In #coronatimes, the show goes on for Bollywood writers

Writers in the Hindi film industry are busy penning new stories or polishing their work in progress scipts

A writer craves solitude, and these times of social distancing, prompted by the coronavirus spread, are turning out to be fruitful for writers. Whether it’s writing something new, revising or polishing already written scripts, the show is going on as far as Bollywood writers are concerned.

Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) writer-director Aditya Dhar had already earmarked this period to work on his ambitious project, The Immortal Ashwatthama, but no social distractions has means more concentration.

“Writing keeps my equilibrium intact. It has helped me keep my perspective positive in these times of crisis. I’m concentrating on fine-tuning this project as of now,” Dhar says.

Even directors Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari are busy scripting their next movie, a biopic on NR Narayana Murthy and his wife Sudha Murthy. “Writing requires a lot of discipline. We work with a group of writers and all the discussions about the screenplay happen on Facetime. We’re giving our complete attention to this till the time we aren’t allowed to get back to the shoots,” says Iyer Tiwari, who’s also reading up a lot nowadays.

Just a few days ago, Javed Akhtar’s wife, actor Shabana Azmi had posted a picture in which the veteran writer was seen “doing what he does best — writing”. And from what he hinted to us sometime back, we can expect “a couple of good scripts” from him soon.

Creator-producer Siddharth P Malhotra calls it a “blessing” to be able to sit down with “almost no sounds around and concentrate on the art of storytelling”. As for Omung Kumar, he’s trying to co-ordinate with his writer, who shares script pages via email; director Anees Bazmee is polishing Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, and Thappad co-writer Mrunmayee Lagoo is developing stories for films and the web.

Filmmaker Anurag Basu is certain we’ll have “the best scripts coming out in the next couple of years” considering the time people now have to sit back and let their creative juices flow, uninterrupted.

Banners, too, are reaching out to writers to make the most of their “quaran-time” by urging them to send in their scripts via email. Producer Shiladitya Bora says, “For the next three weeks, I plan to finish reading and studying as many pending scripts as possible to prepare as best as we can for future endeavors.”

Sometimes, however, a time of crisis can quell a writer’s appetite too. Jai Mummy Di writer-director Navjot Gulati tweeted, “How do you write anything new without any hope of it seeing the light of the day. Who knows when this will end!”.

And Sanjay Gupta, who is trying to write his new project Shootout 3: The Gangwars of Bombay at his home in scenic Khandala, says “being there when he needs to write is a norm, not an exception”. But, while he’s usually “completely calm and focused” there, he feels “distracted by all that’s happening around” currently.

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