# ❄️ COLD OPEN — "BUJJI MAMA CALLING"

# ❄️ Cold Open — Bujji Mama Calling

Audio by Paper2Audio

# ❄️ Cold Open — Bujji Mama Calling

*5 panels · before the title · engine: **Bujji Mama's unsolicited calls***

C.1 *Boys H.Q, morning. Suraj's phone rings. He looks at it. He does not pick up.*

C.2 *It stops. Beat. It rings again.*

C.3 *He picks up and holds it eleven centimetres from his ear, which turns out to be correct.*

Bujji Mama (phone):** SURAJ. A.A Arch Ekkada Pettavu.

C.4 *Suraj, patiently:*

Sooraj Nenu arch pettaledu mama.

Bujji Mama (phone):** Appudu Evaru Pettaru.

Sooraj Meere pettaru.

Bujji Mama (phone):** Sare. *(hangs up)*

C.5 *Suraj lowers the phone and looks at it for a long moment.*

Sooraj Vaadu naaku **roju** cheysthadu. Naaku matrame.

*(He says it as a complaint. It is not a complaint, and everyone in the room knows it.)*

Caption (title): **Evaru Ekkuva Close?**

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# ▸ Act One — Setup · panels 1 to 16

## Page One

**1.** Kopitam. Evening. The recurring wide, the fixed bench order. Five of them. Ravi anna's shape in the doorway behind.*

**2.** *A perfectly ordinary argument in progress about something else entirely — whose turn it is to settle the tab.*

Sooraj Nenu ninna icchanu.

Keecha Ninna nenu icchanu.

**Aish-warya:** Mundu roju nenu icchanu, kaabatti meeru iddaru kalisi—

**3.** *Anudeep, quietly, pushing a hundred-rupee note across the table:*

**Anudeep:** Nenu isthanu.

**4.** *All four of them turn on him at once, offended, in unison.*

All Vaddu

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## Page Two

**5.** *Beat. He puts it back in his pocket. This is a rule of the house he has just found by walking into it.*

**6.** *And Suraj, leaning back, changing the subject in the worst possible direction:*

Sooraj Serious question. Ee gang lo — **evaru evariki ekkuva close?**

**7.** *Total silence at the bench. Four people simultaneously realising this is a landmine and one person — Suraj — realising it half a second too late.*

**8.**

**Aish-warya:** Ee question ki answer ledu.

Sooraj Undi.

**Aish-warya:** Undi. Kaani **cheppakoodadu.**

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## Page Three

**9.** *Kicha, who has been quiet, puts his glass down.*

Keecha Cheppudam.

Sooraj Ela?

Keecha Okkokkaru. **Separate ga.**

**10.** *Aishwarya, immediately suspicious, which is correct:*

**Aish-warya:** Enduku separate ga?

Keecha Andaru unte evaru nijam cheppadu.

**11.** *Anudeep, who does not yet know what he has agreed to:*

**Anudeep:** Idi ela pani chesthundi?

Keecha Nenu chusukunta.

**12.** Wide. Four people at a bench. Kicha already getting up.*

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## Page Four

*the Format Breaks.*

**13.** ▪️ Confessional — Sooraj *Flat. Frontal. Empty background. Too much headroom. He is enjoying this enormously.*

SURAJ: Idi easy ra. **Kicha.**

**14.** ▪️ *Same setup. He is now less sure than he was four seconds ago.*

SURAJ: …Kicha. Haan. Kicha. Manam roju kalisi untamu. Manaki **inside jokes** unnayi.

SURAJ: *(beat)* Andulo konni naaku ardham kaavu.

**15.** ▪️ Confessional — Keecha *Same flat frontal. Sunglasses on. Answering instantly.*

KICHA: **Aishwarya.**

**16.** ▪️ *Same.*

KICHA: Endukante daaniki nenu bore kottinappudu telusthundi. Inkevariki teliyadu.

KICHA: Suraj naaku bore kottinappudu **inko cheera** vestadu.

---

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# ▸ Act Two — Escalation · panels 17 to 40

## Page Five

*Cut back to the real world, same twenty-four hours.*

**17.** *Kopitam, ten minutes later. Suraj and Kicha on the Honda Shine, arguing about petrol money. Ordinary. Loud. Completely at ease.*

**18.** *A wide, quiet panel of them riding. Nothing happens in it.*

**19.** ▪️ Confessional — Aish-warya.** *Flat frontal. Arms crossed. Instantly hostile to the question.*

Aish-warya: Idi oka **stupid** question.

**20.** ▪️ *Same. She has not moved.*

Aish-warya: *(long pause)* **Jay.**

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## Page Six

**21.** ▪️ *Same. Explaining more than she means to, which never happens to her.*

Aish-warya: Nenu vaadini **padakonda** sanvatsaralu nunchi telusu. Gully cricket nunchi.

Aish-warya: Manam ippudu chala takkuva matladatamu. Adi problem kaadu.

**22.** ▪️ *Same. And then, unprompted, the thing that costs her something:*

Aish-warya: Vaadu naaku emi cheppadu. Nenu vaadiki emi cheppanu.

Aish-warya: Anduke vaade.

**23.** Cut — real world. Aishwarya's balcony, same evening. She is on the rail. Jay is on his floor above, on his own rail, three metres up and to the left.*

**24.** *Neither of them says anything. They have been out there eleven minutes.*

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## Page Seven

**25.** ▪️ Confessional — Jay.** *Flat frontal. He looks directly into the lens, which nobody else does, and it is unsettling.*

Jay: Nenu ee ata aadanu.

**26.** ▪️ *Same. Still looking dead into the lens.*

Jay: *(long silence — draw the silence, one panel of a man not answering)*

**27.** ▪️ *Same.*

Jay: Andaru.

Jay: Adi cheating kaadu. Adi **nijam.**

**28.** ▪️ *Same. And then, quieter, the only crack:*

Jay: Nenu okkarine ekkuva close ayithe — migatha vaallu **entha** door lo unnaro naaku telisipothundi.

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## Page Eight

**29.** Cut — real world, and it's the funniest scene in the episode, played completely straight.*

*Suraj and Kicha have separately decided to verify their answers by testing them. Neither knows the other is doing it.*

**30.** *Suraj, to Kicha, aggressively casual, over lunch:*

Sooraj Rey. Nenu neeku close aa?

Keecha *(not looking up)* Enduku?

Sooraj Emi ledu. Just.

Keecha Sare.

*He does not answer the question. Suraj does not notice that he did not answer the question.*

**31.** *Kicha, twenty minutes later, to Aishwarya, aggressively casual:*

Keecha Nuvvu naaku close aa?

**Aish-warya:** Ledu.

Keecha …

**Aish-warya:** Nenu joke chesthunna.

Keecha Nuvvu joke cheyyaledu.

**Aish-warya:** Ledu.

**32.** *Kicha walks away visibly damaged. Aishwarya watches him go and, once he's gone, her face does something entirely different.*

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## Page Nine

**33.** ▪️ Confessional — Anudeep.** *Flat frontal. Sitting slightly too straight. Immediately trying to answer the question correctly, as though it has a correct answer.*

Anudeep: Naaku ee question adigi ela answer cheyyalo teliyadu.

**34.** ▪️ *Same.*

Anudeep: Nenu ikkada **rendu nelalu** nunchi unnanu. Vaallu andaru **sanvatsaralu** nunchi.

Anudeep: Nenu answer chepthe, adi… **claim** chesinattu untundi.

**35.** ▪️ *Same. And here it is — the last voluntary use of the sentence in the entire series.*

Anudeep: Anyway, nenu ekkuva close avvakoodadu kada.

Anudeep: Nenu **velthunna** kada. Idi temporary.

**36.** ▪️ *Same. He sits with what he just said. He doesn't take it back. The panel holds one beat too long.*

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## Page Ten

**37.** Cut — real world. Night. The flat. All four of them in the Circle on the floor, doing nothing, entirely comfortable.*

**38.** *Wide. Nobody talking. The fan. The tube light. Aishwarya's feet on the sofa. This is the "nothing" page and it is doing all the work.*

**39.** *Anudeep, on the floor, half-asleep, in the middle of it — and the drawing should make clear he is inside the group, not beside it.*

**40.** *He does not know he is being contradicted by the room he is lying in.*

---

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# ▸ Act Three — Turn · panels 41 to 52

## Page Eleven

*the Tally. Four panels, and this is where the reader does the arithmetic the characters can't.*

**41.** ▪️ Sooraj said Kicha.*

▪️ Keecha said Aishwarya.*

▪️ *Aish-warya said Jay.*

▪️ *Jay said everybody.*

▪️ *Anudeep said nobody.*

*Drawn as five small stacked confessional stills with a line drawn from each to their answer. **Not one arrow comes back.** It's a chain, not a web.*

**42.** *Hold on it. No dialogue.*

**43.** *And then the second diagram — the one nobody drew on purpose.*

*Every one of the five confessionals, with the mentions of **Anudeep** highlighted. Suraj mentioned him. Kicha mentioned him. Aishwarya mentioned him twice. Jay mentioned him. He mentioned nobody.*

**44.** *He is in all five answers and is the answer to none of them.*

Caption *(narration)*: Nobody was closest to him. Everybody was talking about him.

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## Page Twelve

**45.** *Real world. Kopitam, next evening. All five back on the bench in the fixed order.*

**46.** *Suraj, unable to leave it alone:*

Sooraj Sare. Answers cheppu.

Keecha Vaddu.

Sooraj Enduku vaddu?

Keecha Endukante nenu **vinnanu** ra.

**47.** *Beat. Kicha, who has heard all five, is the only person at the table who knows the shape of it. And he does the thing he has never once done in nine episodes: he protects somebody by not saying something.*

Keecha Idi manchi question kaadu. Vadiley.

**48.** *Suraj lets it go, which he also never does. Something is different about the table and none of them could name it.*

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## Page Thirteen

**49.** *Aishwarya, later, on the rail, to Anudeep, sideways, not looking at him:*

**Aish-warya:** Nuvvu emi cheppav?

**Anudeep:** Nenu evarini cheppaledu.

**Aish-warya:** Enduku?

**50.**

**Anudeep:** Naaku **hakku** ledu kada.

**51.** *Close on her. She looks at him for a full panel. She is holding roughly four sentences and selects none of them.*

**52.** *What she says instead:*

**Aish-warya:** Sare.

*And after he's gone, alone, to the lane:*

**Aish-warya:** …idi ayi undadu le.

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# ▸ Act Four — Landing · panels 53 to 64

## Page Fourteen

**53.** *Night. The flat, emptying out. Suraj asleep. Aishwarya gone over the rail.*

**54.** *Anudeep in the passage, on his way to the store-room, stops.*

**55.** *Jay's door. **Ajar.** Not open, not shut. Light spilling out into the passage.*

*(Eight episodes ago this was a horror set-piece. Now it's just a door.)*

**56.** *He looks at it for one panel and keeps walking, because it isn't a mystery any more and there is nothing to look at.*

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## Page Fifteen

**57.** *Kicha alone at the table. Very late. Camera on a stack of books in front of him, pointing at an empty chair he has just got up from.*

**58.** *He goes through the footage. Five faces. He watches Anudeep's answer twice.*

**59.** *He does not do anything with it. He closes the laptop.*

**60.** *And then he opens it again, and sits back down in the chair, and points the camera at himself.*

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## Page Sixteen

**61.** ▪️ Confessional — Keecha *The same flat frontal setup as all sixteen pages. Sunglasses off, for once. He is answering the question a second time, alone, at two in the morning, with nobody to perform for.*

KICHA: Nenu Aishwarya ani cheppanu.

**62.** ⭐ **the Spine Beat — the Reverse Angle.** *And for the first and only time in the episode, we cut **behind** the camera.*

*A stack of books. A phone propped against a pickle tumbler. A red light. An empty room. And a man sitting alone in a chair talking to it.*

*Every confessional in this episode was his. He asked all the questions. He has been holding all five answers since yesterday afternoon.*

**63.** ▪️ *Back to the flat frontal. Same man. Answering honestly this time, to nobody, at 2 a.m.*

KICHA: Nijam cheppalante—

KICHA: —naaku evaru ekkuva close ani teliyadu ra.

KICHA: Naaku **evarikaina** nenu close ana ne teliyadu.

**64.** Wide. Pull all the way back. A dark flat. One laptop screen.

One small red light. A man in a chair with his back to us, in front of a camera, in a room where four people are asleep in four different directions around him.*

*He reaches out and switches it off.*

Caption *(narration)*: He kept all five answers.

Caption *(narration)*: He never showed anyone. Not for four more weeks.

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## End of Episode 9

*(No end gag — the episode ends quiet. **From here to Ep 14, cold opens only.** The reader should feel the show getting quieter without being told.)*

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