For a scriptwriter who made an international name with her very first film, Salaam Bombay, Sooni Taraporewala is all set to turn Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake and Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist into film scripts. Vimla Patil catches up with her

Sooni Taraporewala’s career as a photographer-writer began with a strange event. "Most Indian women complain that their parents hound them to get married as soon as they enter their mid-twenties these days. My parents were different. They insisted that I should first build my career and be financially independent before I dreamt of romance. This was difficult because I was already romancing a Parsi boy in my neighbourhood and wanted desperately to get married even before I could go to college. My parents won. My budding romance was nipped in the bud and I was packed off to Harvard University to study film-making and photography. Earlier, the seeds of such a career were sown in my mind by Rati Wadia, my English teacher at the Queen Mary’s High School in Mumbai. At Harvard, I took several undergraduate courses in photography, film writing and literature, before going to the New York University to graduate in writing and literature."

"Upon my return to India, I became a freelance photographer and wrote several travelogues—with my own photographs — for magazines like Namaskar, Signature and Imprint. At Harvard, Mira Nair, my classmate and friend, had graduated in film-making. We kept in touch after I returned to India. So when Mira decided to make a film, she naturally chose me to write the script. This is how Salaam Bombay began. My script for this film comprised 120 pages, which is the international standard for film scripts. But believe it or not, I wrote almost seven drafts of the script before it was ready for film-making. Script-writing is tedious. Every time you rewrite it, you have to summon great enthusiasm; otherwise, your boredom shows in the words you write.

"Salaam Bombay was a huge success. It received 25 different awards and was nominated for an Oscar. I was overwhelmed and of course very pleased with myself. I had attended the rehearsals of the film with the actors and Mira, but the direction and treatment were completely Mira’s. After this first flush of success, I became a professional script-writer, though photography continues to be my love. I wrote the script for Mississippi Masala for Mira and of Such A Long Journey for Sturla Gunnarson, a Canadian director. Again, I wrote the script of My Own Country for Mira Nair and of Babasaheb Ambedkar for Jabbar Patel."

"At the moment, I am working on three more scripts. I am turning Jhumpa Lahiri’s book Namesake into a script for Mira Nair. This work is almost complete and it is expected to go on the floors by the end of the year with Konkona Sen Sharma as the leading actor. I am turning Tony Kushnar’s play Homebody/Kabul into a script in the coming months for Mira Nair with HBO and then will work on turning Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist into a film script for Mira Nair with Fox. I have just inaugurated the second edition of my book Parsis — A Photographic Journey bringing together Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha and other leading Parsi luminaries in the film and theatre-photography world for the event. The book has done well and I am happy with my photographic work."

"People ask me if it is not a huge responsibility to change a well-known or celebrated play or novel by an eminent author into a script. Yes, I think a script-writer has to respect the original and treat its richness and character profiles as sacred while cutting it to a much smaller length. This is difficult. But since the story, the characters and the events are already there, the work is easier than one imagines. The author should describe events and nuances of characters rather than read out the verbatim script to a would-be director or producer. This is more likely to help in selling the script. Later, the script gets cut to 90 pages when shooting begins. This is true for films made abroad because they are usually 90 to 120 minutes long. Indian films require longer and more detailed scripts."

All writers should register their scripts for copyright purposes. In America, a script-writer writes the dialogues and the screenplay as well. The script is registered with the Writers’ Guild of America. Once you make a name as a successful script-writer, you can demand a good fee for your work. But it is a long and arduous struggle till a director is convinced about your talent, the dramatic value of your script and the possible success of a film based on it if he or she buys it. Once you are on the road, life is truly star-studded and great fun"

As per her parents’ wishes, Sooni married at a late age. "I was 37 when I married my dentist husband. Now, I am a mother of two young children and live in Mumbai," she laughs, "I am doing what women do at a much younger age! But I am enjoying my career —which spans two continents — and fulfill my family responsibilities living in Mumbai. I rarely go on shoots unless I am needed for changing the dialogues or the script construction. When the film is successful at the box office and wins any awards, I am thrilled because recognition is the ultimate reward of any creative work."

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