It’s rare in our industry to talk to or about scriptwriters but Jaideep Sahni (Jungle, Company, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Bunty Aur Babli) has changed all that. He is not only doing a whole lot of good for his breed, which is still rare in Bollywood, but he has also been the reason behind some terrific cinema in the recent past. Here’s an exclusive chat with Jaideep for PFC on how he ideated, scripted and executed Chak De India. Also, a very Happy Independence Day to everyone. Chak De…
The idea: A couple of years back, I had just finished doing Company. Between Company and Khosla Ka Ghosla… In fact Khosla Ka Ghosla we had done first but Bunty Aur Babli got released earlier (smiles)… Somewhere around that time I read this article about the Indian women’s hockey team doing well in some championship. It seemed like a thing to be proud of but the damn thing was some 5 or 10 cc. It just occurred to me that if the cricket guys had done it, it would be a whole damn page… Some times some things just catches your attention and you keep seeing that everywhere. Then all through the writing and making of Khosla Ka Ghosla it came jumping out at me…
The research: As I started writing Bunty Aur Babli, I started researching women’s hockey. Then I realised that the research became bigger than the game of hockey… it became about all Indian sports which was not cricket. Okay, we are a developing country and we may not have that kind of resources for those sports… but despite what little we can give them, these sportspeople did damn well. I remember seeing a picture once of either Australian or Argentinean women’s hockey team and our players in that frame were looking one-third the physical size of their’s. I thought how do these girls do it, man (laughs)?
The facts: Most of these girls are from small places like Jharkand and North-East… very few were from convents… even the coaches and support staff don’t get any good resources because we don’t have that kind of allocation for those sports. But somehow these girls kept on rising… Some times they will be second, some times they will be third… even first also… I kept researching and I got more and more into it. Here I was writing Bunty Aur Babli and here this women’s hockey was not leaving me.
The backing: By the time I stopped research this was like a thick book I got with me. Then, I remember, we had finished the readings of the principal cast of Bunty Aur Babli and then we were going for the shoot. And Adi said: “Okay, one job done, so what do you feel like doing next?” I told him that there is this story yaar, which is not leaving me… By that time a kachcha story had formed in my head. Of how Indian women’s hockey team takes on the biggest countries in the world and goes on to become World Champions. I wanted to show the same story of the coaches also… They are not like our cricket coaches… They are not Greg Chappell – they are very modest and unassuming guys (laughs)… But if you see the telecast of the Commonwealth Championship or something, the way the commentators talk about them, you would think that we should all stand up when these guys come… But we hardly notice them. I told Adi all that… He just said: “Jaideep the story has to be told, the film has to be made. Just leave everything else and finish this as quickly as possible…” You are alone for three years and you are in your own space and you think that you are on to something great and then you finally tell someone else… He could have been bored also but I could see in Adi’s eyes that same interest and more importantly the respect for these people, the same that I had in me. So I was now sure that I was on to something… Then I started developing a screenplay at full speed… Somewhere in that space, Shimit also came in and I shared with him all my research. Shimit is that kind of director who just doesn’t go and make a film… he has to be touched by the subject. I knew him from before because we both worked with Ram Gopal Varma. I shared the research with him… By that time all the principal characters I had got… Shimit also got very excited…
The roadblocks: Then we started working on the film and we realized that we have gotten into more than we can chew (laughs)… We thought ek hockey ka film bana denge… But it became such a big thing. We ran into this whole casting this… Hockey is not like cricket where you just take a shot of someone bowling and then separately take a shot of someone hooking. They have to play… hockey is long shot… they have to play… And where do you get players who can act? And where do you get actors who can play? They have to play to some level… They have to play till university or state level to at least look good on screen because they had to defeat foreign teams in the script. And the same problem with the foreign teams also…
The solution: Our search for all these girls took us about seven-eight months and then we shortlisted a few girls after dhakka-khaoing all across India and acting trials and game trials… Then we realized that we have to train them. We thought jisko acting nahin aati acting sikhayenge and jisko hockey nahin aati hockey sikhayenge… But it turned out to be very difficult and we ended up doing this camp for half a year. They would get up at 4.30 in the morning and play till about lunch time… Then they will have lunch and their acting classes will start. It will go on till the evening and then their dialect classes will start. Because I had these girls from all over India and we had these different dialects. I was very keen that we do those dialects and we don’t make a filmi thing of it. After the dialect classes they would all be exhausted and there would always be injuries… So sauna and steam and physio… all will start. This went on for half a year and then we got guest lecturers from other sports, ex hockey players, ex soccer players… They were brought in to motivate the girls because in between they were very close to giving up. At least every two months somebody would want to give up or at least we would want to give up (laughs).
Fortunately the whole team did it. We had an assistants’ team who were women heavy and we were just able to do it yaar. Then Shah Rukh came and in Shah Rukh’s eyes also, I saw the same thing. He cares. He has been a player himself and a hockey player… He just said this film has to be made. And it’s been done now. Thankfully… (smiles)