Script is hero

Filmmaker Navdeep Singh’s thriller NH10 was supposed to reach us three years ago. But that was not to be. It was 10 days away from going on the floors — at the time with Freida Pinto and not Anushka Sharma — when the producers pulled the plug. It was especially confusing for the film’s writer Sudip Sharma as those who read his screenplay claimed to love it. But just not enough to produce it. “Everyone kept saying it is a fantastic script and has to get made. That was more frustrating. I didn’t know what else to do with it. People had serious issues with the violence in the film. Also, it was difficult to put together a non-hero project. Women-centric films are difficult to pull off, especially one that is certified adult at the script level. But Navdeep stuck to his guns. This film had to disturb you, or else it was no use,” says Sudip. The well-intentioned suggestions by financiers to place an item number in the midst of a Haryanvi village to take the edge off the honour killings were particularly bothersome for him.

For Sharat Katariya, the writer-director of Dum Laga ke Haisha (DLKH), the wait was even longer. It took him barely a month to write this charming love story of an overweight girl and a lanky boy in Haridwar, but seven years to find someone to realise its potential. When he did get down to making it, much had changed. To have his male protagonist run an audio cassette shop in 2015 obviously defied logic. So heeding his creative producer Maneesh Sharma’s suggestion, he turned it into a film set in the early ’90s. During this period of wait, Katariya had other writing assignments like Bheja Fry and Titli that kept him afloat. He also directed an inconspicuous film called 10 ML Love. As for DLKH, there were offers to turn it into a telefilm, but like Navdeep Singh, he didn’t sell out. The moral of the story, says Katariya, is to believe in your script and wait till someone else does too. “More than talent, you need patience to survive. You have to keep playing. One day you’ll get a loose ball and you’ll hit a six. You just have to stick around.”

Fortunately for both Katariya and Sudip, the wait paid off. The years that lapsed between the scripting and filming didn’t dilute the relevance of their stories. Both films were slow starters at the box office but picked up pace through word of mouth, and turned into unexpected successes. So far 2015 has been defined by the doom of big-budget Bollywood productions and the rise of these smaller films with big hearts, smart writing and brave stories. It’s only June and we’ve seen some inspired scripts in DLKH, NH10, Badlapur, Court, Piku and Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR). That’s more than we got in all of 2014, which subjected us to rather dismal storytelling. Those who need a reminder of how low it had sunk, think Action Jackson where Sonakshi Sinha’s character constantly peeks down her co-actor Ajay Devgn’s pants because she believes it brings her good luck.

That said, there’s no telling if these successes coming close on the heels of each other is good timing or a sign of the industry placing its bets on superior content. “This year looks weird because the only films that seem to be working are the small ones. But these things change week to week. Tomorrow you’ll have the next big summer blockbuster and everybody will say ‘masala movies are back. Let’s do another one of these’,” warns Sudip. But he admits that the critical acclaim and box-office ratings do help writers like him push the envelope.

No one to everyone

The running joke on the sets of DLKH was that the joy of making a film that no one was going to watch was that they could make exactly what they wanted. “It was set in a poor man’s world, it had an overweight actress, and our male protagonist’s (Ayushmann Khurrana) last few films had not worked. There was nothing glamorous about it,” says Katariya. “Now we joke that we made the film for no one but somehow everybody ended up watching it,” he adds, with a smile. The same can be said of the other hits too.

Writer Juhi Chaturvedi’s Piku is essentially a series of conversations between a cantankerous Bengali man and his daughter about bowel movements or, in his case, the lack of it. There are no dramatic plot twists or elaborate songs, and the love story is left open-ended. Tanu Weds Manu Returns has the rare distinction of taking a not-so-great film and making a far superior sequel out of it. In NH10, Sudip gives us a road trip across the badlands of Haryana which morphs into a horror film. The ugly realities of the caste system, police apathy and women being hacked don’t ordinarily fall into the bracket of entertaining cinema. “I felt the film would get critical acclaim but was not so sure about box-office success. I thought it would be one of those films that people would appreciate years later on DVD or when it came on TV,” he says.

So then, what worked? Two things, says Himanshu Sharma, writer of Tanu Weds Manu Returns. First, there was honesty in these scripts. The writers need to put out what comes organically to them and not rehash what has already worked at the box office. A good way to do that, he says, is to stick to a milieu you closely understand. “I’ve always admired Zoya Akhtar’s work because she’s true to her world. In my summer vacations I must have visited places like Meerut or Saharanpur and she must have gone to Spain, and that shows in our work,” he says.

Second, these films had stories that were simple, true to life and rooted. “Suddenly in the B-towns and Tier II cities there is a huge influx of money. They can also afford a ₹250 ticket but they are asking for their stories, things they can relate to,” Himanshu says.

Katariya agrees, and says, “An honest reflection of how the world works is a breath of fresh air. Films are mostly dramatic or over the top. But this (DLKH) stays real even in an over-the-top situation. Simple films have always worked, from the times of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee. It is a formula.”

Two is a team

There’s another major ingredient in the success of all these writers. Each of them has found like-minded collaborators who respect their craft and give them their due. This counts as a privilege in an industry of underpaid and undervalued screenwriters. Chaturvedi says Shoojit Sircar — who directed both her scripts Vicky Donor and Piku — is the only filmmaker she knows who’d welcome subjects like sperm donation and constipation without thinking she’s nuts. He also involved her in the filming and editing process. “You’ve lived the film for so long in your head that it only makes sense for the good of the film for you to be involved in it physically,” she says. She adds that she knows of writers who are spurned by directors once they’ve churned out the script.

In Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Himanshu has been credited not only as the screenwriter but also an associate director. This is acknowledgement that the film is as much his as it is director Aanand L Rai’s. In fact, Rai has directed all three of his scripts, Tanu Weds Manu, Raanjhanaa and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. “The best part is that he (Rai) lets me write the genre that I want to work on. I started with Tanu, after that I felt like working on a tragedy, so I wrote Raanjhana. Normally directors come up with a story or a genre. They’ll say, ‘I feel like making an action film.’ But what if I don’t feel like writing one. With Rai, he makes only what I write,” he explains.

After a “terrible, terrible” experience early on in his career, Sudip realised the best way to ensure creative freedom is to work with a director who shares his aesthetic. He found that in Navdeep Singh a few years ago. They were both out of jobs but brimming with ideas. Together they wrote a couple of scripts, none of which got made. Now that NH10 has finally released, and to good results, the other scripts will soon take off as well. After DLKH, Katariya has struck the much-coveted three-film deal with Yash Raj Studios. But he’s had his share of misfortunes. “In one film I wrote I was credited as a screenplay writer when I had just written the dialogues. Trust me, nobody would want credit for that film. There have also been many times where I’ve watched a film and felt, ‘This is not what I wrote’. You have to be brave. It happens initially because you don’t know people that well,” he says.

In the end, it can take just one Salman Khan release on Eid, which will smash box office records, and it’ll be like nothing ever changed. Repeatedly we learn that having the superstar jiggle his belt or flex his muscles is more remunerative than investing in a credible scriptwriter. “We are taking ₹250 a ticket from the audience and what do we do with it? We make projects not films, and they give us nothing. An A-lister like Salman has managed to reach every last man in a thick nation like ours. We just take him and put him in a film with no story. If nothing, we need to do justice to his expertise,” says Himanshu.

Yet, for these brave voices in cinema, there’s much to look forward to. They are getting to tell the stories they want to — even those that appear non-mainstream on paper — and can exercise creative control over the final product. What’s most encouraging is that the audience has also lapped up their work, so clearly there’s a positive shift in their tastes too. However, those controlling the purse strings still dally on the ‘safe’ side. “We need to start looking at films with more seriousness. We look at them as commodities. But we need to look at films from an experience and story point of view. The gatekeepers need to now warm to what the audience wants,” says Sudip.

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