[Photo Courtesy: Kovid Gupta] Also Read - Raj Kumar Barjatya Last Rites: Swara Bhasker, Soni Razdan-Mahesh Bhatt, Bhagyashree Attend Funeral of Sooraj Barjatya’s Father

Back in high school, I was voted as most likely to drop out of college and move to Mumbai because of my borderline-unhealthy fixation with all things Bollywood. Obviously, this little dream of mine did not come to fruition, but this exact dream is what Kovid Gupta is currently living. Also Read - Sooraj Barjatya to team up with Salman Khan for his next

Raised in the U.S., Gupta initially pursued a business major at the University of Texas followed by an MBA from Cornell University. Along the way, he spent some time in India working for Teach for India before he took up a full-time job as a screenwriter for Indian television soap operas. Confused by the sudden career change? So was I, until I had a chance to ask Gupta himself about his unique journey that has now landed him as an assistant director on the sets of Sooraj Barjatya’s “Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.” Also Read - Don't want to win the box office with controversy: Aayush Sharma

According to Gupta, his early days in the U.S. had very little “day-to-day interaction with anything related to Bollywood.” However, his family would take weekend trips to Chicago where he would stock up on audio and video tapes from a local Indian store. These “Nadeem-Shravan nuggets sung by Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik” were the closest he ever got to Bollywood until his later teenage years. By that time, his family had moved to Texas and Gupta discovered “a movie theater dedicated to playing Bollywood movies exclusively.”

[The entire PRDP directorial team with Director Sooraj Barjatya, and Director of Photography, V. Manikandan. | Photo Credit: Ravendra Singh Bhadauria]

These years pretty firmly cemented Gupta’s love for all things “Hindi cinema and television”—from the “melodramatic families, palatial mansions, heavy costumes and jewelry, flowing chiffon saris on the Swiss Alps, and even romantic interludes in rain showers.”

With no industry connections, Gupta had his work cut out for him to break into one of the biggest film industries in the world. He started by “scribbling down the names of writers and directors of the biggest [Hindi] television shows,” and he then “began contacting these people for advice by finding them on Facebook.” He met some who were willing to lend their expertise, while others went so far as to offer to meet him if he ever found himself in Mumbai.

Ultimately, he landed his first job in Mumbai as an associate writer with Rajesh Dubey, the screenplay writer of the show “Balika Vadhu.” This leap of faith from his prior career trajectory was “heavily influenced by the works of Yash Chopra, Sooraj R. Barjatya, Karan Johar, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali” and the rest is history. Now, after writing 500 episodes for several hit TV shows in India, Gupta has worked alongside Barjatya for his upcoming film “Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.”

As a huge fan of all of Barjatya’s previous work, including “Maine Pyar Kiya” and “Hum Saath Saath Hain,” Gupta knew he “could not miss the opportunity to work with him at any cost” when PRDP was first announced in early 2014. Gupta believes that the expectations for this Barjatya-Salman Khan reunion after 15 years “are larger than life, just like the film itself.” His experiences working on this film have been nothing short of “surreal.” Described by Gupta as an “all-out squeaky-clean Bollywood film,” PRDP embodies “family values, emotional content, melodious music, beautiful costumes, magnanimous sets, and a hugely talented star cast.”

[Sooraj Barjatya briefs the Assistant Directors on a scene. | Photo Credit: Ravendra Singh Bhadauria]

This incredible learning experience for Gupta has left him most excited to see “the reactions of [his] parents and relatives in their generation” after the release of this movie. Gupta believes that recent changes in Hindi cinema have left this age group heavily turned off from Hindi cinema, but he thinks PRDP will change this as it “echoes [Indian] values, beliefs, and traditions.” With the recent release of the film, Gupta will soon get the chance to see just how audiences across the world react to PRDP.

A man of many talents, Gupta has also written a book on the creation of the Balaji Telefilms empire. The novel chronicles Ekta Kapoor’s rise to power, and helped Gupta learn the nitty gritty details behind all the glitz and glamor of the Hindi television and film industry.

Never one to take a breather, Gupta is currently working on two other books that we can keep an eye out for in 2016. He is also working on a film script, so we can all look forward to seeing an original Gupta screenplay on the Bollywood silver screen one day in the future. In the meantime, head to local theaters to check out PRDP and get a glimpse into some of Gupta’s work on the film as an assistant director.