The GenX Salim-Javed!

Made in Heaven thatrsquos wrapped two seasons on Prime Videomdashsurely yoursquove seen it alreadymdashis an episodic series In the sense that ensemble characters and stories change with each episode while the leads remain the sameThat is Tara Sobhita Dhulipala and Karan Arjun Mathur who are BFFssoulmates single sharing life togethermdashalso business and creative partners at a wedding planning firm Which involves stressful planning and production some scripting and creativity too Not very different from filmmaking itselfItrsquos only while watching the showrsquos second season that it occurred to memdashhey these two protagonists could be inspired by the life of the screenwriting plus producer duo Reema Kagti Zoya Akhtar who are behind the show themselves noZoya AkhtarldquoNo Well workwise yes But not so much sociallyrdquo Zoya argues when I bring this up Although Reema concedes ldquoWhen we were discussing the show with cowriter Alankrita Shrivastava this did come upmdashif we have set the people on ourselves Definitely the friendship where they are also kinda soulmates Not that Zoya and I are soulmatesrdquoThey are ldquoprofessional soulmatesrdquo they concur So the social lives are largely separate ldquoWe do have the same gang when we hang out But letrsquos just put it this way Zoya is extremely social Irsquom absolutely antisocialrdquo Reema laughsThe two have remained friends and colleagues for over twoandhalf decades Starting out as assistant directors ADs on Kaizad Gustadrsquos Bombay Boys 1998 And with a combined filmography of over 10 filmsshows as credited writers on the screen sinceYet while we know enough about Zoyarsquos background famously daughter of writers Javed Akhtar and Honey Iranimdashwe barely know anything about ReemaIrsquove scoured the Internet before meeting them It hasnrsquot helped much Most of her video interviews online are with Zoya Reemarsquos calmingly chilled securely quiet Which sufficiently explains the ldquoantisocialrdquo selfdescription doesnrsquot itReema says she grew up in Assam Went to a boarding school Loreto Convent in Shillong Meghalaya ldquoBack then there were hardly any good schools in Assam so it was common for parents to send their kids off to boarding schools Unlike in bigger cities where only the naughty kids got sentrdquoShe was admittedly a naughty kid though ldquoI used to make my parentsrsquo lives hell But they were supportiverdquo Not as much for her filmmaking ambitions initiallyldquoI think my father had this very 1980s rsquo90s notion of Bollywood He was very disappointed with my career choice Itrsquos only when I got him to watch Lagaan that I was an AD on that he said okaymdashif this is the kind of films you want to makerdquoReema KagtiReemarsquos father was an engineer at an oil company before leasing out a 350acre land to farm ldquofour hoursrsquo drive from Chinardquo The umbilical cord with her homestate remainsldquoYou canrsquot really outgrow your roots My cook is Assamese I eat Assamese food My family is back in Assamrdquo Reema had moved to Bombay for college at Sophia and thereafter a course in social communications at the media school Sophia PolytechnicldquoAt some point I bumped into Zoya We liked the same kinda films had a lotta common ground we began writing small stuff togetherrdquo she trails offTo be more precise this was during the auditions for Bombay Boys 1998 where Reema was already an AD Zoya had dropped in for the same positionZoya had been an AD on Dev Benegalrsquos Split Wide Open 1999 after returning from a diploma in filmmaking from New York University NYU She had assisted in the costume department on Mira Nairrsquos Kama Sutra 1996 before NYUldquoOnly the director Kaizad was keen to test Zoya for Tara Deshpandersquos part in Bombay Boysrdquo Reema recalls She was staffing the audition Right after which Zoya told Reema ldquoIrsquom the worldrsquos worst actorrdquo Reema replied ldquoListen I donrsquot think yoursquore getting this job eitherrdquo Well she got the job she wantedWhich was as a freelance AD the rotating culture of which only spawned in Bollywood in the late rsquo90s early rsquo00s ldquoWe were moving into a phase of syncsound on the sets shoots getting wrapped in a single scheduleldquoTo pull that off you needed a more structured system Unlike before when films would take years to finish and everyone just hung around in officesmdashthere would be 12 ADs and everybody did everythingrdquo Zoya saysReema had earlier worked on Rajat Kapoorrsquos directorial debut Private Detective Two Plus Two Plus One 1997 ldquoThat was my film school I got to dabble in all departments of filmmakingrdquo But there was one thing both Zoya and her were clear aboutmdashthey were not going to assist only one person throughout which was at the time the common practiceZoya says ldquoI donrsquot know how we had the guts to take that call Back then ADs were associated with particular filmmakers or even production houses when it came to advertising There was a lsquochhaaprsquo creative trademark of that director that remained with you even once you left them and went your own wayrdquoSensing a trap neither wished to mirror particular mentors Writing and directing their own movie was the endgoal anyway They got to work on multiple sets when they did and wrote their own scripts when they didnrsquot It was around this time they decided to script a short film togetherZoya remembers ldquoWe almost killed each othermdashletrsquos do this letrsquos not do that etc Later I wrote Luck By Chance 2009 Reema started writing Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd 2007 We gave our scripts to each other for feedback She finished the portions I got stuck at Likewise me with Honeymoon While we hadnrsquot credited each other we were on each otherrsquos filmsldquoBecause this worked out so wellmdashplugging holes in either scriptmdashafter that we just wrote together Talaash 2012 was the first script we developed as a team from scratchrdquo Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara ZNMD 2011 arguably the finest Bollywood entertainer in the rsquo10s decade was their secondItrsquos not like the creative bickering if you may has stopped or receded Zoya admits ldquoPeople around have just got used to it in our officerdquoReema laughs ldquoThis one time producer Ritesh Sidhwani told us you should just not work with each other anymore During ZNMD Zoyarsquos mom Honey aunty got a call from the neighboursmdashsomething is going on in your house please itrsquos really scary people are shoutingrdquoThe art of their conflict management is pretty simple though ldquoShow up at work If we are writing itrsquos 10 am No muse is gonna come If nothing is happening we just do other things watch movies just chat gossiphellip Also you should never be afraid of scrapping what yoursquove done and starting all over againrdquo Zoya saysWith Reema itrsquos even simpler ldquoIf yoursquore stuck with an idea and neither is able to resolve it let it staymdashmove on to other things Later you return to those ideas and the better argument once it stays with you eventually wins It works well if you have the story firstrdquo Theyrsquore sure of the storyrsquos end beforehand working themselves backwardsIn terms of agreeing to disagree between them the one whorsquos directing the film gets the final say ldquoOtherwise we will never stop arguingrdquoFor instance in the Netflix original The Archies 2023 Reema wasnrsquot convinced about the placement of a song that would break the narrative ldquoBut once I saw the way Zoya had outdone herself with the visualisation I knew she was right It is my favourite songrdquoIn terms of success stories among screenwriting pairs none beat SalimJaved in Bollywood still As in script starring Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar in the opening credits The latter of course being Zoyarsquos fatherOnly lately has Javed begun to decode how the partnership worked having kept mum since it broke up at the turn of the rsquo70s decadeItrsquos clear now that Salim was the scenarist and the plotguy while Javed was the man of words For instance as Javed has mentioned before the greatest twist in Chandra Barotrsquos Don 1978mdashthe fake don reveals inside the jail that hersquos not the real oneWherein the cops donrsquot believe him still But his consiglieres for inmates instantly do The dilemma worsening for the protagonistmdashhersquos stuck between both lots whorsquore gonna kill him regardless Now that was Salimrsquos ideaBut say the Donrsquos line ldquoMujhe do tarah ki ladkiyan pasand nahi aati Ek woh jo mere pass aane mein bahut der lagayein Aur ek woh jo bahut jaldi aa jayein I donrsquot like women who take too long or too little time to attractrdquo Now thatrsquos decidedly JavedItrsquod be great to hear ZoyaReema similarly break down their own scripts Firstly Zoya exclaims ldquoThis comparison is freaking me out Nothing of the sort of SalimJaved had happened before or will happen again They were 22 blockbusters down Letrsquos not put us in the same sentenceldquoThat said our strengths are very different We talk talk talk We align on themes characters story and what the film is about Then Reema is very strong and succinct with structure and screenplay She gets to the point I tend to soakrdquoReema couldnrsquot agree more ldquoThe editing You give Zoya a 100page script shersquoll send you back 120 pages Irsquom likemdashwhat have you edited yoursquove added But shersquos better at nuances layering characters And dialogues of courseldquoZoya feels all my characters sound like me But she can be lazy Zoya will refuse to write the first draft of the screenplay once the events have been fleshed out So on the dialogues I just make everyone sound like me Because I know she will fix itrdquoZoya adds ldquoI get lazy yes but once Reema does the barebones I take it and juice it I write the dialogues in English If you want to shoot the film in English the screenplay is completely readyldquoThen it goes to one of my family membersmdashbrother Farhan ZNMD Dil Dhadakne Do The Archies father Javed Luck By Chance or Vijay Mourya Gully Boyhellip They know what I want putting it into the syntax that works best in HindirdquoThe Archies in that sense for the way the audiences would have watched it globally is closest to the original screenplay with English dialogues then ldquoThe person subtitling might approach it differently but the English draft is the template for itrdquo Reema saysWhile writing per se is a solitary jobmdashitrsquos in the parleys between each other bringing out personal experiences and influencesmdashthat the ZoyaReema script essentially comes togetherAlia Bhattrsquos character Safeena from Gully Boy 2019 was originally supplanted from another film that Reema Kagti wroteI ask Zoya to quote examples where therersquos fully Reema in a script that shersquos directed She points to Alia Bhattrsquos part in Gully Boy 2019 ldquoSafeena was the character from Dharavi in a script that Reema had written for her movieldquoThat film didnrsquot happen But I fell in love with her I asked her if I can just take Safeena Yeah why not We supplanted and then adapted her to fit into the world of Gully BoyrdquoFor something more specific in terms of moments Zoya cites ldquoThe scene in ZNMD with Laila Katrina Kaif chasing Arjun Hrithik Roshan down on the bike and kissing him The point of the film was to follow your dreams live in the nowldquoReema said Laila needed to do something to capture that essence She canrsquot just say it Letrsquos have her kissing him outside and let her leaverdquoThis readytofilm screenplay cooked between partners is also how SalimJaved operated staying within the realm of screenwriting stillmdasha reason some rsquo70s directors fell off the crevice once SalimJaved were unable to send them bound scripts any longerFor ZoyaReema itrsquos merely the end of a process ldquoA big hurrah momentrdquo as Zoya puts it The actual movie canrsquot film itself Howrsquore they different as directors from thereon I ask Reema who has thus far directed Honeymoon Talaash Gold 2018 two seasons of Made in Heaven the series Dahaad and the feature Supermen of Malegaon thatrsquos on its wayShe says ldquoZoya visually references a lot I tend to arrive at the visual world after recceing locationsrdquo Zoya agrees ldquoIt is after all a visual medium I like to find a visual tone seeing the film from before and start recceing it accordingly to lift it off the pagerdquoZoya evidently has her clear list of dos and donrsquots as well For instance she was certain before the filming of Gully Boy set in the slums that there will be none of Bombayrsquos tarpaulinblue throughout the film ldquoI just donrsquot like the colourrdquoLikewise with The Archies the setting would be dreamy hence visually storybook like ldquofull framing widelensing classical shots like 1950s60s photographyrdquo With Dil Dhadakne Do ldquomainly midshots and long shots because the picture is from the POV of Pluto the family dogrdquoBesides screenwriting and direction therersquos the graduating aspect to their creative careers which is as producing partners Gully Boy was the first film with ZoyaReemarsquos film company Tiger BabyThe name by the way comes from ldquothe nickname that Anurag Kashyap and allrdquo gave Zoya ldquoItrsquos my spirit animalrdquo Left to Reema the company wouldrsquove been called Balls of a Brass Monkey ldquoZoya is like donrsquot be ridiculous Also Tiger Baby is fierce and feminine It has a nice ring to itrdquoEven as producers the two couldnrsquot be as complimentarily separate from each other As Zoya deciphers ldquoIrsquom the one meeting with the actors Reema doesnrsquot wanna go anywhereldquoShersquos better with budgets and numbers But both of us are into mentoring scripts Shersquos better at creative packaging and producing I handle the Tiger Baby social mediardquo Reema sighs ldquoI can barely do minerdquoAn upcoming production of Tiger Baby is a documentary on SalimJavedIf you were to strain yourself to find connecting dots if not a larger link between each of ZoyaReema scripts it might be the fact of alternating worlds perhapsSay in the OTT space their two releases in 2023 were Made in Heaven S02 and Dahaad both on Prime Video One is set around the blingy world of posh New Delhi weddingsThe other is a policeprocedural in the rugged terrains of Rajasthan following missing women and a serial killer on the looseLikewise with films The Archies on Netflixmdashwith ldquoidealism for its pointrdquo in the nearperfect imaginary world mimicking the American comic book in 1960s Indiamdashcomes after Gully Boy that went deep into Mumbairsquos underclasses Which in turn came after Dil Dhadakne Do dealing with importantly familial but First World issuesZoyaReema obviously donrsquot see it this way ldquoWe just follow the world our characters live in Itrsquos about being authentic to the world yoursquore trying to createrdquo Reema saysZoya adds ldquoWe are avid readers and movie watchers fans of various kinds of filmmakers not fixated on a genre For instance Irsquom actively looking for something in the big crimeunderworld space Itrsquos exciting to be scared trying new things Irsquoll be bored waking up for work otherwiserdquoThe ideas of course can come from anywhere Reema argues ldquoSupermen of Malegaon was a documentary Gully Boy came from a music video With ZNMD it was road trips taken by us Wersquod also gone on a Europe tour with Zoya and a bunch of friends Zoya just wanted to follow around three boys no hairmakeup for ZNMD Of course it didnrsquot end up that wayrdquoOne of those inspiring trips was when Reema a ldquobroke ADrdquo was in Goa having spent all her money with none left for a busticket back to Bombay She hitched ldquoa carride with the sister of a friend Throughout the host was cautious of a plastic bag in the backseat because it had an expensive vase or something We named that bag PriscillardquoThis is how Bagwati in ZNMD came into the scene Only Reema hadnrsquot even heard of a Birkin ldquoWhatrsquos that Berk Berk whatever When Zoya told me about itmdashIrsquom like why would someone pay lakhs for a bag I wanted the motif to be something breakable in the film Zoyarsquos the director I had to go with herrdquoWith ZNMD Zoya says she was looking at a lowbudget easypeasy production given she had just got off a huge ensemble cast debut Luck by ChanceWhich was about an actor getting a shoein to showbiz The Archies in that sense is her coming full circle since the film launched seven debutants If she was to make Luck by Chance how different would it be a decadeandhalf later give how much entertainment as an industry itself has changed sinceldquoIf I have to revisit rewrite I donrsquot know what Luck By Chance will be But thematically itrsquoll still be about success and failure Thatrsquos what the film is aboutmdashhow do you define success and failure Is your selfworth determining both The rest is backdroprdquoA widely shared clip online from Luck By Chance is superstar Shah Rukh Khanrsquos SRK cameo in it where he gives lifersquos lessons to the lead character Farhan Akhtar Given The Archies marked the acting debut of SRKrsquos daughter Suhana I wonder if Zoya ever got SRK over to the set for a Chak De India type peptalk to a full team of debutants ldquoNo That is supposed to be my jobrdquoThat peptalk in Luck By Chance was essentially about never leaving behind those whorsquove known you from before successstardommdashwhen it appears that yoursquove probably moved ahead Zoya says ldquoShah Rukh as a person typifies thatrdquo In terms of rallying the OG troops around her so does sheZoya sorta admits ldquoI do like working with the same crew Because theyrsquore great at their job There is trust and a sync of aesthetics Which is not to say I wonrsquot work with someone newldquoSuzanne Caplan Merwanji was the setdecorator when I was a production assistant on Kama Sutra Editor Anand Subaya and I went to school together costume designer Arjun Bhasin hair stylist Avan Contractorhellip So many around me have been friends since teens and tweensldquoTherersquos Ritesh Sidhwani Farhanhellip Also then I enjoy going to work I work a lot I donrsquot want life passing me by while Irsquom isolated working 1314 hours a day The friends are thererdquoFriendships also being a recurring theme in ZoyaReema scripts if you casually glean through them They could claim a friendverse of their own Starting out ZoyaReema worked as ADs on Farhanrsquos Dil Chahta Hai DCH 2001 Both believe Farhan their former boss to be the more methodical director sharp with his final edits even while on setTogether with DCH and ZNMD Netflix placed three hoardings in Mumbai before the film Kho Gaye Hum Kahan KGHK dropped on the platformmdashterming them movies that defined friendship for their respective decades I kinda agreeTiger Babyrsquos KGHK directed by debutant Arjun Varain Singh is probably the only ZoyaReema script that neither has filmed It peeks into the life of GenZ through three buddies Ananya Panday Adarsh Gourav Siddhant Chaturvedi who also somewhat embark on a professional partnership togetherThis is not a love triangle Itrsquos about friends who are also family They are not seeking healthy romance but fulfilling companionshipYou sense that mental intimacy with the malefemale leads over two seasons of Made in Heaven as well I reckon thatrsquos the future of relationships ZoyaReema get that Better than othersZoya and Reemarsquos legacyHoneymoon Travels Pvt Ltd 2007Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara 2011Talaash 2012Bombay Talkies 2013Dil Dhadakne Do 2015Gully Boy 2019Made in HeavenDahaad 2023The Archies 2023Kho Gaye Hum Kahan 2023