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Pulitzer-winning journalist Geeta Anand talks about writers' rights and her extraordinary journey ahead of the release of a Harrison Ford film based on her book
AS head girl of Mumbai's Cathedral school, it is not difficult to imagine a quick trip through Charlie's chocolate factory or Alice's Wonderland.
But it is hard to see oneself swimming for India at the '82 Asian Games, breaking the national records for 100m and 200m breast stroke, studying journalism in the US, exposing corruption in one of America's largest medical corporations, getting the Pulitzer prize for it, writing a book, and seeing the book being made into a multi-million-dollar movie with Harrison Ford starring in it.
And after all that, coming back to Mumbai as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal. Geeta Anand has come a full, fantastic circle.
The 43-year-old mother of two daughters spoke to MiD DAY on Tuesday, waiting for the January-19 release of Extraordinary Measures.
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No Writer's Block: Geeta Anand at her Grant Road residence. While her book was credited, she was not allowed to use the movie poster for the book cover. |
It is a Hollywood film based on her book The Cure, which in turn is based on the true story of a father's race against time to build a business that would cure his sick children.
The film is in the Erin Brockovich genre: one person taking on the system. Anand, unlike a Chetan Bhagat, has not had problems with credit, but empathises with writers.
"What happened to Chetan happens everywhere. I don't think the movie industry has enough respect for writers and it is quite quick to run roughshod over writers' rights," she said.
"Writers have to be much more vigilant about the contracts they sign because very few of us have signed movie contracts before and don't feel like hiring a battalion of lawyers.
We think it is all very straightforward." She, however, has got her due. Or almost.
"They did credit the book. It was there in the opening credits. But they didn't allow us to use the movie poster on the book cover, which was unfortunate.
It didn't make sense to me at all," she said. "They did not pay me astronomically, but they were fair."
Edgy script
She is also satisfied with Robert Jacobs' (screenplay writer of Chocolat, The Water Horse) work on the script.
"It is similar but also quite different from the book. He stuck to the spirit of the story, didn't make it saccharine-sweet and kept it edgy," said Anand.
"The family is full of black humour, making fun of themselves while dealing with the enormous challenge.
And I think they [filmmakers] quite heroically resisted the temptation to give it a very Hollywood ending by making everything totally fine."
Some Indian actors could learn from her experience with Harrison Ford.
Initially, Ford wanted to play dad to the children. "Everybody was so excited about such a big star that no one wanted to tell him he was perhaps a little old to play the role of a 30-year-old.
Finally, it was Ford who decided to play the role of the scientist," she said.
He also surprised her by calling her friend and cancer patient Sarah Snyder (also editor of her book) and speaking for half an hour on her request. "Sarah couldn't believe it when he called." She died of cancer later.
Anand, who got the Pulitzer as part of Wall Street Journal's investigative team exposing the Martha Stewart medical scandal among other scams, said the media in India was "hungrier, more aggressive" than Western media.
"But the media here is not reined in by legal compulsions, which makes it not push hard enough for accuracy, accountability, checking facts."
She had spent two or three months working on exposing the Martha Stewart scandal. "Indian newspapers often don't give reporters that kind of time, push them too hard," she said.
She said back home, the Mumbai terror attack, Somali pirates or the Satyam scam was ready material for books and movies.
But for now, she's writing a book on the story of her dad tentatively titled In My Father's Footsteps who fled Pakistan during Partition, went to the US and married her American mother ... a journey perhaps not less fascinating than her own.
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"I thought Geeta's book had something to say about personal courage, initiative, parents' love, and the power to overcome extraordinarily difficult circumstances."
Harrison Ford, actor
"Geeta wrote an article about us. A lot of people write about us, but the amount of time and effort she spent was amazing. She didn't take anything we told her at face value. She crossed-checked every bit of our claims with many people. A few hundred e-mails and text messages were exchanged. She'd even call me in the middle of an operation to check facts."
Devi Shetty, cardiac surgeon and founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya | |
