TISHA STORY

Log line: A curious little boy embarks on an amusing and exciting journey that takes him through the myriad lanes and by-lanes of Nizammudin, a Muslim locality in New Delhi, in search of his lost goat .On the way, he stumbles upon peculiar situations, fascinating characters and places, each obstructing his search in their own bizarre ways. (GOOD LOGLINE)
Beginning #1
Aamir, a slightly chubby seven year old, wakes up one bright, sunny morning in his tiny, crowded bedroom that he shares with his siblings, an elder sister and a younger brother. He looks around him, finds no one. He yawns, rubs his eyes and confirms he’s not dreaming. Suddenly, a worried look on his fair, endearing face, he bends over and looks under his bed. Nothing! Anxious and apprehensive, he yells: ‘Porkey!’, ‘Porkey! Where are you?’
He jumps out of bed and looks for his slippers. He doesn’t find them either. He searches behind the door, goes into his bathroom, peers into his cupboard. Nothing! He runs through the house looking inside all the rooms, kitchen, and even bounds up the stairs to the 4th story roof of his 3-story house. Now he’s sure someone has come and stolen his goat and taken his slippers as well. He runs back to his room, quickly washes his face, and bounds down the staircase, oblivious of his mother yelling after him.
At the bottom of the stairs he jumps over the railing onto the road outside, shouting ‘Porkey! ‘Porkey! as he lands’ He almost collides with a motorbike. The motorcyclist thinks he’s calling him a Porkey and in return he hurls insults at Aamir. ‘How dare you call me porkey,’ he shouts and adds and a few more abuses as he vanishes round the corner.
Beginning #2
Aamir is performing his namaaz with his father on his terrace, when he suddenly notices from the corner of his eyes that his goat isn’t there. He stops praying midway and turns his head around upside down to see a full 360 degrees. He jumps up and softly says “porkey?? porkey!!” . He looks down from the terrace onto the busy street, trying to find his goat. He starts running down the staircase. You can see his father yelling after him.
Possibility # 1
At the bottom of the stairs he jumps over the railing onto the road outside, shouting ‘Porkey! ‘Porkey! as he lands’ He almost collides with a motorbike. The motorcyclist thinks he’s calling him a Porkey and in return he hurls insults at Aamir. ‘How dare you call me porkey,’ he shouts and adds a few more abuses as he vanishes round the corner.
Aamir gives him a dirty look and starts running down the gulley. He dashes down the crowded lane, passing shopkeepers, beggars etc, all staring at him, confused. He stops in front of Hasan Chacha’s shop.‘ Hasan chacha, have you seen my goat?’ he asks, panting. “Here he is,” Hasan Chacha says indicating one of the slaughtered goats hanging in his shop, smirking. In the background you can see his menu list which includes goat meat dishes.
Hasan chacha gets back to his customers. Aamir runs inside the shop, dropping a jug of water on the way. Hasan looks up. Aamir looks everywhere then goes behind the counter where Hasan chacha is standing, tugs at his kurta, looking miserable. Hasan chacha falls for it this time. He instructs Badruddin (his assistant) to take over. He crouches down and asks: ‘What happened, Aamir bhai?” “I can’t find my Porkey, Aamir replies. “When I woke up in the morning he wasn’t there.” “Have you checked in the gulley behind kasab kaka’s shop? I’ve seen lots of goats hanging around there. Kasab kaka’s always feeding them.”
Possibility # 2
Aamir turns around and runs through a new, narrower gulley, with cyclists, pedestrians, beggars jostling for space. He finds, as usual, Kasab(beggar on wheel chair) feeding a couple of goats. “Have you seen Porkey, my goat?” he asks. He has a red cloth around his neck.” “I saw a couple with blue beads around their neck”, says Kesab. They were standing right here but then they left soon after. I saw another one with a maroon collar passing by, he went towards the mosque. He had a tin can tied to his tail. He starts recounting all kinds of goats he has seen, in vivid detail, clearly proving his love for bakris, but of not much help to Aamir. (image in aamir’s head: top view where kasab’s in the middle of the street pointing in all four directions and there are bakris with different coloured collars going in all directions, show aamir doing calculations/mathematical equations to figure it out) Interrupting this monologue, aamir in exasperation asks him to tell him, once and for all, if he has seen any with a red collar. Suddenly, kasab remembers seeing one. Oh, chote miyan, I did see one with a red cloth around half an hour back. He looked really lost. I saw him trotting about, I think he went that way!” Aamir starts running up and down frantically when he notices Nasser the barber standing outside his parlour, bending down. He goes closer to ask him the same question. Nasser turns around with his big scissors and you see a glimpse of bare goat skin. Aamir stretches over and sees a bakri who’s left with no hair on his body. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa” Aamir screams. Nasser says “I was getting bored and well, no customers today”. Aamir shouts, “Nooooooooooooo! stop.” Unable to recognise the goat, he whispers in the goats ear, “porkey is that you?” the goat whimpers, looking petrified to say or do anything. “Did he have a red cloth around his neck??”“Did he?”. “ I don’t remember what the colour was.” Nasser tells him. “Kasab kaka just saw a goat with a red cloth coming towards your parlous. Was it red?” “I don’t remember! and anyway Kasab’s colour blind”(anticlimax). Nasser says, getting back to the cutting. (You can see aamir looking distressed in the background) Aamir screams “leave him alone”. “Ill leave him if you agree to get a haircut yourself. Close up of the barber’s face with his scissor in the forefront. So the barber catches hold of aamir and cuts off a part of his hair. Aamir manages to escape. On the way, he passes a window, in which he sees his reflection. He checks the back of his head and in his bald patch he sees a clue.

Possibility # 3
He goes to a jalebi wala and asks him if he’s seen his goat. The jalebi wala continues making his jalebis. He continues to ask but he doesn’t reply. “Are you deaf?”he shouts. Then the jalebi wala comes back to his senses and says “huh? What?” “Have you seen my goat?” and the reply comes “The answer lies in the jalebis”. He looks at the jalebis and the jalebis get animated and moving about in spirals. You can see an image forming which defines the next clue (an image, symbol, number). The page is full of these jalebis forming patterns. Then the jalebis start getting burnt, turning from orange to brown and then vanish / the jalebi wala picks them up with his ladle.
Possibility # 4
Noor and aamir(love story):
Aamir enters the dargah to pray for porkey to return. He is walking towards the centre when he catches a glimpse of Noor talking to another man. He keeps staring at her. You can see a series of frames with a close up of aamir walking through the cement pattern grills (at a dargah) looking sideways. Suddenly Noor sees him. She waves out to him but he ignores her and runs towards the centre. He ties a thread (to pray for his bakri) that he find it back. Aamir promises to god that he’ll never eat jalebis again, he’ll always listen to abbajaan, he’ll never let porkey run away again.
Possibility # 5
Men with white caps, busy with their regular game of cards. One of the cops is also playing with them. Aamir comes and sits down. His father is also playing the game.”There you are, Aamir. I was beginning to get worried” “Baba, I’ve lost porkey. I’ve lost him for good. Some one might be eating his meat somewhere.” “Don’t worry, son.” “But how baba?How do I solve the mystery?” The cop takes this as his cue to give the answer. “Pay attention. Pay attention to every detail, every sign and every instinct.” He sees the clue in the cards, for eg, the characters of the card come alive and show a sign, or the letters K, A, Q, J and number 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7,8,9,10 do something in order to give a clue.
Possibility # 6
Aamir sees at least ten bakris being loaded on a truck. Aamir asks the truck driver but before he can answer he shoves Aamir onto the truck with the bakris and starts driving. Aamir, oblivious to this, keeps hunting in the herd. Top view of the truck so u can see aamir in the middle of hundred bakris.
The bakris meanwhile get angry with the intruder and thinking he’s one of the guys who captivated them, they charge at him, almost pushing him out of the truck. He falls flat on his face and hurts himself. Bleeding lip.
OR
Then he reaches the place they are all going to be slaughtered at .
Other possible characters:
Some little mischevious street children? Man who collects shoes outside the dargah? Man who sings Quwwali at the dargah?

Ending # 1
Aamir deciphers a clue that makes him look behind somewhere. And he figures that porkey was following him all this while! All this while the reader doesn’t realize that the frames were from the bakri’s point of view.
Ending # 2
He can see porkey. Porkey is a figment of his imagination. An imaginary friend. Sometimes he sees it, sometimes he doesn’t.
Ending # 3
Porkey is slaughtered and while the search for the goat is on, simultaneously you see the story of the goat and how it gets killed. The worst part is that in the end, Aamir eats porkey’s meat!
Ending # 4
Porkey is going to be slaughtered for meat and aamir has to save it.
Ending # 5
The love angle. Noor had taken porkey away to play around with Aamir. And she uses porkey as a means of communicating her feelings for Aamir.
Ending # 6 (with cheesy love angle)
He wakes up from his dream and looks for porkey. Porkey’s sleeping right beside him. He checks the red collar. Everything’s in place, he’s getting up when suddenly he notices something written on it. “I’m yours, noor.” He runs out to find noor. She is sitting somewhere. He goes up to her and whispers in her ear that he loves her. She replies,” it took you a year to notice it!” (Basically he checked the collar because of the dream, and then he realises there was a message on the collar that had been written to him a long time ago. The dream helped his love story.)

Clues :
In Kites
In Cards
In Marbles
In jalebis
In bald patch