Q&A WITH VIDHU VINOD CHOPRA
Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra has always been forthright, funny and fascinating. Unscripted, a book that records conversations between him and screenwriter Abhijat Joshi, is also all of those things
Q. Unscripted reads like a memoir, but it is, in fact, a conversation. How did the idea of the book take shape?
When Abhijat [Joshi] and I started talking, we never imagined this could be a book. We were just talking in a friendly way through the course of our script sessions, and we did this five years back. Much later, [author] Nasreen Munni Kabir looked at the reams of these manuscript pages lying in the closet and said, “Oh my god! There is a book here.” We said, “Sure, why not!”
Q. You were raised in a small mohalla in Kashmir. Today, you are one of the most successful filmmakers in the Hindi film industry. What have been the keys to your success?
Frankly, my success baffles me. As we said in 3 Idiots, I have always chased excellence in my work and not success. That I am successful today is a miracle.
Q. Apart from several anecdotes about filmmaking, you also talk about your personal life in this book. Was that kind of sharing hard?
Abhijat has known me for over 26 years and he remembers more about my life than I do. He is like a brother to me. It was great fun. I think this was the best and possibly the only way I could share my life experiences because I was not writing a book, I was actually talking to a friend.
Q. There are some beautiful moments in the book—Amitabh Bachchan reciting his father’s poetry in your house; R.D. Burman funding a song in Parinda. Is the industry still as warm, do you think?
My home is full of warmth. My office, where I make cinema, is full of warmth. And frankly, whether the industry is still warm or not is for you guys to decide, I don’t care one way or the other. All I care about is keeping my life full of warmth and that I am always striving for.