THE SITCOM

Audio by Paper2Audio

the sitcom

episode 10: "ee okka Chotu"

== cold open - aa Chotu" ==

5 panels before the title engine: Padma Aunty at her window

- third and final use

ext. Hyderahbad / on the road - morning

[C.1] The lane below C-block. Morning. The worn diagonal

track in the dust where everyone walks around.

[C.2] Anudeep comes down the lane, sees the track, and

follows it without thinking. He has been here long enough.

[C.3] Behind him, a delivery boy new to the colony walks

straight down the middle.

[C.4] sploosh.

S.F.X: sploosh

Padma aunty

(O.P.)

Mokkalaki time ki neellu posey- arey, evaru

kindha?

[C.5] Anudeep doesn't turn around. He is already twenty

steps past. He raises one hand in sympathy without looking

back and keeps walking.

narrator (V.O.)

Eight weeks. That was all it took to know

where not to stand.

narrator (V.O.)

ee okka Chotu

int. boys H.Q - evening

[1] Boys H.Q, evening. The recurring wide. Anudeep just back

- biometrics done that afternoon, the last box on the visa

checklist ticked, a small folder set down by the door.

[2]

Suraj

Ayipoyinda?

Anudeep

Ayipoyindi. Biometrics kuda.

Suraj

Appudu anni ayipoyayi kada.

Anudeep

(the truest thing he says all episode, and he

says it like admin) Haan. Ippudu… wait ye.

[3] Suraj takes this as licence, because Suraj takes

everything as licence. He turns to the room and to the

ceiling and to the general universe:

Suraj

Ee weekend - office party. Ikkade.

int./ext. the building - day

[4] He looks up at the ceiling, toward the penthouse, and

shouts through it, because that is how this building

communicates.

Suraj

Jay! Party pedithe parleda?!

[5] Jay in his own doorway one floor up, on the stairs,

ready for his shift. He does not come down. He just nods,

once.

[6] And Anudeep - of everyone, Anudeep - asks the question

that turns out to matter.

Anudeep

Jay. Nuvvu untava evening?

[7] Jay, already turning to go:

Jay

Office undi.

[8] (⭐ He is asked, directly, by the one person who would

care, whether he'll be home for the party. He says he has

work. He does have work. He also arranged to have work.

Nobody notices the difference, including the reader, until

the end.)

int./ext. the balcony - day

[9] Setup of the party, brisk. Suraj's colleagues arriving.

Someone with a speaker. Aishwarya over the rail with the

face of a woman who has decided to allow this.

[10] Kicha filming the door, narrating arrivals like a

wedding videographer.

[11] Anudeep helping, counting cups, doing arithmetic

nobody asked for, already slightly braced.

int. boys H.Q - night

[12] wide. The flat filling up. More people than it was

built for. The frame on the wall. The circled calendar. A

good night starting.

[13] the party, stage one. Genuinely warm, genuinely fun.

Suraj in his element running the room. Draw it as a good

time - the reader should enjoy it, because the whole

episode depends on that.

[14] Aishwarya and one of Suraj's colleagues arguing

cheerfully about something. Kicha teaching somebody a dance

step, badly.

[15] Anudeep in the middle of it, laughing at first - and

then, panel by panel, the noise starting to press on him.

int./ext. the building - day

[16] He checks the time. He thinks about Monday. He looks

at the door, and then at the stairs.

[17] Ten p.m. Louder. Fuller. Anudeep at the edge of it

now, cup in hand, not drinking, the specific exhaustion of

an introvert doing arithmetic on how long is polite to

stay.

[18]

Anudeep

(to Suraj, close, over the noise) Nenu

konchem padukunta.

Suraj

Ippuda? Party undi ra!

Anudeep

Monday undi ra.

[19] Suraj waves him off, not unkindly, already pulled back

into the room. Anudeep looks around a flat with no quiet

corner left in it.

[20] And he goes up. To the one room in the building that

is always quiet. Jay's. The door Anudeep was terrified of

in Ep 1. He lets himself in, because after Ep 8 he can, and

lies down.

[21] cut - the night shift. A quiet room, screens, one man.

Jay. He works. He drinks something. He looks at a clock.

[22] 2:40. He clocks off.

ext. Hyderahbad / on the road - morning

[23] The ride home. The lane. And from halfway down it he

can hear it - his own building, one window still going at

full volume at three in the morning.

[24] His face. Not angry yet. Tired in a way that is older

than tonight.

int./ext. the building - day

[25] The stairwell. He comes up. The noise comes down

through the building to meet him.

int. boys H.Q - day

[26] He stops on the landing outside Boys H.Q. The party,

ninety minutes past its natural death, still going.

[27] He opens the door.

[28] ⭐ the panel. Jay - who has not raised his voice once

in nine episodes - says it at full volume, and the flat

stops.

Jay

aapandi ra.

Total silence. Draw the silence as a change in the panel

itself: the tilting stops, the overlapping stops, the frame

goes square and still.

[29] Twenty people frozen. The music cut. The fan the only

sound.

[30] Suraj, caught mid-laugh, arms half up.

Suraj

Jay- rey, inko gante-

Jay

Naaku nidra kavali ra.

[31]

Jay

Bayata prapancham antha noise ye. Nenu adi

anukoledu.

Jay

Ee okka chotu naaku nishabdam.

int./ext. the building - day

[32] He does not slam anything. He turns and goes back up

the stairs. The door upstairs closes with a click that

everyone hears.

[33] The party is over in ninety seconds. People leaving

fast, not looking at each other.

int./ext. the balcony - day

[34] wide. The wrecked flat. Suraj standing in the middle

of it. Kicha, camera down. Aishwarya at the rail.

[35] And Suraj does the thing that is his apology - he does

not go up, he does not make a speech. He starts to clean,

alone, at three in the morning.

[36] (⭐ Suraj ↔ Jay repair. No words. He cleans the house.)

[37] Upstairs. Jay comes into his own dark flat - and there

is already somebody in it.

[38] Anudeep, on Jay's bed, awake, having been awake the

whole time, having heard every second of what just happened

downstairs through the floor.

[39] Jay stops in the doorway. For one panel neither of

them knows what this is.

[40] And Jay, tired, deflating from the shout, asks it

almost gently:

Jay

Em ra. Party noise aa? Nidra pattaledha?

[41] Anudeep, sitting up in the dark, honest because it is

three in the morning and there is no reason not to be:

Anudeep

Ledu ra.

Anudeep

Interview undi kada. Anduke nidra pattaledu.

Party kaadu.

[42] (⭐ He came up here to escape the noise and could not

sleep for a completely different reason. Jay shouted at a

full flat for a silence that was not even the thing keeping

this one man awake. Nobody says that. It just sits there.)

[43] Jay sits down on the edge of the bed. He does not turn

a light on. He does not take his shoes off.

[44] And he starts talking, into the dark, unprompted,

because it is nearly four and there is exactly one person

awake to hear it.

Jay

Naaku night shift enduku ani ekkado adigav

kada. Podunna.

[45]

Jay

Modata - parents kosam chesa. Vaallaki

dabbulu kavali. Night shift lo ekkuva istaru.

[46] A beat. He keeps going, which he never does.

Jay

Tarvata… oka ammayi. Tanu naa lane.

Ambitious. us ki velthundi ani cheppindi.

Jay

Night shift ayithe… madhyalo matladachu

anukunna. Time zones. Ala.

[47] ⭐ spine beat. A sound at the door - Kicha, come up to

say something, phone in hand, and the camera comes up out

of nine episodes of pure reflex.

Jay does not even raise his voice this time.

Jay

Aapu.

And Kicha lowers it. The only time anyone tells him to

stop, and the only time he obeys. He backs out. The door

closes.

[48]

Jay

…ippudu adi kuda ledu.

Jay

Aa ammayi ledu. Aa reason ledu.

Jay

Naaku enduku inka night shift chesthunnano

naaku teliyadu ra.

[49] Anudeep takes all of it in. He does not offer comfort.

He has none and he knows it. What he says instead is small

and exactly right:

Anudeep

Adi… chala kastam ga undedi kada. Appudu.

[50] Jay shrugs in the dark. It is the most agreement he

will give.

[51] And Anudeep, quietly, offering the one practical thing

he has - the thing a planner offers when he has nothing

else:

Anudeep

Nuvvu kuda eppudaina move avvachu ra. Aunty

vaallu akkade unnaru kada. Vaalla daggaraki.

[52] Beat.

Jay

(small, final, not bitter - just closed) Nah.

Nenu pass ra.

[53] Neither of them says anything else. There is nothing

else that needs saying and both of them know it.

[54] Anudeep lies back down. Jay stays sitting on the edge

of the bed for one more panel, in his own room, with a

near-stranger asleep in it, and does not seem to mind.

[55] wide, still: a dark room, two men, one bed, one chair,

nobody talking. The quietest panel in the series so far.

[56] And they fall asleep. Jay in the chair, shoes still

on. Anudeep on the bed. Neither of them meaning to.

[57] Downstairs. The same hour. Suraj, alone, finishing

cleaning a flat nobody helped him clean. He puts the last

cup away.

int./ext. the building - day

[58] He looks up at the ceiling - toward the penthouse,

toward the silence up there - and does not go up. He turns

off the light.

[59] The sill in Jay's room, seen from inside now: the

frame, edge-on. The brass incense holder. Tonight it is lit

- the one small thing that says somebody up here was, once,

waiting for someone.

[60] Two men asleep in a quiet room while below them a flat

sits cleaned and dark.

[61] Morning. Grey light. Anudeep wakes first, on a

stranger's bed, and for one panel does not know where he

is.

[62] He looks over. Jay, asleep in the chair, shoes on,

exactly where he stopped talking.

[63] Anudeep gets up quietly, puts the blanket from the bed

over Jay without waking him, and lets himself out.

int. boys H.Q - dawn

[64] wide, from the dark lane, dawn coming up. The

building. One window on the top floor, curtain drawn,

quiet. Below it, the flat, cleaned and empty.

narrator (V.O.)

Nobody ever had a party in that flat again.

narrator (V.O.)

Nobody decided that. It just didn't happen.

== post-credit stinger - Roster ==

4 panels not a joke

[S.1] Days later. A noticeboard at Jay's workplace. The

shift roster.

[S.2] A hand - his - with a pen. Two columns: night and day.

[S.3] Close. The pen hovers over day.

[S.4] He puts the pen back in his pocket and walks away. The

roster unchanged.

(Third appearance of this beat. Ep 3: thumb on day, doesn't

tap. Ep 10: pen hovers. Ep 13: he signs it.)

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