Writing is a lonely, thankless job: Ritesh Shah

Mumbai, June 3

Writer Ritesh Shah says writing stories is a lonely and thankless vocation and finds it difficult to detach himself from the arduous process even in his sleep as he feels inspiration can strike any time.

The 42-year-old scribe has been behind some of the biggest and critically acclaimed films such as ‘Pink’, ‘Airlift’, ‘Kahaani’ and the latest ‘Raid’ in various capacities — story writer, screenplay or dialogue writer.

“Writing is lonely, difficult, thankless and damn hard. It’s not even sit-on-the-table process, it is lonely. Most of the times you are writing alone, the story can come to you at any place — in a bus, while you’re having a drink or in the washroom.

“There is no escape from it. It troubles you in sleep also. Sometimes, you think you have solved it. Sometimes a scene comes or full film comes, and then you realise in the morning, it was all nonsense,” Shah said in an interview.

The scribe says he would be doing “disservice” if he glamourises writing.

“It is a terrible job. It’s hard to write and very hard to write commercial films. It doesn’t come easily,” says Shah, who has a loyal listener to all his story ideas — Roger, his dog.

Mainstream films have been Shah’s forte and he attributes his love for it to movies penned by veteran writer duo Salim-Javed, which fuelled his appetite in his growing up years and ended up having the biggest influence on him.

The writer, who penned commercially viable films like ‘Namastey London’ and ‘Force’, however, emphasises the skill was not easy as “there is a lot of pressure of pleasing”.

“Forget the audience, first the actor has to be happy with it, then the technicians, the director, the producer, the finance-marketing people have to like it. So, how can you write something, which pleases you and the audience?” asks Shah.

Born in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district and raised in Srinagar, the writer remembers his 15-year-old self living in the conflict-hit state. He recalls there was not only a threat to life but the education system was also in a shambles.

“Education got affected in the 1990s and the middle-class Kashmiris went to different parts of the country to study,” says Shah, who migrated to Delhi in the summer of 1990.

He pursued English literature at Hindu College and later opted for mass communication at Jamia Millia Islamia. Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali and TV personality Roshan Abbas were his seniors and ‘Udta Punjab’ director Abhishek Choubey was his junior. “There are two-three boys in every batch, either in Hindu or Jamia, who migrate to Mumbai. That’s a pattern,” he says.

His calling to Mumbai happened somewhere around 1998 when he adapted Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek’s play ‘The Police’, which a lot of people from the film fraternity saw and liked. An actor, who featured in the play — Shah swears he will never disclose his identity — asked him to move to the metropolis and told him that a film can be made on his adaptation.

Currently, the writer has his plate full — he has penned the Arjun Kapoor-Parineeti Chopra-starrer ‘Namastey England’, Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Arjun Patiala’ and Nikkhil Advani’s ‘Batla House’. Shah says he has more stories to tell and his stock is far from over.

“I came to Mumbai for a week and have stayed here for 18-odd years. I am an extended guest in this city. I am supposed to go back but I haven’t yet,” he says. — PTI