Adventures of a Writer

According to Maslow, people go through a hierarchy of needs. Those whose physiological needs have been met go up to the next level -- safety and security -- and then on to personal needs of belonging and intimacy, moving up to esteem and prestige needs and finally to self-actualisation needs.  This five tier model of human needs was up-ended in 2020. As the pandemic raged through a bewildered world, it did not matter whether you were rich, poor or middle class. White, black or brown. Covid19 spared none. The only two goals that mattered for every human being on the planet: to address one's physiological needs and to stay safe and secure. We made it through 2020 - battered by the pandemic and its aftermath. Struggling to find equanimity in a world gone insane. Being forced to cut down on excesses and go back to the basics. Grateful for the things that we had begun to take for granted - home, health, loved ones. Amidst it all, we saw our lives turn upside down, losing  many near...

  Blurb London-bred activist Qiara Rana will do anything to save her mentor and their NGO, Girls Rock!, from ruin. Even if it means visiting the city she had vowed never to return to. But within a few hours of landing in New Delhi, she is being chased by a gunman and is a potential suspect in the murder of a high profile businessman. The only person she can turn to for help is Kabir Shorey, the man who stood her up ten years ago. On a mission to bust an international women’s trafficking ring, Intelligence Bureau officer Kabir Shorey runs slam bang into the girl who has tormented his dreams. He is determined to protect her but can he save himself from the all-consuming passions that flare up between them all over again? As the past and present collide in a deadly plot of crime and greed that moves from the cosmopolitan streets of London and Delhi to the bazaars and villages of Rajasthan, old secrets are ripped away. Treading the fine lines between safety and danger, t...

  If I'm absolutely honest I'm often discouraged by just how difficult the screenwriting journey is. Staying positive over months and years, slogging away at scripts, pitching producers and agents and dealing with rejections can be exhausting. I have often been tempted to throw in the towel. What has stopped me from doing it?  Well, the sheer compulsion of writing a story that's visual and visceral. 7 Lives was one such script. It is based on the true story of a young girl whose parents want to overcome the pain of losing their most precious daughter by remembering her in a way that would give meaning to her life and theirs. They wanted to donate her organs but alas their wish was never to be fulfilled.  When Runjiv J Kapur, my filmmaker friend, approached me to write the script based on this story for a short film, I was excited but also a bit scared. Would I be able to do justice to the story? For me, 7 Lives will always be special. Not only because it was a subject tha...

The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn’t take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work, but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won’t get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back.                                                                                                                  ...

By Jaideep Sen The minute I was reminded by my wife Anjali yesterday morning that today is GURU POORNIMA the thought to do an ode to my Ultimate Guru, Salim Khan Saab, popped in my head. I have been wanting to do this piece on the Doomed Characters, Vijay from Deewar perhaps Salim Saab-Javed Saab’s greatest script ever - I say perhaps because Sholay is my personal favorite even in terms of writing - and Vicky from Naam which is unarguably Salim Saab’s greatest script as a solo writer . Today, it found a fresh burst of oxygen. Through the lockdown I have watched both Deewar and Naam a few times and that lurking sense of losing both Vijay and Vicky forever looms large on the films especially through the second half like a predator shark which is on the fringe waiting to attack. It is this feeling which makes both films emotionally so palpable. Both the characters are scarred by life: Vijay by the extreme humiliation his father has gone through, the abject p...