Incredibly, Bollywood's hottest scriptwriter is not a film buff and thinks his training as a computer engineer has helped him break the vital code. "I was 32 years old when I entered the film industry. By that time, I hadn't even seen 30 films," admits Jaideep Sahni. It is a confession that leaves me stumped even as I choke on the delicious Hyderabadi pomfret dish that's not just barbecued to perfection but also generously slapped with black pepper. We are at Trishna, one of Mumbai's best seafood restaurants. Unlike most others in the industry whose careers were shaped with their initial interest in films, it's shocking, and interesting, at the same time, to know that Sahni, one of the most prolific screen writers in Mumbai's film industry, hasn't done much film viewing in his personal life, writes Abhilasha Ojha.
Within a short span of barely six years in the industry, Sahni has managed what many take a lifetime to achieve. None of his films, including the likes of Jungle, Company, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Bunty aur Babli, have failed. Even as critics have applauded his work, the box office has invariably ended up celebrating it.
Take Chak De! India, the third film instalment from the house of Yash Raj Films, which is now the sole blockbuster of 2007. The film, made at a budget of Rs 20 crore, has already collected Rs 64 crore in the Indian market alone, and is still counting. The film, whose script Sahni took two years to complete, is a case study in effective management training for students of Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Management. Much like its "reel avataar", Sahni feels Chak De! India succeeded because of the team spirit between the cast and the crew.
But aren't rumours rife of some actors cribbing to the media about their roles getting drastically reduced? Sahni admits to hearing these rumours too, but asserts that films have to project a complete story. "It's not a pizza that you can divide equally. The carping is a bit like salt complaining to the pan that it won't participate in a recipe because the chicken has more weight than it!" he laughs, obviously encouraged by the dishes that have arrived promptly on our table.
"I've ordered what you don't get too easily in Delhi," Sahni says, as generous portions of butter garlic prawns, butter pepper garlic king crab and pomfret Hyderabadi settle on our table. For some reason I cannot comprehend now, I even order a clear vegetable soup that remains untouched and finally goes cold long after the interview is over. "It's my favourite place for seafood," he tells me. The food is riveting, in complete sync with our conversation, and though I find the jumbo prawns somewhat hard and chewy, its magic survives in the melted butter garlic sauce.
"Though I like scratching around with ideas, I'm not much into watching films even today," Sahni says, as he generously serves me and Divyakant Solanki (our photographer) with portions of butter pepper garlic king crab, the restaurant's signature dish.
Considering his script for Aaja Nachle, Yash Raj Films' forthcoming production, eventually became veteran Bollywood queen Madhuri Dixit's comeback vehicle, Sahni's statement has me all confused. "I am very fond of reading non-fiction and came across the screenplay of Gandhi by John Briley," he explains. "Having studied computer engineering, I looked at the screenplay as a computer program which had so structurally explained the entire film in writing. That," he says, while also approving the pomfret dish, "made me realise how fascinating screenwriting can be."
In a way, the computer engineer in him took over and soon, Sahni was looking at the process of filmmaking as a computer program. "Where computer programs include numerics and alphanumerics contributing to binary inputs and outputs, films, instead of numerics, make use of emotions and give their output for audiences. I think this focused approach made it easier for me to look at films. That I didn't like watching films, really didn't matter then," he explains.
With no family member in films, and more importantly, with no personal interest in watching them, Sahni's remarks are appealing, especially given his career graph which hasn't dipped so far.
Also interesting is the manner in which Sahni's screenplays invariably resurrect the common man. If Khosla Ka Ghosla, a small-budget film, spoke of a family battling the machinations of a Delhi-based real estate player, Bunty aur Babli looked at the aspirations of the small-town youth of India. Chak De! India, while revolving around a fallen-from-grace coach, also looked at how varied backgrounds impacted Indian women who desired an alternative career in sports.
"I always need to feel the characters in my head," Sahni says, adding that while Khosla Ka Ghosla and Bunty aur Babli didn't require as much research, Chak De! India was nothing but undercover research. "There's more material on organised crime than on women's hockey," he quips, admitting that he first thought of writing the story as a book and even posed as a student while researching for it.
As he slices a portion of the crab dish, Sahni, who seems to have lost considerable weight in the last couple of years, admits he took solid risks in his professional life. Friends flourished in their respective IT careers, while he, in the pursuit of letting his creative juices flow, worked with an advertising agency, opened his communication consultancy firm, engaged himself in ad filmmaking and image building and even wrote lyrics for Indi-pop band "Just for fun". His first big break came with Ram Gopal Varma's Jungle. Since then, the film industry has been enjoying whatever he's been cooking.
A major reason for this change, he says, while we all refuse dessert (which is never a good thing to do), is that audiences and filmmakers are willing to see and promote good scripts. "When I stepped into the industry, people couldn't digest a scriptwriter working on a laptop," he laughs. But doesn't he fear competition? "Film writing," he groans, "is not competitive and the perception of writers goes up and down with every release. My work," he adds modestly, "has done well in a sequence so I'm considered good today."
His favourite writers in the industry today include Anurag Kashyap, Abbas Tyrewala, Rekha Nigam, Shridhar Raghavan, Vijay Krishna Charya, Rajkumar Hirani, Vishal Bharadwaj and Nagesh Kukunoor, some of whom are excellent directors as well. "Our grandmothers told us such beautiful stories, can you imagine them being competitive? Storytellers of today won't be competitive either," stresses Sahni. "Scripts, for directors, in my view, are the blueprints. And my role is that of an ambassador "" I'm the ambassador of characters in this world of cinema," muses Sahni, who has obviously built a fabulous career platter for himself.
As we make our way out of the restaurant, Sahni talks about the delightful time that the industry is witnessing. "There are so many genres in filmmaking and that's why directors are working to get their hands on scripts that are realistic and somewhere close to consumers," he says, while I chew some mouth freshener. It leaves me with a great aftertaste, just like Sahni's scripts that indulge audiences with refreshing film-viewing experiences. For the moment, the spotlight is on this hero.
