At 58, Indian filmmaker and script writer Vikram Singh has added another feather to his hat, by virtue of a ‘happy accident’. He has just made his debut as a novelist with Sinema: The Bollywood Bungle of Andy Duggal. The character is a third-generation producer who was once part of the industry’s elite, but is now a washed up man trying to get his mojo back.
The 360-page book is an insider’s take on Bollywood — India’s glittery cinema industry based out of Mumbai — without getting either too preachy or sycophantic about the industry where he has worked in excess of 30 years.
He recently sat down with Connected to India’s Sudipto Maity for an exclusive chat where he spoke about his new book.
Vikram, who grew up all over India, owing to his father’s job in the Army, says the family “didn’t have one place we could call home”.
“I belong everywhere and I don’t belong anywhere, there is that ability to sort of step back a little bit and look at things from an outsider’s point of view,” he says, which also played an important part while writing this book, as he was able to poke fun at his own industry without sounding too moralistic himself. “I did not set out to write a good guy or a bad guy, but a relatable person,” he says.
Vikram says that he started writing Andy’s story with the thought of making a web series, but ended up writing a novel instead. “This story started out in my mind as a web series, and when I started looking at the notes, I said to myself ‘Arey, ye toh novel banta hai’, there’s a lot more work that I’ve already put in. So, then I started writing a novel.”
“It’s never been a structured approached to getting there (writing novel). Again, I’ve got here purely by accident,” he says. This isn’t the only ‘happy accident’ that Vikram has encountered in his life. He has had a few already. Back as a 20-something man, he started working in the yarn business while doing theatre to keep up with his artistic cravings.
He says there was someone in his theatre group who worked in the advertising industry and was leaving the job. However, the only way the person could leave was if they could get a replacement for themselves. “I said if there’s good money, I’ll do it,” says Vikram, which set the ball rolling in his journey as an advertisement filmmaker and later as a feature filmmaker, which Vikram accomplished with Oye Mamu, which was made in the 2010s and finally released in 2021.
When asked about the name of his book, which ditches the usual C for an S, he says, “It’s actually a clever twist on the word cinema. A lot of the story is about the shady dealings within the industry and we do get into the sleazy underbelly of the industry, a little bit. So, it’s a title that worked well. The clever twist sort of fit well with this book.”
Vikram, who has written screenplays and scripts for films, also explained the differences between writing for a movie and novel. “In screenplays, you have this show, but don’t tell,” he says, adding that it was easier for him to write the novel after having the experience of writing in a medium that constantly requires a filter. He says that in scripts and screenplays, the writer always thinks if something is filmable while penning it down. “With the novel, I could expand a little bit. I didn’t need to filter every thought before putting it down,” Vikram adds.
Asked if he chose Bollywood as a subject for his first novel due to his ‘insider’ status and knowledge about the industry, Vikram affirms, but says he isn’t aware of any Andy Duggal within Bollywood. “Andy Duggal is a concept,” Vikram says, adding, “He’s the favourite punching bag for just about everybody.”
Vikram says Andy Duggal isn’t the archetype of a producer, but is “essentially every successful person in the film business or somebody who comes from a place of privilege”.
“We all have privileges, but anybody who has a little bit more privilege than you is Andy Duggal, really,” he says. Vikram, however, maintains, “I don’t know anybody specifically like Andy Duggal.”
Vikram says now that the novel is out, a web series is in the pipeline. But he hasn’t finalised anything yet, not even the actors who are going to portray the characters he has created. Asked if he had anyone specific in mind while creating the characters, he says, “When you’re writing, if you start putting faces, then you’re limiting your characters.”
“Even now I don’t have a face or persona that I’ll say X or Y is Andy for me. I don’t want to do that because it’s too nascent right now.”
Even though a fiction, a book about Bollywood by an insider, is likely to rattle many, but Vikram says he hasn’t heard anything bad so far. “The reactions have been fairly good. I have got a few reviews and they were good.”
He says that even though his book contains a degree of truth, it wasn’t targeted at anybody, which likely explains why other industry insiders have endorsed the literature.
For now, Vikram is busy working on his second novel, which he says deals with a different subject. Sinema: The Bollywood Bungle of Andy Duggal is available for purchase on various websites, including Amazon. Published by Speaking Tiger, the book is priced at around Rs 350 (USD 4.17).
