‘Screenwriters Inc.’ brings Bollywood screenwriters into the spotlight, recognising their vital work

Screenwriters Inc., as author Mihir Chitre frankly contends in his introduction, is a collection of interviews conducted during the lockdown with Indian screenwriters for the Hindustan Times. What began as a passion project soon evolved into a series of 33 interviews – together, they read like a three-hour conversation with some of the finest directors and screenwriters of 20th- and 21st-century India.

As I read through the interviews, I gradually became aware of the extent of my own ignorance. While the book contains conversations with many legends of the film industry who are veritable household names, many were also unfamiliar to me. But here’s the rub: if some of the names looked unfamiliar, the films they had worked in (and, to a large extent, birthed) didn’t. What was going on here?

Simply this: all too often, we know the film, we know the “stars” in it, we preview the music before the film is released, and yet remain unaware – or even unconcerned – about the screenwriter(s) driving the film. We’re a culture that has grown up idolising film stars and their various exploits – even our experience of music is influenced by it (how many other countries revere “filmi music” the way we do?). And yet,...

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