Consider this filmography: Namastey London, Kahaani, B.A Pass, D-Day, City Lights, Airlift, Irrfan's latest release Madaari and the upcoming Kahaani 2. Screenwriter Ritesh Shah, over a career spanning more than a decade, has been involved in writing these critically and commercially acclaimed films in various capacities: story writer, screenwriter or dialogue writer.

What makes this man tick? What inspires him? Why are writers always in the shadows? IndiaToday.in in conversation with Ritesh Shah who talks about writing Madaari, his journey to Bollywood and writing some of its best films.



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How did Madaari happen?

Shailja Kejriwal had an idea about a guy who kidnaps a minister's son when his own son dies in a bridge accident similar to the 2012's Andheri (East) bridge collapse and she gave this idea to Irrfan who shared it with me during D-Day's shooting.

(Spoilers ahead: If you haven't watched Madaari yet, please come back once you've watched it. Else go ahead.)

Two notable parts of Madaari: The emotional stretches between Irrfan and his son which I felt slowed the film down, and the sudden detour in the end from Irrfan getting killed to an alternate possibility where Irrfan gets his revenge. Explain the writing process.



Regarding the 'detour', the entire film is constructed around the voiceover in the beginning, "Baaz chuzey pe jhapta, use utha le gaya. Kahaani sacchi lagti hai magar acchi nahi lagti. Baaz pe palatwaar hua, kahaani sacchi nahi lagti magar acchi lagti hai." (Translated: When a hawk snatches a chick and flies away, the story seems real but not nice. But when the chick attacks the hawk back, the story is unreal but it sounds nice.) So, in the beginning we establish that the film might go into a zone where there won't be much believability, but there will be catharsis, a kind of wish-fulfilment.

As for the emotional scenes, whether or not they are stretched depends on the emotional quotient of a person. It was important to show the child's daily relationship with his father, so that that would justify the madness that Irrfan's character goes through so as to do something so incredulous, because I don't think a sane man would do what he does in Madaari.

How different is working with Nishikant Kamat from working with Sujoy Ghosh?

Nishikant was a writer before he turned director. So, he knows the kind of job writing is and that's why he leaves me to my devices and steps in as and when required.

Sujoy writes a lot of his stuff himself. He uses me and Suresh Nair as bouncing boards for his stories, and also because he is not very proficient with Hindi, he needs my help with dialogues.

How did you become a Bollywood screenwriter?



I was a playwright in Delhi. Once, I adapted Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek's one-act play The Police. It was a political farce, a black comedy. That play became popular with the film industry and one of the actors in that play, who I will not name, asked me to come down to Mumbai with my scripts. When I came to the city, he stopped responding, and luckily, I got offers from elsewhere to write scripts. So, I got into television because in those days, the kind of stories I was comfortable writing were not in vogue in Bollywood. I worked on some quality productions like Kashmeer and Kagaar: Life on the edge.

It took me about six years for cinema to happen. Sujoy hired me as a dialogue-writer for Home Delivery (2005) which bombed. Then luckily, Anurag Kashyap recommended me to Vipul Shah for writing dialogues for Namastey London (2007) which became a success. Soon, offers started coming in.



You have written some really quality films over the years: Kahaani, D-Day, Airlift, Te3n, Madaari and so on. How is it that you are not well-known? Does the industry not treat writers with respect or is it the media's fault?

If the industry did not give me respect, I wouldn't have written 20 films in 11 years. It is mostly a problem of the press. The media is interested in covering big stars and star directors, not writers. 9 out of 10 film reviews do not mention the writer unless the critics want to abuse him. I don't think print or digital press, or even the readers are interested in writers because writing is not a glamorous job. This is a trend in the west as well. How many Charlie Kaufman interviews will you find? He's such a great writer.

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Tell me about your upcoming films: What is the story of Kahaani 2?

All I can say right now is that Kahaani 2 is a sequel in spirit and not a continuation of Kahaani's story.

Another mother of a story ..... pic.twitter.com/CNMmLhzeXL vidya balan (@vidya_balan) May 9, 2016

Whatever happened to Sujoy Ghosh's adaptation of Keigo Higashino's The Devotion of Suspect X?

I wrote a draft of the film with Sujoy but right now, the project is in a limbo. I don't know what is happening with it.

Writing inspirations?

Salim-Javed. Born in the mid-70s, a lot of North Indian writers and directors have a strong Salim-Javed influence and I am no exception. I also like the works of KK Shukla, Pandit Mukhram Sharma and Mirza brothers. From the West, Charlie Kaufman.

Any advice to aspiring writers in Bollywood?

I think writers should try to write their own stories. People message me on Facebook saying, "Sir, I have a Bollywood-ish story, or, sir, I have a Hollywood-ish story." and I always reply, "Where is your-ish story?" So, people should write your-ish stories. 90-95% of formulaic films are flopping today. Films which wouldn't have been made four-five years back like Kapoor & Sons, Neerja and Airlift are being made today. So, I think the time is to write your own stories, without bothering about anything else.

( The writer tweets as @devarsighosh )

