Cogito TV’ s former client’s TVC – trust value and committment – owed us around 10.5 lakhs (rs. one point five million) for films that we produced for them. And they weren’t paying. Atleast not for the last six months.

We have been following up, turning up, negotiating, wailing – the usual stuff to get our money out. A month ago Shirish and Shishir spent till midnight at their office waiting for a response. All of this to no avail. We contemplated options – both legal and illegal. But, legal stuff takes too much time, and we are all far too middleclass to call in the goons. The entire situation had begun stressing us out to such a level that we could no longer deal with it in a rational manner. Then, one fine morning we took a call. the call was Fuck It – its’ only money. And then we in our minds wrote off the balance. Somehow that act of writing off one million ruppees redeemed us. We began following up the money not as monies owed, but as a business transaction.

Today Shirish and I went in to negotiate the final settlement. Last time when we met them, the bastards had offered us Rs.6.57 lakhs. Today, the opening offer was Rs.3.5 lakhs. The head of department with whom we had our dealings turned around and denied ever making the offer. We played the game and have got out with Rs.6.2 lakhs. A loss of around 400,000.

There are those who may say it is a bad deal. But, I think that it was a fairly good settlement. For, I do not put it past these guys to call us next week and say we are paying you nothing. Furthermore, industry rumours are very strong that Sony is getting in QVC – the American tele shopping network. If that happens, TVC will implode. .

But one thing is for sure, there are a couple of people in that organisation that I am going after – sooner or later. it is a small world and a smaller industry – and what goes around comes around.