# ▸ ACT ONE — SETUP · panels 1–16

# ▸ Act One — Setup · panels 1 to 16

Audio by Paper2Audio

# ▸ Act One — Setup · panels 1 to 16

## Page One

**1.** *Boys H.Q. 12 40 AM The wide, at night — inverter light, one tube, the fan turning. Four people horizontal in the specific way of people who have been horizontal for two hours.*

*Behind them: **the frame** on the wall with Friday's film still in it, and the calendar. Four weeks to the circle.*

Caption *(narration)*: Nothing had happened all day. Nothing was going to.

**2.** *Suraj on the floor, phone above his face. Kicha upside down on the sofa. Anudeep at the table with a laptop closed in front of him, doing nothing at all. Aishwarya on her own rail, chin on her arms, doing nothing at a different address.*

**3.** *Nobody speaks for a full panel.*

**4.** *And Suraj says the sentence that costs everybody three hours.*

Suraj Naaku biryani thinali anipisthundi.

---

## Page Two

**5.** *Nobody moves. But something changes in the room's air pressure.*

Aishwarya Ippudu okkati kuda open ledu.

Suraj Naaku telusu.

Aishwarya Appudu enduku cheppav?

Suraj Cheppanu. Anthe.

**6.** *Kicha's head comes up off the sofa, upside down, sunglasses somehow still on.*

Keecha …**Shadab** open untundi.

**7.**

Anudeep Shadab ekkada?

Keecha Chala doorm.

Anudeep Entha door?

Keecha *(beat)* Adi important kaadu.

**8.** Wide. Four people looking at each other. Nobody has agreed to anything. Everybody knows.*

---

## Page Three

**9.** *The stairwell at one in the morning. Four people going down it, none of them dressed for anywhere.*

Aishwarya Nenu radhu.

Suraj Sare.

**10.** *Next panel. She is on the stairs with them, jacket on.*

Aishwarya Nenu radhu ani chepta unnanu.

Keecha Vinnamu.

**11.** *The lane. The Honda Shine — and **a second bike Kicha has produced from somewhere**, which he wheels out with the confidence of a man who has not thought about tomorrow.*

Keecha Adi nadi kaadu, kaani adi **naadi.**

*(⭐ **Do not draw a number plate.** Not once, all episode, until panel 56.)*

**12.** *the Pairing — and it is the wrong one, deliberately. Suraj and Aishwarya on the Shine. Which leaves **Anudeep and Kicha**, standing next to a bike, alone together for the first time in the series.*

---

## Page Four

**13.** *They ride. Empty flyover, sodium light, a city with the sound turned down. **The "nothing" page** and it should be allowed to breathe.*

**14.** ⭐ **the Man with the handee *And at the bottom of the flyover, on the service road — **one bandi, one bulb, one steel handi, three plastic stools.** A man in a lungi, alone, ladling.*

*Steam coming off it. **You can smell this panel.***

**15.** *All four of them slow down. All four of them look. And Suraj — Suraj, who wanted this at twelve forty in the morning — waves it off.*

Suraj Vaddu ra.

Keecha Enti vaddu?

Suraj Manam **Shadab** ki velthunnamu.

**16.** Wide, from behind the cart. Two bikes accelerating away from a man with a full handi at one in the morning.*

Caption *(narration)*: That was the whole story. The rest is just the part where they found out.

---

---

# ▸ Act Two — Escalation · panels 17 to 40

## Page Five

**17.** Shadab. Shutters down. A chain. A padlock the size of a fist.*

**18.** *Four people standing in front of it in total silence.*

**19.**

Suraj Nuvvu open untundi annav.

Keecha Nenu **untundi** anna. **Undi** ani analedu.

**20.** *Aishwarya, already back on the bike, entirely unsurprised:*

Aishwarya Randi. Intiki.

Suraj Vaddu.

Aishwarya Suraj.

Suraj *(and here it is)* **Aa bandi.**

---

## Page Six

**21.** *Four heads turn. The realisation arrives in all of them simultaneously and it is the happiest anybody will be all night.*

Keecha Aa bandi!

Suraj A.A BANDI rah

**22.** *the Ride Back. Genuinely thrilling, played completely straight — two bikes going the wrong way down a service road at half past one with four people who have never wanted anything more.*

**23.** ⭐ Spine Beat.** *Kicha riding one-handed, phone up in the other, filming the road, filming Suraj on the other bike, filming nothing.*

*The footage will be a blur and a wind roar and completely unusable. **He keeps every second of it.***

**24.** *And Anudeep, on the back, over the noise, because there is nothing else to do:*

Keecha Nuvvu naatho maatladavu ra.

Anudeep Nenu andaritho maatladatanu.

Keecha Andaritho ne. **Naatho** kaadu.

*Anudeep has no answer to that, because it is true, and Kicha does not press it. He just drives.*

---

## Page Seven

**25.** *The service road. The bulb.*

**26.** *The man is packing up. The handi is on the ground. The lid is off.*

**27.** *Suraj is off the bike before it has stopped.*

Suraj Anna— anna, **rendu**—

**28.** *The man does not look up. He says one word and keeps packing.*

Cart Man:** Ayipoyindi.

---

## Page Eight

**29.** *Four people standing in front of an empty handi they were sitting next to, on a bike, forty minutes ago.*

**30.** *Nobody blames Suraj out loud. **Everybody looks at him.** It is much worse.*

**31.**

Suraj …cheppandi ra.

Aishwarya Emi cheppamu?

Suraj **Emaina** cheppandi. Ee la choodakandi.

**32.** *And Kicha — who has ruined this evening once already and has learned nothing — puts a hand up.*

Keecha Naaku **oka ice cream parlour** telusu.

---

## Page Nine

**33.**

Anudeep Manam **biryani** kosam vachhamu.

Keecha Adi **open** untundi ra.

Aishwarya Nuvvu Shadab gurinchi kuda ade annav.

Keecha Adi **vere** matter.

**34.** *They go. Because it is two in the morning and there is no longer any such thing as a bad idea.*

**35.** *The ride. Nobody talking. Aishwarya's face on the back of the Shine, staring into the middle distance, doing the arithmetic on her own life.*

**36.** *They arrive.*

---

## Page Ten

**37.** Wide. A shuttered ice cream parlour. A rolled grille. A padlock. A dead neon sign.*

**38.** *Nobody says anything for one full panel.*

**39.**

Aishwarya Kicha.

Keecha Cheppaku.

Aishwarya Nenu emi analedu.

Keecha Nuvvu **almost** annav.

**40.** *2:40 a.m. Four people sitting on the kerb outside a shut ice cream parlour. Morale is a memory.*

---

---

# ▸ Act Three — Turn · panels 41 to 52

## Page Eleven

**41.** *Suraj finds a folded newspaper somebody has left on the kerb and reads it because there is nothing else to do.*

**42.** *Close on his face. It changes.*

**43.** *He turns the paper around and holds it up. **We do not read it.** We only see three other faces going the same way his did.*

**44.** *Small inset: a corner of a page. A grainy photograph of a stretch of road. A headline we can see the shape of and not the words.*

Keecha *(instantly professional, instantly wrong)* Adi maa channel story ra. Nenu **cover** chesanu.

Suraj nuvvu Cover chesava?**

---

## Page Twelve

**45.** *the Panic, full flower. Everyone reacts in character and none of them the same way.*

*Suraj, on his feet, holding the paper at arm's length like it is wet:*

Suraj Idi **ee road** ra. Manam **ippude** ee road meeda vachhamu.

**46.** *Aishwarya, immediately, ruthlessly practical:*

Aishwarya Enni gantalaki ani rasadu? Adi **ee** stretch aa, aa pakka stretch aa?

Keecha *(consulting his own memory of his own article)* …ee stretch.

Aishwarya Sare. **Manam ippudu kurchuni unnamu ee stretch meeda.**

**47.** *Anudeep, catastrophising in ascending order of unlikeliness:*

Anudeep Naaku **visa interview** undi.

Keecha Daaniki deenki sambandham enti?!

Anudeep Naaku teliyadu ra. Naaku ippudu **anni** sambandham la ne anipisthunnayi.

**48.** ⭐ *And Suraj rounds on Kicha, and it is the funniest line in the episode and also completely true:*

Suraj Nuvvu unna prathi chota **oka deyyam katha** untundi ra!

Suraj Manam unde **illu** ki peru enti? **Deyyam Illu.** Evaru pettaru? nuvvu.**

Keecha Adi naaku pedda compliment ra.

Suraj ADI Compliment KAADU.

---

## Page Thirteen

**49.** *Decision, unanimous, unspoken, instantaneous. Everybody is on a bike within four seconds.*

**50.** *They ride. Fast. Nobody looking left.*

**51.** *And two hundred metres in — *

S.F.X: Baam — fsssshhhhh**

**52.** *Kicha's back tyre, gone. The bike wobbling to a halt in the middle of an empty road at three in the morning, with two men on it and nowhere to be.*

Keecha …ade cheppanu kada.

Anudeep Nuvvu **emi** cheppaledu.

---

---

# ▸ Act Four — Landing · panels 53 to 64

## Page Fourteen

**53.** *They push it. All four of them, in a line, down an empty road, at three in the morning.*

**54.** *They push it for a long time. Give this two panels and no dialogue.*

**55.** *And then, by unanimous silent agreement, **they stop pushing it.***

*Suraj puts the stand down. Aishwarya is already walking. Nobody discusses it.*

**56.** ⭐ **the Reveal.** Wide, from behind, as the four of them walk away from a bike parked on the side of an empty road.*

*And the panel finally shows us **the number plate**, and the sticker on the tank, and a keyring hanging from the ignition with a small enamel charm on it that is not remotely Kicha's taste.*

Anudeep …Kicha. Idi **evari** bandi?

Keecha *(not turning round, walking faster)* Adi… **Pinky** di.

*Beat.*

Suraj Pinky DI A.A?**

Keecha Daaniki **ee roju off.** Adi adagadu.

Aishwarya Adi **repu** adugutundi ra.

Keecha Appudu repu problem.

---

## Page Fifteen

**57.** *The stairwell, up. Everyone dead on their feet.*

**58.** *The flat door. Light under it.*

**59.** *Anudeep opens it.*

**60.** Wide. The table. **Jay**, awake because he is always awake, off the night shift — sitting in front of a very large open biryani container, eating unhurriedly.*

*And on the container, in large friendly letters: *Shadab.***

---

## Page Sixteen

**61.** *Nobody speaks for a full panel. Four people in a doorway at half past three in the morning looking at a box.*

**62.**

Suraj …adi **moosi** undi.

Jay Swiggy chesanu.

Suraj ADI moosee UNDI RA. Manam **akkade** unnamu. **Chain** undi.

**63.** *Jay takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. And delivers it entirely without malice, which is what makes it unsurvivable.*

Jay Munde shutter moostaru. **Venuka door** teruchi ne untadi.

Jay Delivery vaallu venuka nunchi ne teesukuntaru.

*Beat.*

Jay Meeru venakki vellara?

**64.** Wide, Still. Four people in a doorway, four hands going to four faces at the same moment, in perfect silence.*

*And then somebody sits down, and then everybody sits down, and one container is opened out in the middle of five people with five spoons that do not match — Aishwarya inside the flat, at the table, and nobody has ever remarked on that and nobody ever will.*

*On the table beside them: Kicha's phone, face down, red light off, **not filming this.***

Caption *(narration)*: Two shut shutters, one empty handi, one abandoned motorcycle and a ghost story.

Caption *(narration)*: It had been on that table since eleven, and it had been open the whole time, around the back.

---

## End of Episode 7

---

---

# 🥒 End Gag — keera

*4 panels · after the episode · engine: **cucumber slices after spicy biryani***

G.1 *Twenty minutes later. Three of them flat on their backs on the floor in a row.*

G.2

Suraj Naa **kallu** mandutunnayi ra.

Keecha Kallu ela mandutayi — nuvvu **notitho** thinnav.

Suraj Mandutunnayi ante mandutunnayi.

G.3 *Muddamma's hand comes into frame and places two cucumber slices, one on each of Suraj's closed eyes, with no comment whatsoever.*

*It is 4:30 in the morning. Nobody asks why she is here.*

G.4 Wide. All three on their backs in a row, each with two cucumber slices over their eyes. Nobody speaking. The fan turning above them. Muddamma walks through frame with a bucket and does not look down.*

You have reached the end of the text.