By Jilawatan

She turned scriptwriter with Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer Anjaana-Anjaani and now Almost Single author Advaita Kala is looking forward to her next film Kahaani which will see Vidya Balan playing the central protagonist.

Kala promises that Kahaani, being directed by Sujoy Ghosh of Aladin fame, will see a completely new avatar of Vidya, who is known for her performance oriented roles in films like Pareenita, Paa and Ishqiya.

The writer says she developed the character keeping Vidya in mind and always knew that the actress will do the role. The film is currently being shot in Kolkata and will release sometime next year.

“It is a very different film. I would say Vidya is the hero of the movie. It is a very difficult role and from the very beginning Sujoy and I knew that Vidya will do it even before approaching her. And true to our belief once we told her the story she agreed immediately,” Kala told PTI.

Though Kala is reluctant to talk about the movie, reports suggest that Vidya plays a pregnant woman who has to fight her way to survive in an alien environment.

Sidharth Anand, the director of Anjaana-Anjaani read Kala’s debut novel and approached her to write the script. “It sort of happened for me. He told me the idea and we developed it into a story about these two young people,” she says.

And before she finished, Jhankar Beats director Sujoy wanted her to write the script of Kahaani.

“We were talking about doing something together and he told me this idea and before I knew the story had gripped me. Somehow this woman’s story became very important to tell,” says Kala.

Aks her about converting her novel Almost Single about a singleton fighting her way to life and persistent questions about marriage, Kala says she was approached for rights but she declined.

“When I started writing it, I did not even know that it will be a novel. I wrote almost single when I had taken a break in my career and was really annoyed with the ways single women are treated. I was approached for a movie adaptation but I think somethings are better left as a novel,” says Kala.

“A lot needs to change in Hindi movie scenario. Female oriented subjects are not given the kind of platform they deserve and I want to stay true to the spirit of the book,” she says.

Even though, Kala is enjoying her stint in scriptwriting, she is not making plans for future. “I am enjoying my time in Bollywood but who knows what life has in offer. It keeps changing. I will continue writing but I don’t want to lock myself in one form of expression,” she adds.

By Jilawatan

Director Sujoy Ghosh has struck gold and has been signed up for a three-film deal by Yashraj films. Ghosh, who had earlier directed films like Jhankar Beats and Home Delivery, is all set to start work on a woman-oriented subject, in which Vidya Balan will play the lead. The movie will hit the floors in the next few months.

“Though Sujoy’s last two films bombed at the box office, Aditya Chopra thought he had a spark in him and signed him on for a three-film deal.

Incidentally, not many directors have stuck on with YRF and after Gadhvi and Kunal Kohli, YRF needed a couple of directors to make films for them regularly. In the last couple of years, their experiments with Victor Acharya (Tashan) and Jugal Hansraj (Pyaar Impossible) have failed miserably. While Vidya Balan has been roped in for the first film, the rest of the cast is yet to be finalised.”