Mumbai in 49 stories

Q Why 49 stories Was there another story behind the number as wellA As much as I would like to say yes the answer is no laughs I just kept writing all these years and when I collated my stories there were 49 of them that seemed like they belonged in a collection I tried very hard to come up with some sort of reason for this number because it is an odd and large number of stories for one book But try as I might I couldnt Since nothing about this book is forced I decided to let this be It is 49 because it is 49 Quite like the answer to life the universe and everything is 42 There is no deeper reason Sometimes thats the most profound of reasons noA young child does a somersault into the waters of the Arabian Sea at the iconic Gateway of India PicAFPQ Who or what triggered off this writing adventure that began six years agoA A spate of shelved films I came to Bombay to make films like every other chap who comes here I had a rough spell exactly six years ago when my YashRaj animation film which I was writing and directing then many films that I wrote including Anurags Doga Abhik Mukherjees Bhoomi MF Hussains biopic and about ten other films just kept getting shelved one after the other But my spring well of stories wasnt drying up It was a rough call to make what to do with all these stories that keep coming to me Because converting each one into a film that doesnt get made is a recipe for suicide So I started writing a lot of them as short stories of varying lengths just so I could give birth to them and get them out of my system Because to allow them to stay inside unborn is a certified cause for incurable insomnia Every time I wrote out one story I slept like a baby that night So to cut a long story short figuratively this writing adventure was triggered off by a desperate desire to sleepA balloon seller at Juhu beach Forgetting looks at Mumbais many hues and shades and the people who create those PicAFPQ Your characters be it Nandu Rahim or Manda are earthy believable You can almost imagine having met them at some point in the city Tell us about that journey of sifting out the most engaging ones for this bookA As a film writer I believe that characters matter more than stories Ive tested this on people Ask anyone who has seen The Godfather and liked it to tell you the story of the film I guarantee theyll take a few minutes to be able to recount the story and even then they wont get it absolutely right But ask them to tell you about the characters they liked in the film and they can go on and on about what they liked about himher and about that particular scene where the character didsaid something memorable You can try this with Sholay or with 100 Years of Solitude and the results will be the same We return to stories not for the stories but for the characters and how they resonate with us The story ceases to surprise after the first watchreading Theres no fun in familiarity in a story But with a character the fun IS in the familiarity It is in knowing Marlon Brandos character will do this in this scene and youre waiting for it to come because you want to see him do it again You want to see Amitabh Bachchan as Jai toss that doubleheaded coin And so I spend a lot of my writing time perhaps 75 of it creating characters and then allow them to changeshapelead the story Perhaps why Nandu Manda Rahim and co seems real and relatable because I havent created their trajectories They have Ive merely created themDevashish MakhijaQ Most of your stories have a tinge of sadness and yet the human spirit wins the day somehow Did you realise this at any point of working on this bookA Its probably my film writing creeping in again subconsciously In cinema especially the mainstream no matter how saddark the story there needs to be some spark of life affirmation for people to want to spend money and come watch the film Ok this isnt something I believe no This is something producers tend to believe and then make you work that into the resolutionculmination of your stories Somewhere then perhaps although most of my stories are about the real tribulations of normal people and those are always sad and hard and heartbreaking I tend to seek a small glimmer of hope through the hopelessness to make the story worthwhile of a revisit someday for the readeraudienceAlthough to be fair to me all stories arent that way I wrote short stories so I wouldnt have to pander to a producers prerogative in the matter ByTwo Butterflies on strings Solving crosswords in fact half the stories in the book are true to the sadness of their characters None of our lives are bereft of sadness so why should our realistic stories be They are real because they are sad And I believe in moving ahead in life along with my sadness not despite it My sadness as much as my happiness shapes me As it does all of usQ And finally what is more difficult to forget the living or the deadA The dead are gone And I believe very strongly that human beings are capable machines We can move on from anything adapt to anything very fast When we lose someone to death we want to hold on to the memory of the person etc but despite that life has a way of making us move on very quickly and very surelyWe cant miss the dead for too long especially in this modern world which is splitting at the seams with distractions of all kinds So Id say its much harder to forget the living You know you can reach out to them more so today than ever before You can stalk them on Facebook for gods sake How hard it must be then to forget the living The world weve made for ourselves just wont allow us to do that But the dead the world were made for ourselves just wont allow us to remember them for long enoughAlthough this is a pattern Im trying hard to rebel against personally So far Ive not been too successful