a pen and crosses off today.

We do not see whose. We never have. Do not reveal it.

[40] The poster wall, full. The blue handprint on the

doorframe. And on the inside of the front door, where

nobody is looking, the thirteenth poster.

I.N.T./E.X.T. the building - day

[41] Jay comes down the stairs, changed, keys in hand. He

does not announce anything.

E.X.T. Hyderabad / on the road - day

[42] A car pulls into the lane. Pinky, elbow out of the

window, entirely matter-of-fact, addressing nobody in

particular:

Pinky

Vaallu iddaru shift lo unnaru. Naaku ee roju

off.

(That is her entire explanation. It is also the truest

thing anybody says all night.)

And behind her, a booked cab - his parents coming down from

Jay's first floor with the big suitcases, loading in, the

driver helping. Two vehicles, one lane. Jay's flat has

emptied its guest room; his own parents are an ocean away

and never in it.

I.N.T./E.X.T. the building - day

[43] The suitcase goes down the stairs. Jay carries it,

uninvited, and will not give it back.

The landing. The third step. The slipper is not there, and

has not been since Ep 12, and nobody has ever mentioned it.

E.X.T. Hyderabad / on the road - day

[44] ⭐ the full name. Third floor. Padma Aunty at her

window with the watering can, exactly where she has been in

the background of every episode since Ep 1 - calling down

into the lane, at volume, to nobody in particular, the way

she has called down into that lane all season:

Padma aunty

Anudeep Nadella. Vellipothunnada?

Beat. Nobody answers her. She goes back to the plants.

I.N.T. Pinky'S car - evening

[45] The car. Evening. Pinky driving. Jay in front. Anudeep

in the back with a bag on his lap.

Nobody talks. Nobody puts music on. Nobody is

uncomfortable.

E.X.T. Hyderabad / on the road - day

[46] A wide, still panel of the flyover. Nothing happens in

it.

[47] Anudeep's phone. A message from Suraj at 8:04:

> vadhilesthe vasthamu

> wait chey

[48] He types "sare" and puts the phone away, and does not

think about it again for an hour, because there is no

reason to.

I.N.T. Pinky'S car - day

[49] ⭐ the parents' goodbye - the one that gets to be

complete. The cab and the car arrived together. amma holds

his face and cries about the wrong thing, the way mothers

do; naanna can't manage the handshake and just holds his

shoulder a second and looks at the trolley instead of his

son.

amma

Akkada time ki thinu ra.

Anudeep

Thinta amma.

naanna

Baruvu limit lo undi kada?

Anudeep

Undi nanna.

I.N.T./E.X.T. Shamshabad airport - night

[50] Then the flatmates' side, minutes later, in the same

terminal - thinner. Trolley. Bag. No speech balloons.

Anudeep says something to Jay and we do not get to hear it.

Jay's reply is one nod. Jay steps back to give the space,

the most tactful thing anybody does all episode, done

without appearing to.

I.N.T. Pinky'S car - day

[51] ⭐ Pinky. She gets out of the car. She did not have to

get out of the car.

greater than

Pinky

…Jagratha.

Anudeep

Thanks ra.

And that is every word the two of them exchange in the

entire series.

[52] ⭐ Close on Pinky. Not devastated. Not crying.

Disappointed - the specific, small, entirely survivable

face of a person watching a door close on something that

was never open, and who is going to drive home in about

four minutes and be completely fine.

I.N.T./E.X.T. Shamshabad airport - day

[53] The kerb. Pinky has stepped back to her car. Jay and

Anudeep, the suitcase between them, at the point past which

only one of them can go.

[54] They look at each other. Just that. Hold it two

panels. Two men who are bad at this, standing in the thing

neither of them can say.

[55] And Anudeep says the only thing there is to say - the

ordinary thing, the customary thing, the thing that is

supposed to mean nothing:

Anudeep

Velli vastha ra.

[56] And Jay - who has said almost nothing all series -

gives back the honest thing, and holds it just long enough

that the warmth lands before it stops.

Jay

Nuvvu vachhinappudu, ee building lo okka

gadhi ekkuva undedi.

Jay

Ippudu adi khaali ga untundi.

Jay

(beat) Adi parledu. Adi khaali ga undadu

ekkuva roju.

Jay does not say "velli vastha" back. He does not say

"sare" either. He just puts one hand flat on Anudeep's

back, two seconds, and takes it off.

[57] Security. He clears it - tray, laptop, the specs off

and back on, shoes. Ordinary. Anonymous. The last of the

friends is now behind glass he cannot see through.

[58] He walks the long empty concourse toward the gate.

Nobody around him. His own footsteps.

[59] ⭐ the escalator. He steps onto it and it activates

under him - dormant until he arrives, waking just for him.

And in a terminal this empty, the mechanism echoes, one

small industrial sound bouncing off all that glass and

marble.

S.F.X: hmmmmmmmm…

[60] ⭐ Close on Anudeep, carried up through an empty

airport by a machine that started because he stepped on it.

narrator (V.O.)

He had waited forty days for this quiet.

narrator (V.O.)

He had not expected it to sound like a

question.

[61] He reaches for his phone - a reflex, to have something

to do with the silence - and it is already buzzing. Jay

calling.

He answers, and it is not Jay. It is Suraj and Kicha, both

at once, screaming down Jay's phone from a barrier they

could not cross.

Kicha/Suraj

(overlapping, breathless) arey- rey manam

ippude vachhamu- sorry ra, proper send-off

ivvaleka poyamu-

[62] And Anudeep, on an escalator, in an empty airport,

with everything in his chest and no way to get it out, says

nothing.

The line fills with three people breathing.

[63] ⭐ And Kicha, because he has never been able to say a

true thing out loud and has only ever been able to show it:

Kicha

Kaani- kaani manam neeku inkoti ichamu ra.

Kicha

Choodu ra pichoda.

His phone lights with a notification. A story - posted by

Kicha, Suraj and Jay, together. A single group photograph.

And a link along the bottom.

[64] He taps it. And the video starts to play.

⭐ And from here the season ends the way it has to - as

Kicha's film, narrating over their own photograph, saying

every unsaid thing on their behalf.

Cut wide, one last time: Anudeep alone on an escalator, one

earphone in, watching the screen - and on the far side of a

wall, two men on a kerb watching the same thing, and

somewhere on a road home, Pinky, and three days away,

Aishwarya, and one floor up in an empty building tomorrow,

Jay.

Five people. One video. Nobody in the same room.

== coda - oka story ==

[65] The photograph, full panel. Kicha's voice comes in

doing the presenter thing for exactly four seconds before

it goes.

Kicha

(video)

Hi friends. Ee channel lo manam movie of the

week chestamu.

Kicha

(video)

Ee vaaram… movie ledu.

I.N.T./E.X.T. Shamshabad airport - day

[66] Push in, slightly. Anudeep on the escalator, watching.

Kicha

(video)

Nalabhai rojula kritham oka kurraadu maa

intiki vachhadu. Vaadi daggara oka suitcase,

oka laptop, mariyu oka page undi.

Kicha

(video)

Aa page vaadu April lo pampinchadu. Adi pani

chesindi. Vaadu select ayipoyadu.

[67] The two on the kerb, heads together over one phone.

Kicha

(video)

Vaadu inka roju raatri adhe page

chaduvutunnadu.

Kicha

(video)

Andulo oka line undi. Vaade rasadu.

Kicha

(video)

"I have always believed my life would begin

somewhere else."

[68]

Kicha

(video)

Orey moddu.

Kicha

(video)

Nee life nalabhai rojula kritham modalayindi

ra.

Kicha

(video)

Nuvvu chudaledu - endukante nuvvu notes

raasukuntunnavu.

[69] The photo pushes past Suraj in it. Cut: Suraj on the

kerb, not moving.

Kicha

(video)

Suraj ki prathi daaniki oka system untundi.

Andulo okkati kuda pani cheyyadu.

Kicha

(video)

Kaani nuvvu plate teesukuni velthe - vaadu

daanini nee cheyyi nunchi teesukuntadu.

Enduko cheppadu. Vaadiki kuda teliyadu.

[70] The photo, Aishwarya at the edge of it, looking at the

camera. Cut: an empty rail, three days cold.

Kicha

(video)

Aishwarya neeku emi cheppadu. Neeku em kavalo

chestundi. Rendu vere vishayalu ra.

Kicha

(video)

Adi ee roju ikkada ledu. Adi kaavaalani ledu.

Repu kosam oka photo nee bag lo petti

vellipoyindi.

I.N.T./E.X.T. the building - night

[71] The photo, Jay looking the wrong way in it. Cut: the

penthouse window, dark, tomorrow.

Kicha

(video)

Jay maatladadu. Naaku vaadi gurinchi naalugu

vishayalu telusu. Andulo rendu coffee

gurinchi.

Kicha

(video)

Kaani nuvvu nalabhai kilometres poyi biryani

vethikinappudu - vaadu intlo undi, nee kosam

pettukuni koorchunnadu.

I.N.T./E.X.T. Shamshabad airport - day

[72] The photo, Kicha himself, half out of frame - the only

footage of him in his own film, from Ep 8. Cut: Kicha on

the kerb, phone in hand.

Kicha

(video)

Inka nenu.

Kicha

(video)

Naaku cheppadam raadu ra. Naaku chupinchadam

matrame vachchu.

Kicha

(video)

Anduke ee video.

[73] Anudeep on the escalator, near the top now. He is

crying, openly, one earphone in, and not wiping it, because

there is nobody in the entire airport to see him.

Kicha

(video)

Nuvvu adigaavu - ee gang lo evaru evariki

close ani.

Kicha

(video)

Manaki answer teliyadu ra. Adi chain la

untundi. Loop kaadu.

[74] The photo, full, all five.

Kicha

(video)

Kaani okka vishayam telusu.

Kicha

(video)

Bench meeda nee chotu untundi. Nuvvu vasthe,

adi akkade untundi.

Kicha

(video)

Nuvvu raakapothe - adi appudu kuda akkade

untundi.

[75] The video ends. The screen goes to the channel card -

104 subscribers - and stops. Anudeep steps off the

escalator at the top.

Kicha

(video, last line, the voice completely gone)

Sare ra. Ee vaaram movie ledu.

Kicha

(video)

Vachche vaaram… chusukundam.

[76] He stands at the top of a dead escalator in an empty

airport with a phone in his hand and a photograph in the

other, and he does not move for one panel.

And then he wipes his face once, with the heel of his hand,

and turns, and walks toward the gate.

narrator (V.O.)

He got everything he came for.

narrator (V.O.)

It took him the whole flight to stop crying,

and years to understand why he had.

== final images - ee chotu ==

4 panels the video's last frames intercut with the airport

no new speech

E.X.T. Kopitam - day

[K.1] The video, still playing on his phone: the Kopitam

bench, empty, five glasses in a row, Seth ji at the counter

not looking up.

I.N.T. boys H.Q - day

[K.2] The video: the flat - the establishing angle from Ep 1

panel 1. Fan turning. Carrom board on the floor. The frame

on the wall with Friday's film in it, the blue photo in the

corner, the T.V below it off. A blue handprint on the

doorframe. Nobody in the room.

[K.3] The video ends. The channel card - 104 subscribers -

and stop.

Anudeep at the top of the escalator, phone lowering, the

photograph in his other hand.

I.N.T./E.X.T. Shamshabad airport - day

[K.4] ⭐ final panel. wide. An enormous, empty, over-lit

airport concourse, and one small figure walking across it

toward a gate, alone, with a bag on his shoulder.

narrator (V.O.)

There was no villain in any of it.

narrator (V.O.)

Nobody had done anything wrong. It had simply

been forty days, and then it was over, and

everyone was fine.

narrator (V.O.)

That was the part that took him the whole

flight, and then a few years, to understand.

end of episode 13

fade out.

end of season one

fade out.

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