Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao are currently gearing up for the release of their upcoming film Laapataa Ladies. Starring Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Shrivastav, and Ravi Kishan in the lead roles, the movie follows the journey of a man in search for his wife who gets swapped with another bride during the trip. While the fans are excited to finally watch the film in theatres from March 1, 2024, we sat down with the screenplay and dialogue writer of the film Sneha Desai, who has also worked on the scripts of shows like Pushpa Impossible and Wagle Ki Duniya, to know more about her experience of working on the film.
1. How did you come up with a plot like Laapataa Ladies?
The plot actually belongs to Biplab Goswami, who is the story writer of Laapataa Ladies. He had written the story and entered it for the Cinestaan competition, where Aamir sir happened to be on the jury. He loved the story so much that he bought the rights to it and later offered it to me to develop the screenplay and the dialogues and that is how Lapaataa Ladies came to be.
2. How was your journey of working with Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao for Laapataa Ladies?
They have been the most generous mentors that a newcomer like me could have asked for. They walk a beautiful tight rope between holding your hand and giving you a free reign about how you should be writing the script. They ask you just the right poignant question, steer you in the right direction and make available every resource that a writer would want. I’ve had the most pleasant learning experience from them.
3. Having worked on the script during the COVID-19 pandemic, what all challenges did you and the team face?
The most important challenge that we faced was that because we were functioning during a lockdown, most of our meetings had to be online. A lot of zoom calls took place, a lot of writing, re-writing, tweaking happened through computer communication. When once in a while we were in a balloon or all of us were RT-PCR negative, we could all gather and have face-to-face meetings and talks. Most of the writing, generally, happens in isolation, it wasn’t too much of a problem as it took me a good month and a half to finish the script. It was only then that I narrated it to them and then we sat on the fine tuning of it.
The other challenge that we faced was of course the dialect of the heartland. I’m an absolute Gujarati born and brought up in Mumbai, so figuring out the very minute rituals, minute perspectives of the heartland was a little difficult. That‘s where the team came to our rescue. A lot of brainstorming happened, we had a lot of dialect coaches, dialect consultants. The additional dialogue writer Divyanidhi Sharma, came into the picture. We got a beautiful wash on the whole script.
4. It is very important to portray female characters with strong mindset and opinions where hero-centric movies have been showcased a lo, what is your thought process about the same?
We did not set out to raise any pertinent issue on the face of it. Since Kiran is also a wonderful woman in her own right. I also believe that women should have an identity. We did not want to write women characters that were weak or meek in any way. Even if they belong to the villages or the heartland, we wanted to give them enough arc, enough power and enough growth in their characters to see that at the end of the film they turn out to be better than what they already were.
5. Any anecdote you would like to share while working with the cast of the movie
A lot of readings, workshops happened and the cast is a relatively new cast. Kiran did a lot of workshops with them. Romil, who is our casting director, brought out these beautiful gems from various places in India and the casting of Laapataa Ladies is, I think, one of the strongest points of the film. Workshops with the artists, funny lines, the give and takes, understanding of their characters were some of the finest experiences.
6. You have had a wonderful journey of working in theatre, television and film, can you share a little about your experience
I predominantly was an actress. I have clocked more than 2200 shows in Gujarati theatre. After I had my son, I chose to take a small sabbatical from acting and start writing plays. Luckily, the play started doing very well and I developed a niche audience for the kind of substance that I was churning out. That is how, as a natural progression television serials were offered to me and from television serials it was a natural progression getting into films.
I would definitely give a lot of credit to my theatre writing and my training in theatre for where I’m today. It has offered me a great training ground and for the numbers of hours I have written for television, because we are churning out an episode every single day for daily soaps. It gives you such a great riyaaz, if you can call it that that discipline is really solid. You have this habit of sitting on the desk and clocking out your pages that has really helped me.
7. Any filmmakers and actresses you would like to work with
The world is an oyster. I mean everybody comes with their own plus’ and minus’. The amount of learning I had with this particular film will only be enriched. A writer is but a sum of experiences that you have had in your life. I’m waiting for some wonderful scripts and some wonderful makers to just help me broaden my horizon.
8. Any message you would like to give the audience before watching the movie
Laapataa Ladies is an absolute fun ride. It will enthral you, it will tickle your funny bone, it will make you shed a tear or two, it will make you reflect for a few minutes after you come out of the theatre. It will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, all I want is for you to go to the theatres and enjoy. Cinemas need our patronage more than ever before and do us a favour and flock to the movie theatres.
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