“You get all the chemistry and the angst of a big joint family: Who’s going to get his money? Who’s going to inherit his diamonds?” said D’Souza. Having figured out the broad strokes, the writers struggled to plot the specifics of the scenes. A third of the way into the writing process, Singh showed up with photographs of a semi-constructed hotel in Lonavala that he had spotted on his way back to Mumbai from Pune. It had a pool, one central staircase, another that descended into a dark, dank basement, and enough corridors to ensure camera movements could be as twisty and serpentine as the plot.
While the visuals buoyed the writing, they also imposed certain limitations. “If we had scripted a scene inside a bedroom but the photos told us that it would be too difficult to get to the spot quickly from our previous location, we would have to move the scene to the corridor or somewhere else,” said Arora.
Meanwhile Singh, who had undergone a coronary bypass surgery a few months earlier, began exercising in earnest. He wasn’t going to be the cameraman for this episode, but he insisted on accompanying whoever would do the actual shooting for the entire duration. He also visited the hotel and explored potential walkthroughs, making his way up the staircase and through the corridors to ensure that he was strong enough to do it.
Eight months later, The Inheritance, a 92-page script, was complete. A hotelier, who’d made a fortune mining diamonds in South Africa, returns home and is swarmed by distant family members hoping for a cut. A few pages in, one of them is shot. Soon enough, he is shot at too. Shaken by the attack, he calls the CID to help him identify his assailant.