Day 2 of 6th Jagran Film Festival: Penning the future

Anjum Rajabali

Well known scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali had the rapt attention of aspiring and professional scenarists during a master class at the 6th Jagran Film Festival here. While he did not get into the narrative of his journey in the industry, he focused on ways to hone skills required for script writing.

Anjum Rajabali

"There is no particular method to write to write a script. It involves storytelling and storytelling involves you. Therefore, unless the script goes through your feelings, emotions, and how you react to the characters. Unless it bothers and exhilarates you, it is not a good script. Scriptwriting is an encapsulating experience regardless of you writing a comedy, tragedy, family drama, suspense or thriller," says Rajabali.

The writer also discussed the various factors in the scripts of films, be it Sholay (1975) or Dil Chahta Hai (2001), which made them successful. He also showed the film, The Lunch Date by Adam Davidson, and discussed its script.

Interestingly, he also spoke about Prakash Jha's Aarakshan for which he wrote the script and what all went wrong with it - two different subjects, reservation and the business of education. In Rajabali's words, the secret behind every successful scriptwriter is good observation skills and being able to incorporate life experiences into a film's story.