Worming through scripts

In a striking scene in Amit V Masurkar's Sulemani Keeda, the crazy-haired budding scriptwriter Mainak, essayed by Mayank Tewari, is leaning towards a girl at a Bandra party in the hope of getting lucky, when she asks, "What about your parents? Are they fine with you working in films?" Mainak, who has gone quiet, looks up and replies, "That's a sensitive topic."

The tragicomic moment succinctly captures the lives of perhaps the most uncelebrated in Bollywood – the scriptwriters. Most wander into TV serials, or books. Some land up in small, insignificant roles and only the more fortunate end up writing for the movies — sometimes a scene, a draft, and rarely, a popular hit.

Mainak and Dulal (Naveen Kasturia) are two aspiring writers in the creatively intense universe of the Mumbai suburb of Andheri West, which is home to the aspiring Bollywood type — writer, director, hero, heroine, singer et al. Dulal is the mama's boy whose girlfriend informs Twitter before telling him that they are over. Slang-spewing Mainak, on the contrary, is in the game to get lucky.

They have a script which, in Mainak's words, is "a mix of LSD and Hukumat, with shades of Dev.D and costumes like Gadar." Titled Sulemani Keeda (street slang for 'pain in the ass'), it is a script which they are sure will strike it big in Bollywood. Rejected by directors and girls alike, they latch on to Gonzo (Karan Mirchandani), the son of a B-grade producer, who wants a movie inspired from European cinema with "endless, lustless dark orgies". But when charming photographer Ruma (Aditi Vasudev) walks into Dulal's life, the friends are torn between career and romance.

Mumbai-born Masurkar had no intention of basing his film on the creative subculture, and did not have a story as such before he set out. "Every pitch I've made has been stuck at some stage, either due to a star pulling out or because there were no funds. I wanted to make a movie on my own terms and that could have happened only if we kept the budget extremely low. So, I made a list of actors, locations and anecdotes before we set to make the movie," says Masurkar, adding that his protagonists were pre-cast, based on two friends.

The movie, he says, is essentially about young people in a big city reevaluating their relationships. The filmmaker believes that outsiders will connect with it just as much as those within the subculture. "This is not an industry story, but it is set in Mumbai and this is a city you call home after you stay here for three years," he says.

(Sulemani Keeda releases in theatres on December 5)