Cinema in the hands of Sohrab Modi, K Asif, Mehboob Khan, Kamal Amrohi and Salim Javed was pure verbosity and dialogue driven bravado. Gulzar, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Rahi Masoom Reza, Sai Paranjpay, Manu Bhandhari and Basu Chatterjee made cinema less confrontational and more conversational.
Now cinema is driven by images and emotion that is not always articulated in words. Case in point being the recent hit NH10 where some of the most intense scenes were silence driven with the heroine having her bravura moment only when she climbs a wall and abuses the murderers chasing her.
The film’s success is also a big moment for writer Sudip Sharma who got negative reviews for Players and worked on Rock the Shaadi, a film that never saw the light of the day. The man once groomed for a serious corporate career was drawn to the neon lights of a film career and in an exclusive chat , talks about his journey so far.
Tell us how you did you meet director Navdeep Singh?
Believe it or not, we met over Facebook! I messaged him one day that I wanted to show him my little indie film Semshook. He was kind enough to meet me and see the film and we got jamming over ideas. At that time he was already working on this zombie film called Rock the Shaadi.
He pulled me in to do the dialogues for the film. That film got shelved but we hit it off as collaborators. I think what is working in our favour is that we share a similar ‘left of center’ creative vision and the same bleak worldview. Also, when it comes to scripts, we complement each other’s strengths. He is very good with the overall thematic and structure of a script while my strength lies in crafting the screenplay. So it’s a happy collaboration!
How did you decide to be a film writer..what were the stimuli that inspired you?
Growing up as a middle-class kid in India, it was drilled in my head that education and a professional degree are the only ways out for me. I was 21 and clueless when I went to do my MBA. Only once I got there, did I realise that this is not what I really want to do with my life, and that arts and cinema give me much greater joy. It wasn’t a light bulb flashing moment though and was a slow, gradual, realisation.
So I stuck around, completed my MBA and even worked for a few years. I must have been 28 when I eventually quit and became a screenwriter. It was just love for movies that drove me to it, eventually.
Since those turbulent, angst-filled MBA days, I have not known any greater joy than watching a good film.
An IIM-A graduate deciding to be a writer…do the two sides segue?
Screenwriting is a craft and not pure art and hence, like in all things crafted, there is a method to it. And as much as I dislike my MBA and corporate days, I think they are sub-consciously responsible for the method in my work.
My method is pretty simple – once the director or I come up with an idea that excites us both, then the two of us jam on it for a couple of months, doing research and discussing characters, themes, a broad storyline. This part is free-flowing in nature, post which we have a fair idea of the nature of the beast. After this, we work on the index cards together for a month or so where we get the step outline right.
After this, I start detailing the step outline, which takes another month or two and we go back and forth on this depending on the director’s feedback. At the end of this, we have a 20-30 page document which becomes my guide for the screenplay. Only now comes the actual screenplay – the 120-page script that will become the film.
This is the most enjoyable and creative part of the process, everything else before it is meticulous hard work. This I strictly do all by myself and it takes me less than a month to write it.
Were there years when you were really frustrated?
I don’t like to glamourise the so-called struggle. It’s like any other field, really. You’ve got to earn your stripes before they will let you do your thing. Yes, there was frustration and heartache but I guess that’s part and parcel of trying to make it in a new field. I spent these years honing my craft and just trying to keep my head above water.
With NH10, how much did the current debate about gender issues impact the narrative?
Both Navdeep and I know Delhi and the north quite well, having spent a lot of years there. Apart from this, we travelled to Haryana, observing people and caste dynamics. There was also a lot of reading involved and we tried to incorporate several little real life cases and incidents into the narrative.
Caste and class are subjects that fascinate both of us. For us, even more than gender politics, the film was a study in caste politics and class divides.
And these things are not entirely separate. Gender politics, caste politics, class divides are nothing but variations of the power struggle that is happening in our society today. This struggle is fascinating and we wanted to capture some of its essence in the movie. Having said all that, this is just the backdrop in which the film takes place. At its heart, the film is a genre piece, a simple survival story. We were very clear from the outset that we wanted to tell a fast-paced story of a woman’s survival through a tough night, without unnecessarily bogging down the narrative.
How have you reacted to the success of the film and the few critical reviews? What are you working on next?
The success has been sweet, especially because it took a long while coming. The film has made profits for the producers and most of the critics also took a liking to it. Above all, the audience and the fraternity response has been overwhelming.
There were a few critics who did not like it, and that’s alright. I respect their opinion but am personally pretty happy with the film we have made.
My next project is Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab which we are currently shooting in Punjab. It’s a drama-thriller against the backdrop of the drug crisis that Punjab is going through.
Besides, Navdeep and I are working on our next together. It’s called Kaneda and is a rise and fall story of a bunch of gangsters set in Canada. Clean Slate, Anushka and her brother Karnesh Sharma’s company, is producing it.
NH10 has very little spoken word but yet, it is very tightly scripted…
We don’t spend enough time and energies in crafting the screenplay and rely too much on dialogue to carry the film through.
I am personally not a big fan of dialogue-heavy scripts.
I think it’s just lazy writing. Also, I like my characters to speak like they would in real life. So a corporate woman speaks like one and a gangster would speak like one.
The writer’s voice should come through in the theme and the screenplay but should be completely non-existent in the voices of the characters.
From Rock the Shaadi to Players to Semshook -what are the lessons you have learnt in this journey..things you will never do and do again?
The most important learning has been that the film is a director’s medium and the only way to protect yourself and your work is to find collaborators who share your vision and worldview and then stick to them through the madness of making a film. Equally importantly, there should be nothing you will not walk away from if it means compromising on the film.
with The New Indian Express Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats