That evening, after Hema Malini's contract had been couriered to the legal department and formally logged into the company registry, Adil asked Arjun to call one last executive meeting before production could officially begin. It was the kind of instruction that, by now, sent a ripple through the entire building, everyone from the accounts department to the boy who refilled the water coolers seemed to sense that something was about to shift from planning into motion.
The conference room on the fourth floor filled slowly, in the unhurried way that important meetings always seem to start. Rajiv Shenoy, General Manager of Zenith Film Productions, arrived first, a stack of folders wedged under each arm, his tie slightly loosened after a long day of chasing signatures across three different departments. Arjun Tiwari followed close behind, carrying a single slim folder of his own, the master schedule that reconciled all five productions against each other, a document he'd rewritten so many times over the past month that he privately referred to it as "the impossible puzzle." The finance manager, a soft-spoken man named Prakash who rarely spoke unless numbers demanded it, took his usual seat near the far end of the table, a calculator and a fountain pen laid out in front of him with an almost ritualistic precision. The heads of production for each of the five films entered in twos and threes, murmuring quietly among themselves, and finally two representatives from the legal and accounts departments slipped in last, notebooks already open, pens uncapped.
Five thick files sat squared at the center of the table, each one labeled in Rajiv's neat, deliberate handwriting.
*Awarapan.*
*Barfi!*
*Sanam Re.*
*Devdas.*
*18 Again.*
Adil entered a few minutes after everyone else had settled, still in the same simple white kurta he'd worn to meet Hema Malini that morning, a faint trace of tiredness around his eyes that no one in the room would dare comment on. He took his seat at the head of the table. Behind him, through the wide window, the evening light had already begun its slow descent into the deep orange that Mumbai's monsoon-adjacent skies tended to hold onto a little longer than other cities allowed.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, folding his hands on the table, "today we finalize the budgets."
He let the sentence sit for a moment before continuing.
"Once these figures are approved, there will be no unnecessary revisions unless something genuinely demands it. I don't want directors coming back to me in the third week of shooting asking for another twenty lakh because a set could look 'slightly grander.' Every department will work within what's allotted. I'd rather we solve a problem creatively than solve it by simply spending more money."
There were nods around the table, a few of them a little too eager, the kind of nodding that comes from department heads who have already privately promised themselves they will, in fact, come back and ask for more money eventually, but not today.
Rajiv opened the first file, smoothing the cover flat with his palm. "Shall we begin with Awarapan?"
"Go ahead."
"The approved production budget," Rajiv said, running a finger down the page, "is six crore."
He continued reading from his notes, his voice settling into the steady, businesslike rhythm he used for these presentations. "Locations will primarily be shot within India, largely across Rajasthan and a stretch of the western coastline, with a limited overseas schedule reserved for two key sequences that the script specifically requires. The action work has been designed to stay practical rather than heavily effects-driven, using stunt choreography and controlled pyrotechnics instead of costlier post-production work. This will let us maintain the film's rawness, which the director feels is essential to the tone, without inflating costs unnecessarily."
Adil nodded once, unhurried. "Approved."
Prakash made a small notation beside the figure, the scratch of his fountain pen the only sound in the room for a moment.
Rajiv moved to the next file, setting Awarapan's aside. "Barfi!"
"Total approved budget, five crore."
"Most of the film will be shot on real locations rather than constructed sets," he continued, "particularly the hill-station sequences, which keeps costs controlled while giving the film the authenticity the story depends on. Mr. Basu has been firm about this, he doesn't want the town to feel like a backlot dressed up to look like somewhere. He wants it to feel like somewhere that already existed before the camera arrived."
A small, approving smile crossed Adil's face. "That instinct alone is worth the budget. Approved."
The third file followed. "Sanam Re."
"Approved budget, five crore."
"The production leans heavily on natural locations and a comparatively smaller principal cast," Rajiv said, "which keeps the overall footprint efficient despite the emotional scale of the story. Most of the expense here is concentrated in the music and the cinematography, the director of photography has requested additional lighting equipment for the night exteriors, which has already been factored in."
"Approved," Adil said, glancing briefly at the line item for the additional equipment before moving on without comment. If the DoP needed it, he trusted the request.
Rajiv opened the fourth file, and the room, almost without anyone consciously deciding to, straightened slightly in their chairs.
"Devdas."
Even before a single frame had been shot, everyone in that room understood this was Zenith's most prestigious undertaking, the film that would, fairly or not, come to define how the rest of the industry perceived the company's ambitions. It was the kind of title that carried its own gravity, its own history, its own impossibly high expectations built from decades of prior adaptations audiences already held dear.
"The approved budget," Rajiv said, allowing the smallest pause, almost theatrical, before continuing, "is nine crore."
A brief silence settled over the table. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang unanswered. By 1993 standards, nine crore for a single film was an extraordinary figure, the kind of number that, once it inevitably leaked to the trade papers, would make finance managers at rival studios raise their eyebrows over their morning tea and wonder aloud whether Zenith had lost its mind or found something the rest of them hadn't.
"The majority of it," Rajiv continued, "has been allocated toward the grand sets Mr. Bhansali has designed, the haveli interiors alone account for a significant portion, along with the classical choreography, the elaborate costuming for both female leads, and the overall production design the story simply cannot be told without. Mr. Bhansali has been very clear that he does not want a single frame of this film to feel smaller than the emotions inside it."
Adil nodded, entirely unbothered by the scale of the number, his eyes briefly drifting to the framed concept sketch of Chandramukhi's kotha that had been pinned to the corkboard just outside this very room.
"Devdas deserves nothing less," he said quietly. "If we're going to make it, we make it properly, or we don't make it at all. There's no version of this story that survives being told cheaply."
No one argued. No one ever did, when he spoke like that.
Finally, Rajiv opened the last file. "18 Again."
"Approved budget, four crore."
"The film requires a modest visual-effects component for the transformation sequences," he said, "along with family-interior sets and a fair amount of location shooting in middle-class residential neighborhoods. It's the leanest production of the five, by design, the story doesn't ask for scale, it asks for intimacy. The art director has kept the sets deliberately lived-in rather than polished, chipped paint, mismatched furniture, the sort of home that's been shaped by thirty years of a family actually living in it."
"Approved," Adil said, signing off on the final page with a small, satisfied exhale, as though this last, quieter film held a particular fondness for him that the grander ones didn't quite reach.
Twenty-nine crore, across five films, all launching within weeks of each other. Rajiv closed the last budget file and set it neatly atop the others, squaring the edges with both hands out of a habit he couldn't seem to break.
"The budgets are finalized," he said, then reached for a separate folder. "The principal cast agreements have also been completed."
He began reading, his tone shifting slightly, the way a man's voice changes when he's reciting something he's genuinely proud to have organized.
"For Devdas, Adil Ali will portray Devdas. Madhuri Dixit will portray Chandramukhi. Aishwarya Rai will portray Paro."
"For Barfi!, Boss Divya Bharti, Aishwarya Rai."
"For Awarapan, Boss, Aishwarya Rai, Monica Bellucci."
"For Sanam Re, Boss, Madhuri Dixit, Monica Bellucci."
"For 18 Again, Adil Ali, Hema Malini"
He closed the casting file and opened the salary register, flattening it against the table.
"Contracts have been executed according to approved remuneration," he continued. "Divya Bharti has signed for fifteen lakh. Hema Malini has also signed for fifteen lakh. As previously approved, Madhuri Dixit, Monica Bellucci, and Aishwarya Rai have each signed for thirty-five lakh per film."
A few of the department heads exchanged glances across the table, figures generous even by the standards the industry reserved for its leading actresses, and everyone in the room could do the arithmetic quickly enough to understand what that meant for the overall spend.
One of the finance executives, a cautious man who had clearly been waiting for the right moment to raise the point, cleared his throat. "Sir... these salaries are considerably above our original estimates going into this quarter."
Adil looked at him, unbothered, not with irritation but with the patient expression of someone who had already anticipated the question and welcomed it being asked out loud rather than whispered about later.
"They're investments," he said, "not expenses."
He let his gaze move slowly around the table, meeting each face in turn.
"Also Open an Artist Management company under the Zenith Entertainment Group, name; 'Zenith Artist Management', signed the newly rising actors, singers gave them their agent who will help them in daily life and act as their manager, This system has not yet arrived in India, but Hollywood works on it, We should introduce it in india, You can study the Hollywood structure how they operate. I want it done"
"Ok sir, Consider it done." Rajiv nodded and said, After hearing Adil instruction.
Adil nodded and said. "Let's return to the yopic, I was saying that, The success of a film depends as much on the people standing in front of the camera as it does on the story unfolding behind it. If we expect complete commitment from our artists, if we expect them to give a film everything they have, to trust us with performances that leave them exposed, then we have to be willing to value them accordingly. A studio that underpays its talent and then wonders why the performances feel guarded, why something in the eyes never quite arrives, is simply asking the wrong question about where its problem lies."
No one argued further. The finance executive nodded slowly, jotting something down, and Prakash's pen resumed its quiet scratching against the register.
Rajiv turned another page. "The directors' contracts have also been completed. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has signed as director of Devdas. Anurag Basu has signed as director of Barfi!. Both have accepted remuneration appropriate for first-time feature directors, with performance-linked terms attached for future collaborations, should either film perform as we expect."
Adil smiled faintly, something almost paternal in the expression. "They've earned this opportunity. The rest depends entirely on their work, and having sat in rooms with both of them for months now, I don't doubt for a second that it'll be extraordinary."
"The remaining three productions," Rajiv continued, "Awarapan, Sanam Re, and 18 Again, will be directed by yourself, as previously confirmed.So...."
"I won't be taking a salary as either actor or director on any of the five films," Adil interrupted, almost as an afterthought, already reaching for his tea.
"None." Rajiv asked.
"I'm the owner of this company," Adil nodded while he said, setting the cup back down. "If these five films succeed, the company succeeds, and that's reward enough for me. I'd rather that money go toward a better take when a scene isn't landing, a better costume when the fabric doesn't quite catch the light the way it should, one more day of shooting if a performance needs it to breathe, not into my own account while someone else's department scrapes by."
No one had a response for that. Rajiv simply made the notation in the margin and moved on, though Arjun, sitting a few seats down, allowed himself the smallest, private smile, the kind reserved for a boss you've quietly decided, somewhere along the way, that you'd follow into almost anything.
"There's one final matter," Rajiv said, flipping to the last page in his stack. "The music."
Adil leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking faintly beneath him. "For Devdas, we'll use established playback singers. The film demands classical depth, voices that have already earned the audience's trust in that register, that carry the weight of tradition the story is built on. We'll finalize names with the music director this week; I have two or three in mind, but I want his opinion before we commit."
He continued, and something in his tone shifted, quieter and more deliberate. "For Awarapan, Barfi!, Sanam Re, and 18 Again, all songs across the four films will be recorded exclusively by two voices."
A small, private smile crossed his face, the kind he rarely allowed himself in front of the full executive team.
"Myself. And Priya Menon."
Rajiv noted the instruction without comment, his pen moving evenly across the page, though a few glances were exchanged around the table, quiet, knowing looks passed between the department heads who had, over the last several months, walked past the second-floor music room late enough in the evening to hear Adil humming some half-finished melody over and over, refining it note by note long after everyone else had gone home. No one in that room believed this was vanity. It was something closer to conviction, the same conviction that had convinced Divya Bharti to sign a contract that morning, and Hema Malini the one before.
"I'll inform every music department by tomorrow morning," Rajiv said.
The meeting stretched on for another hour after that, the conversation loosening into the practical, unglamorous work that no one ever saw in the trade papers but without which nothing could actually be filmed. Shooting schedules were cross-checked against each other line by line, so that no actor and no piece of equipment was ever required in two places at once, a task that had nearly driven Arjun to despair on more than one late night that week. Equipment deliveries were confirmed for both Filmalaya and the various outdoor units. Costume fitting dates were finalized down to the hour. Rehearsal calendars were distributed, still warm from the photocopier. And a short, mildly tense discussion unfolded over the overseas permissions required for two of Awarapan's sequences, eventually resolved with a firm promise from the production head to have the paperwork filed with the relevant office by the following Monday, no later.
By the time the last file had been signed and closed, the Mumbai skyline outside the window had drifted from orange into a deep, settled blue, the city's lights beginning to flicker on floor by floor across the buildings opposite, scattered and uneven, like something slowly waking up for the night.
Rajiv gathered the documents into a single neat stack, tapping the edges square against the table before looking around the room.
"Everything has now been approved," he said. "No pending contracts. No pending budgets. No pending casting. No pending departments."
Arjun allowed himself a small smile, the exhaustion of the last several months visible for just a moment on his face before he pushed it away. "After all this preparation..."
"Zenith Film Productions is finally ready," Rajiv finished for him.
Adil rose slowly from his chair, his eyes moving across the five screenplay files still resting at the center of the table, Awarapan, Barfi!, Sanam Re, Devdas, 18 Again, each one representing a version of a dream he'd carried, in one shape or another, for months, through countless rewrites, countless meetings just like this one, countless moments of doubt he'd never once allowed anyone else in the building to see.
They weren't just bound pages anymore.
Within days, they would become living worlds, filled with actors finding their characters' breath for the first time, cameras rolling under hot studio lights, music drifting out of recording booths late into the night, and, eventually, months from now, audiences sitting in darkened halls across the country, waiting to be told something true.
He allowed himself a quiet smile, the tiredness in his eyes giving way, just briefly, to something closer to certainty.
"Gentlemen," he said.
The room fell silent, every eye at the table turning toward him, waiting.
"It's time to make history."
Chairs scraped back as everyone rose to their feet, the weight of the moment settling over the room in a way that needed no further words, no further explanation. Outside, the last of the evening light finally gave way to the city's electric glow, and somewhere below, in a building that had spent months quietly assembling five separate dreams into one impossible, simultaneous undertaking, the real work was about to begin.
The journey of Zenith Film Productions had truly begun.