Standing firm on familiar ground

Trust a TV scriptwriter to launch her novel with an audio-visual featuring film and telly faces. Gajra Kottary's Broken Melodies attempts to take the familiar plot based on a girl child to a cerebral level

Standing firm on familiar ground

Trust au00a0TV scriptwriter to launch her novel with an audio-visual featuring film and telly faces. Gajra Kottary's Broken Melodies attempts to take the familiar plot based on a girl child to a cerebral level

Gajra Kottary, it seems, likes to take the conventional route. There's nothing quite path-breaking about a daily Hindi soap opera, for instance, or even an easy-to-read novel. What she doesn't like, however, is sticking to the tried-and-tested formulae.

So, the soaps she writes go beyond weepy wives and monstrous mothers-in-law. Having written screenplays for primetime serials like Astitvau00a0-- Ek Prem Kahani and Balika Vadhu, the one-time journalist launches her debut novel, Broken Melodies, today.

Though we found the book interesting enough to thumb through most of its contents overnight, what we found more appealing was that the book is being released today with an audio-visual accompaniment that would put faces to most of the central characters, without bastardising its contentu00a0 through a full-fledged film. We chatted up the author to know more of her book, and beyond.

Your central character, like in Balika Vadhu, is a young girl. Why is the emphasis on a girl child in your stories?
This is not a very conscious move, but the theme of a lost childhood moves me. I understand adult issues and I have tried to explore them in my serials but to explore the mind of a growing child from a vulnerable stage in her life to adulthood appeals to me. The helplessness that a child feels if s/he doesn't have healthy primary relationships, even though s/he might have been provided for, makes for untold stories.

How different is it thinking up a script for a visual medium like television as compared to a more cerebral one like a book?
It is not very different when your mind has been trained to create and when one has been able to bridge that gap. Once you are tuned to translating a story into an interesting fictional form, it's just a matter of adapting to the craft. That said, what is different is the environment in which you write. A serial has a lot of teamwork but writing a novel is lonely.

Which medium would you prefer the most?
I am greedy. In the sense that I can't choose one over the other. I love working with people and writing for television is very gratifying but I love the way I have managed to balance out my writing career too, though this book happened over a process of two-and-a-half years and was no overnight miracle.

You seem to be very inspired by brands used popularly in the 70s and 80su00a0-- so a two-wheeler is not just a scooter, it's a Bajaj Chetak, a TV is a Weston TV and a watch is an HMT watch...
Back then, we didn't have as many brands as we do today but they proved to be the symbols of having arrived. This has been done to add authenticity as well as to categorise a middle-class existence.

Broken Melodies (HarperCollins;
Rs 299) will be launched today at 6.30 pm at Landmark, Palladium, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel.

Who's who in the Audio-Visual

Avika Gor of Balika Vadhu fame plays protagonist, Niyati, who grows up in a dysfunctional family yet manages to find hope and love in her life.

Anupam Kher plays Paaji, the philandering father and staunch classical musician, who doesn't sublimate the purity of his music with commercialism.

Dimple Kapadia plays Mummy whose life revolves around her two daughters. Mahie Gill plays Nisha, Niyati's elder sister who is forced to play mother to Niyati, thanks to a ten-year age difference. But Nisha dotes on her kid sister even though she has to make difficult choices in life. Kunal Kapoor is the hope and love in Niyati's life.