Or why the film industry has shown little interest in mining literature for its scripts

Towering over her entourage in six-inch stilettos, Sonam Kapoor takes the stage in the ballroom of a suburban Mumbai hotel. She is handed a mic and all eyes are on her. The set-up is familiar for the actor but the audience is rather unusual. There are authors, publishers, literary agents, filmmakers, producers and makers of web series.

“I am a voracious reader,” she declares, before announcing that she has bought the rights to Krishna Udayasankar’s trilogy The Aryavarta Chronicles for an onscreen adaptation. As the crowd cheers, she quickly adds, “But I don’t know when I will get to make it”.

With content reigning supreme — at least on the surface — filmmakers, producers and even actors like Kapoor are showing an increased interest in Indian literature as source material. Among the latest additions to the club is filmmaker Sudhir Mishra, who announced that his next will be based on Manu Joseph’s novel Serious Men.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) conducted their second ‘Word to Screen Market’ last month, ahead of the 19th Mumbai Film Festival. At the market, a list of curated books was pitched to filmmakers and producers, who included Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj and Kanu Behl.

“We realised the film industry knows very little about the publishing world, because unlike in the West, studios here don’t have a dedicated team who scout for content,” explains Smriti Kiran, Creative Director, MAMI.

To help filmmakers navigate the world of Indian literature, MAMI also provided a catalogue of books, recommended by various publishers, which would translate well into films.

Books stalled

But despite growing interest, the paucity of adaptations from Indian literature is starkly evident. This year saw the release of Half Girlfriend based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel. In the last two years, we had Kabir Khan’s Phantom (2015), adapted from Hussain Zaidi’s Mumbai Avengers, and Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet (2015), based on historian Gyan Prakash’s Mumbai Fables. But beyond this handful, there is a long list of Indian novels lost in the wilderness of Bollywood after being optioned.

An ‘option’ is a contractual agreement between publishers and producers, where filmmakers get exclusive rights to the novel for a limited period. Novels are optioned for a non-refundable fee, and the producers are expected to start the filmmaking process in the agreed duration.

While several novels are optioned with much enthusiasm, only a few are successfully adapted. Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor, for instance, was initially optioned by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment production company for a period of three years. The film was not made and the book was then optioned by Walkwater Media, run by Pooja Shetty-Deora, again for three years.

“I’m quite disappointed frankly,” says Chauhan. However, later at the Word to Screen market, Sonam Kapoor announced that the adaptation of The Zoya Factor is back on track, and she will be playing the titular lead. “It will be directed by Abhishek Sharma, who made Tere Bin Laden (2010),” said Kapoor.

Chauhan’s book is not the only one waiting to be made. Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee bought the rights to V. Sudarshan’s Anatomy of an Abduction: How the Indian Hostages in Iraq Were Freed, filmmaker Anusha Rizvi acquired the rights to adapt Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions had bought the rights for Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha. The first two films are yet to go on the floors, and Dharma Production’s rights for Tripathi’s trilogy has reportedly lapsed.

Chauhan says that producers often find loopholes in the optioning agreement to keep the book rights with them for longer. To educate writers on the legalities of optioning, MAMI held a boot camp for publishers in Delhi. “We spelt out things like, ‘Do not give optioning rights for three years but 18 months’, so the writer and publisher won’t feel trapped,” says Arpita Das, curator of the Word to Screen market.

For several publishers and writers, the long wait can be a frustrating experience, especially where finances are concerned. “Novels are optioned for around ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh, but after it is made into a film it could grow exponentially,” says Das. “A writer gets at least eight to 10 times that amount if a film is completed.”

In India, the roadblocks for adaptations go beyond the haphazard functioning of Bollywood.

“In this country, we also have to consider the realities of language and context,” says Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO, HarperCollins India.

Unlike Hollywood, Bollywood has not been known for diving into the literary pool, apart from picking up the occasional Sarat Chandra or Premchand story. Now it is all about contemporary Indian books in English rather than books in Hindi or other regional literature. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who has the rights to Gaurav Solanki’s three-part blog post titled ‘Hisar Mein Hahakar’, finds it difficult to adapt English novels into a Hindi movie. “The problem is also that the generation that used to adapt Hindi books is gone. Now there’s a whole new generation [in Bollywood] that only speaks English, and does not understand the milieu,” he says.

However, there are filmmakers like Vishal Bhardwaj who are looking beyond English literature. Bhardwaj has reportedly bought the rights to the short stories of Hindi novelist Charan Singh Pathik.

The Word to Screen market this year also included four Hindi books. Famed Tamil feminist writer Ambai pitched her collection of short stories, Fish in a Dwindling Lake, translated by Lakshmi Holmström.

Das encourages filmmakers, especially those in the indie space, to look at short stories instead of books. “With short stories or journalistic features, you can bring down your cost considerably,” she says.

Despite filmmakers and publishers trying to bridge the gap through various means, the perennial problem of plagiarism refuses to leave Bollywood. Makers of Udta Punjab were accused of plagiarising Ben Elton’s 2002 novel High Society, discrediting their own efforts and research in authentically contextualising the story in Punjab.

The author is not dead

There is one author who has successfully, and famously, cracked the space: Chetan Bhagat. Beginning with Five Point Someone, which was made into 3 Idiots in 2009, five of his books have been adapted. Bhagat’s success is reminiscent of Gulshan Nanda, whose novels were adapted into several movies in the 60s and 70s, including hits like Kaajal (1965) and Kati Patang (1970).

But unlike Nanda, who only wrote screenplays for the film adaptations, Bhagat co-produced Half Girlfriend,ensuring greater involvement. But publishing remains a bigger market for the investment banker-turned-author. “ The book is only me and I get a straight royalty for life,” he says.

Most writers have reconciled to the fact that a film will have an identity of its own. “The film notion is an adaptation and not a perfect representation. I don’t mind if characters are added,” says Manu Joseph. “I would like to see the book through someone else’s eyes.”

But Chauhan says she is disillusioned with the process even when writers are involved. “With one eye on budgets and one on censors and actors, the last thing you’re looking for is creative integrity.”

As online content booms, authors are looking beyond producers and studios. Netflix Originals is adapting Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games for its first homegrown series, as also a series based on Aravind Adiga’s Selection Day. Publishers and filmmakers are looking expectantly at the digital space now to bring the two worlds closer.