Attending a script writing workshop with Anurag Kashyap

Writing for me is catharsis. There is nothing else in the world that gives me as much pleasure than string a motley group of words together to create a sentence. The feeling of being a creator of anything, even if it is a mere sentence is too great and immense. It is for the same reason that I watch films. To fathom at the creative ability of anyone and everyone associated with it. A film is a grandiose exposition of one’s innate desires.

Thus, when I started writing my first ever script in life (thanks to Smriti), I found voice for all the distress that has pulled me in all directions possible. My protagonist is all that I can never say in public or write formally..even in a PhD thesis that I plan to write sometime in future. He fights the system but is warped in his communal consciousness. Not because he is a fanatic or a fundamentalist but because all he was always looked at with suspicion, humiliated and systematically destroyed by the society. A society that is slowly breaking down…ruthlessness and fear gnawing at its entrails. I write because I want to. It’s all that I ever have wanted to do. And yes, as Leo Rosten once said…’the only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.’

Are there any guidelines for writing a script? How long should it be? What are the essential elements of a script? These are some of the questions that came up at a workshop on script writing conducted by Anurag Kashyap in Delhi recently. I happened to be a participant there. ‘A story is each his own. There cannot be a style sheet for writing a story. It’s entirely up to you. It’s your story. Just write,’ was Anurag’s dictum for aspiring script-writers and filmmakers. ‘You need to go out there and try to make your life.’ More often than not the discussion shifted to Satya and more recently Black Friday. At one point, Anurag quipped, ‘Can we get beck to story writing? The Black Friday compliments can happen outside…’

Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window followed by a reading of the original story by Cornell Woolrich of the same name on which it was based was good fun. It was fascinating to watch how a story is altered in order to adapt it for the silver screen. Anurag then told us about the way Hollywood functioned at the time of the making of Rear Window, pretty much the same way as our very own Bollywood functions today. There are certain elements that are a must for any and every screenplay, for instance a female lover, a romantic angle, and so on. It was amazing to learn the inner nuances of movie making. Anurag’s description of how Satya came about was enriching though I thought that only a Ram Gopal Varma could afford an exercise like that. There were instances that he narrated of the compromises film-makers and screen writers have to make to do their own thing.

I was however humbled by the immense insight Anurag has into world cinema. The man’s an encyclopaedia on world cinema, its origins and current trends. And I am not saying this for saying sake. He truly is. And it was great to have met him. Finally!