The journey of P Jaya Kumar, story writer for Sarkar 3 , from a small village to a big Bollywood writing debut is a fascinating one. We caught up with the 25 year old, who fits the bill of the rebel who was discovered by another rebel, Ram Gopal Varma himself.
Tell us about your journey so far.
I hail from a village called Railway Koduru of Kadapa district. From studying in a government Telugu medium school to meeting Amitabh Bachchan, leave alone penning his character, feels surreal. I am a Mechanical Engineer and my voracious reading and researching habits sparked in me an inquisitiveness that pushed me to explore other fields. Despite an opportunity to go to the IITs and IIMs to pursue higher studies, I had chosen to enrol for a Masters in Sociology as well as a Masters in Arts and Aesthetics from JNU Delhi, which I later dropped out of, after getting a call from Ram Gopal Varma. There have been ups and downs along the way and long nights sketching and shaping ideas and then scratching them and then starting all over again. But, all’s well that ends well.
You are one of the youngest south Indian writers to debut through a Hindi film. How did you get the opportunity?
I was too lazy to turn in optional term papers before the deadlines. To motivate myself, I based all those papers on Ram Gopal Varma’s previous work — a subject I am completely thorough with. I sent copies of the same to him as well, out of impulse. Then the unthinkable happened. I received a phone call from him a couple of days later inviting me to Hyderabad. I was so excited I rushed to the railway station and picked up a general compartment ticket from Delhi to Hyderabad. About 38 hours later, I was sitting in a five star hotel discussing films with “the RGV”. I was star-struck. Two hours into the meeting, RGV started tossing ideas at me as he wanted me to develop a few of those. That part of my life was pure joy, because here he was, ready to pay me for something that I would do for free and give my right arm for — developing a story for him.
Was that the game changer and what did you do with those ideas?
I got to work immediately. After I narrated the first draft, he asked if I thought everyone in the industry was dumb. I didn’t respond. The script was so audacious, he said, that one can come up with something so impressive, only if he thought everyone in the industry was really dumb. While I still didn’t know how to respond, he continued his quirky style of complimenting by saying I had screwed with his mind with whatever I gave him. That made me bold enough to say, I’d have to kill him if he doesn’t eventually make what he claims he loved so much. That is when he paid the ultimate compliment — he will start the project soon and even if 25% justice could be done to the script, it will make for a special film. I was on Cloud 9. Now if I hear that someone in Amsterdam is watching a movie written by me, it is all thanks to RGV.
How has the experience of working with RGV been?
I am not an industry guy. I’ve worked as a creative consultant-cum-writer for many of his projects which are yet to materialise. My work, thankfully, involves many an interaction with him. He believes that to truly understand the nature of any art, one has to think beyond established frameworks, shed clichéd patterns and recognise the power of an expression and exercise the freedom to express. He is an intense person beyond the traditional benchmarks and his vision is about the very world which fights him, as he aims to present one man’s values pitted against the values of the regressive masses.
How did you arrive at Amitabh Bachchan’s character?
My dad has been the biggest influence. Some of the scenes from the movie, like one where Sarkar gets a proposal from an antagonist to kill his own grandson, have directly been taken from my own life. The nepotist emotion stemmed from my own feelings towards my uncle, and I tried to feed from that and that has reaped rewards as people shower me with compliments about the climax. My uncle tried to drive a wedge between my dad and me, resulting in our not talking for months. Later, my dad made sure my uncle was humiliated and a big chunk from that family feud has found its way into the story.
What word of advice do you have for writers looking for opportunities?
I would say there is demand for stories and writers should strive to participate in the market while retaining their idealistic spirit. Some value the director’s mentorship and some look for good value for their product. The value must be defined even if it seems like Sisyphus’ struggle and like RGV says, only writers and philosophers are the prime builders of society. Directors orchestrate the ideas but writers have the authority and should act that way; otherwise they would be reducing the value of their product.
