The Anuja factor: Love and luck on the cricket field

Anuja Chauhan’s debut novel, The Zoya Factor, is now a film ready for release. The writer talks about the book-to-screen transition

Girl meets boy. They fall in love. Simple!

Sonam Kapoor looks pretty Zoya-esque and Dulquer Salmaan fits the role (of cricket captain Nikhil Khoda) to a tee, says writer Anuja Chauhan of the lead pair in the film The Zoya Factor, based on her debut novel by the same name.

Not when the boy is the captain of the Indian Cricket Team and the girl is their lucky charm, someone who can guarantee victory in any match, simply by breaking bread with them before the game begins. Definitely the ‘happily ever after’ seems to be in jeopardy when the said captain doesn’t believe in luck and the girl fears he might be pretending romance just to tap into her ‘lucky quotient’.

It’s been more than 10 years since writer Anuja Chauhan cleared up all the above mess and left Zoya Solanki and Nikhil Khoda sitting together in a madhumalati-scented garden, in her first novel The Zoya Factor. The book that was published in 2008, has now been made into a film starring Sonam Kapoor and Dulquer Salmaan in lead roles and is scheduled to hit theatres on September 20.

“It’s a really bloated book,” says Chauhan, in response to what took so long for the book to make it to the screen. “It was my first book, and I didn’t have a publisher, so I just kept on and on writing it, even when it was clearly done, because at that time it was just sheer escapism for me. So they had to edit it down a lot.”

The other thing (“sad but true”) that delayed the screen adaptation of The Zoya Factor “is that because the word ‘Zoya’ is in the title,” says Chauhan. “No big hero would agree to play the lead. It was like this big ego issue.”

Finding Zoya

Zoya’s brother calls her “gaalu”. People are always grabbing her cheeks and “squeezing them with gusto”. She worries tying up her hair will make her cheeks look bigger. Her consolation? “my skin’s okay, and my hair’s actually quite nice – it’s dark and shiny and cascades halfway down my back in a mass of bouncy ringlets”.

Chauhan’s description of Zoya is a far-cry from the Sonam Kapoor we are all familiar to. “But in the film, she does look pretty Zoya-esque. Her hair is wild and curly and she looks all chubby-cheeked,” informs Chauhan, who says she has seen the film “several times, at several stages”. “Of course, I have a few quibbles, but overall I’m really happy! Dulquer fits the role to a tee [10 years back she had imagined Nikhil Khoda as tall, broad shouldered, with brown eyes in a strong, bronzed face] The ensemble cast is great, there’s just the right balance of romance and satire and cricket and the chemistry between the two feels absolutely correct. And Shah Rukh’s [actor Shah Rukh Khan] voice-over makes you leave the hall with a smile on your face. It was so incredibly sweet of him to do it,” adds the author.

Chauhan herself was pretty involved in the project. “I worked with them fairly intensely at the final screenplay stage. On dialogues and screenplay both. And then they came back during the editing stage, where, again, I inputted a fair amount and we even did some rewriting and reshooting,” she explains.

Revisiting The Romance

Has the return to her first book made Chauhan want to tell the story any differently today? “I think I’m a better feminist than I used to be, so there might have been a few tweaks, but otherwise I think it holds up pretty well if you read it a decade later. Probably because the themes - of sport and superstition - are pretty much eternal,” she says.

As for the couple’s future - the epilogue to the book had hinted at the challenges Nikhil and Zoya may face in their life ahead with his cricket and her luck - Chauhan is not unduly worried. “In the film Nikhil confides to Zoya that he’s invested a lot of money in opening a cricket academy for deserving kids,” says Chauhan. Ten years after she left them together in Zoya’s garden, she says, today she imagines, “he would be retired and doing that now. I see him quitting when he’s at the top of the game, not dragging things out till erstwhile fans literally have to beg him to quit! And I see Zoya running a highly successful advertising agency. It’s something she’s really passionate about, so I doubt she’d ever quit it!”

No, that’s not the hint of an upcoming sequel. “Zoya and Nikhil’s ending feels really complete to me. Let’s leave them framed at the garden gate, high of madhumalati blossom and pheronomes!” says Chauhan.

Writer Anuja Chauhan’s rose-tinted glasses have gotten a bit grimy with time, and age, she says, but she still believes in the emotion of love.

Beyond The Zoya Factor: Anuja Chauhan On Books And Life

Other Chauhan books that can make it to the screen

I think Baaz is going to be an awesome film! YRF have the rights. It’s a love-story between at IAF fighter pilot and a peacenik photographer set against the Bangladesh Liberation war of 1971. Battle for Bittora - a romance about two childhood sweethearts now pitted against each other in a Lok Sabha election - would be brilliant, too. Those Pricey Thakur Girls is being made into a limited episodes series on Hotstar.

Writing of – and in – Delhi

Hey, you can take the girl out of Dilli, but you can’t take Dilli out of the girl! Besides, you know, Battle for Bittora is set in Bittora, Baaz is set pretty much in Air Force Station Kalaikunda and The House That BJ Built has massive chunks of Mumbai in it. Not that I’m arguing with the Dilli writer tag. I’m proud to own it!

On still believing in love

Yes, of course, my rose-tinted glasses have gotten a bit grimy with time, and age and roz-marrah ki zindagi. But Love is love, no? And when it shines out suddenly, through all the grime and time, then it sparkles even brighter. So I would say I still believe in the emotion. As far as expression and language goes, I have three extremely expressive young adults in the house so that helps. Also, I love talking to people about their love stories - of all ages and social backgrounds and places - so hopefully, that informs my writing as well.

Writing an elderly romance and beyond man-woman love

Yes, I have thought of it sometimes, especially when I’ve been quarreling with my husband :-) Then the whole The Bridges of Madison County plotline does come to mind. As better writers than me have said, there should be no Love Laws, especially when you’re writing fiction.

New book

Nothing that I can share yet!