This weekend I attended the Crime Writers Festival in New
Delhi. It was a two day festival held at Indian Habitat Center. There were a
lot of guest speakers from around the world, but I didn’t get the chance to
attend the entire festival. I was only interested in listening to two guests –
Jerry Pinto and Dibakar Banerjee.
Jerry Pinto is the writer who wrote Em and the Big Hoom. It
is one of my favourites from all the books that I read last year. He took a half an hour
session on Saturday from 2:00pm to 2:30pm, reading excerpts from his
soon-to-be-released book on crime. It would be an anthology of 3 short stories,
one of which is already published in Mumbai noir, from the Noir series by
Harper Collins (that’s the one he read in the session – it is a crime story
based at Mahim area in Mumbai).
It so happened, that I got late and completely missed the
half an hour session. But I was with a friend who is a journalist and she had
an appointment with him for an interview after that. Yes, you guessed it right.
I jumped in. I butted in quite a few times with my questions on writing and
stories, and Jerry was sweet enough to entertain all our questions. I was super-excited
and wanted to know all about his writing experience and how he writes and how
he thinks. He also showed us his small (tattered) notebook where he pens his
thoughts.
We must have chatted for a little more than an hour. He told
us his childhood stories, opinions, anecdotes, lessons, struggles, tips. . .as
I sat there starry-eyed and happy. No, I didn’t take his autograph. I felt too
shy asking.
Dibakar Banerjee, one of the very few Indian directors I
admire, conducted a workshop on script writing. This took place at the Oxford
book store in Connaught Place. I had never been to that book shop, and it
seemed like a nice place. I ended up buying a book too. They have a cha-bar next
to the bookshop where I had a cup of Kenyan black coffee and a chicken quiche.
Ok enough about food; I am deviating from the topic :P
Dibakar’s session was interesting too, though I felt it was
a little basic. The moot point of his discussion was how script writing is
different from writing a book. And he emphasized on the aspect of ‘show, don’t
tell’ which is especially important while writing a screenplay because it needs
to come alive on celluloid. According to me, it is just as important in any
kind of writing, not just a screenplay.
He spoke about Indian movies, how the quality of writing degraded
in the 80’s and 90’s – films that didn’t make sense and were meant to escape the
reality of life – and how since last decade things are gradually getting better
again. The trend is shifting towards importance of a tight, intelligent story that
would make the audience think, instead of relying on a superstar’s presence, a
few dance numbers and foreign locations.
I had a great weekend, but it also made me a little
depressed. I felt absolutely useless and inadequate after seeing the kind of
dedication and passion that is required to become a Jerry or a Dibakar.