Did you know that Hindi film screenwriter Shama Zaidi, who has written the screenplay for 15 films and series, including Garm Hava, Umrao Jaan, Mandi and Suraj ka Satvan Ghoda, studied at the Slade School of Art, London, and was apprentice at the Berliner Ensemble? Her very first screenplay, Garm Hava  (Scorching Winds, 1974), the landmark Partition drama, co-written with Kaifi Azmi, was all guns blazing—it was India’s entry for the Oscars; screened at the Cannes Film Festival; won the National Award/ Nargis Dutt Award for Best Film on National Integration and Filmfare Award for best writing. Zaidi also introduced Satyajit Ray to the idea of a colour palette in films while he was making Shatranj ke Khiladi. Anubha Yadav’s absolutely fascinating book Scripting Bollywood: Candid Conversations with Women who write Hindi Cinema, teems with such insights. Published by Women Unlimited (an associate of Kali for Women, R675), it is a rich treasure trove for both lay people and academics.

The book is a must-read for anyone remotely interested in Bollywood, and Indian cinema, even though it focuses on women screenwriters of  Bollywood/Hindi cinema, whose work spans about 50 years. It is packed with rich Bollywood film history, insightful conversations, observations on the craft of screenwriting, delicious anecdotes, some of which are also funny, big bonus for me. You know it is a fab book when the page margins are covered with my excited pencil notes, exclamations and hearts. And yes, I’m not at all surprised, it shows us—this may or may not have been intended—how backward Bollywood is today, compared to what some women creators had achieved earlier. Altogether, women screenwriters write less than 10 per cent of Bollywood films released annually, according to Yadav.