For Nayanika Mahtani, who lately co-wrote the story for Amazon Prime’s biopic Shakuntala Devi, the script is as a lot a few world-well-known mathematical genius because it is a few lady making an attempt to steadiness her profession aspirations with her need to be an excellent mom. And in that sense, Nayanika relates to it completely.
Born and raised throughout India, largely Kolkata, Nayanika did her MBA at IIM Bangalore and started her profession as an funding banker. After a couple of years in Africa, the place she adopted her coronary heart to be a author, she now lives in London with her husband and two daughters, and has authored two youngsters’s books and a novel.
In this unique interview, Nayanika talks to us amongst different issues about her personal profession journey, Shakuntala Devi’s life as an inspiration for women and dealing with an all-women crew.
Tell us concerning the means of analysis that you just used for writing the screenplay for Shakuntala Devi.
Apart from the analysis that was achieved from publicly out there materials, our principal collaborator was Shakuntala Devi’s daughter, Anupama Banerji. My co-writer Anu Menon (who has additionally directed the movie) and I had intensive conferences with Anupama because the script took form. It was what we discovered in the middle of these conferences that made us determine to inform the story by way of the prism of a mom-daughter relationship.
My preliminary impression of Shakuntala Devi was of her being this ‘mathemagician’ and ‘human computer’. However, after assembly her daughter, we bought to know her not simply as a celebrated math prodigy however as an individual – and what we discovered made her story much more compelling, relatable and inspirational.
What I used to be actually drawn to, not simply as a storyteller but in addition as a daughter and a mom, was the truth that Anupama’s intent was not to glorify her mom however to inform an genuine story of her life, with out airbrushing both her mom’s flaws or her personal.
And what a life it was. For right here was a girl who unapologetically lived life on her phrases, who regardless of having grown up in adversarial circumstances by no means performed the sufferer, who made essentially the most of her expertise and have become a world-famend title, who needed to have all of it and noticed nothing improper in wanting a life exterior of being a mom, who owned her flaws, and who was a feminist with out fanfare, far forward of her time.
What additionally made the story and screenplay a lot enjoyable to write was that she had a depraved sense of humour – as is evident even from a number of the movies of her maths reveals – and he or she had an insatiable urge for food for all times. She was an writer (of genres as diversified as homicide mysteries, maths puzzles, homosexuality and cooking) and an astrologer.
She dabbled in politics, beloved travelling, studying new languages and assembly new folks. She was keen about music and dance. She was something however the stereotypical math genius.
The movie has a strong message about motherhood. How do you’re feeling Shakuntala Devi’s life and struggles with respect to this are related for women right this moment?
I believe these struggles are nonetheless very related. Even right this moment, many people battle to steadiness the calls for of motherhood and our careers – and this was a part of the explanation we felt this story wanted to be instructed. There is such an enormous societal expectation for moms to be these paragons of perfection for his or her households, typically at the price of their very own desires.
Mothers who put themselves or their aspirations or careers forward of what their household needs are invariably branded egocentric. Most portrayals of moms in Hindi cinema perpetuate these societal expectations – putting a mom on an altar and making motherhood synonymous with sacrifice. It appears an unfair burden for women to carry.
In my profession as an funding banker, I’ve encountered the “boys’ club” on a number of events, in refined and overt methods. I’m positive most women have encountered it in some form or type. I can think about how laborious it will need to have been for Shakuntala Devi 70 years in the past, when she launched into her profession within the west; an Indian lady within the then very white-male-dominated area of arithmetic. But she didn’t let that cease her. In reality, she by no means let her gender or ethnicity outline how she lived her life. She simply went forward, lived it and confirmed the best way, and did so with élan.
I hope this story will assist a variety of us completely imperfect women breathe simpler. I believe many people have felt guilt-tripped for much too lengthy for not being ‘enough’ or doing sufficient – or then for chasing our desires and wanting an excessive amount of. Which is additionally why Shakuntala’s Devi’s story is one which I’ll at all times treasure being related with.
What was it like working with an all-women crew for the movie?
Our forged and crew may properly be a poster for lady-energy. The exceptionally proficient Vidya Balan brings Shakuntala Devi to life as nobody else may. The beautiful Sanya Malhotra performs the position of Anupama, and it is explosive to watch Vidya and her on display collectively.
Anu Menon is our director, Anu and I’ve written the story and screenplay, Ishita Moitra has written the dialogues, Keiko Nakahara is our DoP, Niharika Bhasin Khan is our costume designer, Antara Lahiri is our editor, Meenal Agarwal and Vintee Bansal are our manufacturing designers and Shikhaa Arif Sharma and Raedita Tandan our producers.
It was an unimaginable expertise working with this phenomenal staff – maybe this has to do with the truth that they have been fabulous at what they did and a pleasure to work with – and never simply because they have been women. Also, having Vidya round brings such positivity and pleased power to the set – and I believe that holds true for any set she is on, all-women or in any other case!
Of course, there have been some great males too – our producer Vikram Malhotra, alongside with Jisshu Sengupta and Amit Sadh who’re completely outstanding at taking part in Shakuntala Devi’s husband and son-in-regulation respectively.
From writing youngsters’s books to the screenplay of a mainstream Bollywood movie – how did that occur?
I’ve at all times believed that tales select their tellers and their timing. When I used to be about six years previous, Shakuntala Devi got here to my faculty to exhibit her distinctive mathematical expertise. I clearly keep in mind that efficiency – she appeared like a magician pulling numbers out of a hat, to produce solutions to ridiculously difficult questions. I vividly recall how she had us in splits when she instructed off our headmistress for her maths not being up to the mark. Both she and her present have stayed with me through the years.
When I grew to become an writer, her story was one which I actually needed to inform – just because I assumed it might be refreshing to inform a narrative the place the hero is an Indian lady born within the 1920s who loves numbers and evokes hundreds of thousands.
As it occurred, my director pal Anu Menon was additionally all for doing a movie on her. We found that Shakuntala Devi’s daughter additionally occurred to reside in London the place Anu and I have been primarily based, and that she was trying to inform her mom’s story. It was as if the celebs had aligned – to have all three of us, all in the identical metropolis, all trying to inform Shakuntala Devi’s story on the similar time.
After a profession in funding banking, how did you determine to change into a storyteller?
It occurred in a most unplanned method. After IIM, I joined ANZ Grindlays Bank after which JP Morgan Chase. Many years later, whereas posted in Africa, I occurred to audition for a writing project for Sesame Workshop – and bought chosen. I used to be requested to create content material for the outreach programme of Sesame Street’s India chapter (Galli Galli Sim Sim) for youngsters who didn’t have entry to tv.
I realised that I beloved writing – bought into copywriting from there on, which suited me on condition that my youngsters have been toddlers and I may work out of house. Before I knew it, it was 2015 and my first ebook, Ambushed, was revealed by Penguin Random House – which was past my wildest desires. Then two extra books and a movie script adopted.
Who are a few of your contemporaries that you just admire?
I want I may write and even suppose like Shonda Rhimes or Phoebe Waller-Bridge. There are so many wonderful screenwriters in Hindi cinema too – I massively admire Atika Chohan, Varun Grover, Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Alankrita Shrivastava and lots of others – and naturally, I owe a particular thanks to Ishita Moitra who wrote the dialogues for Shakuntala Devi and was so warmly supportive of a newcomer like me.
Your newest ebook, Across the Line (Penguin, 2019), is rooted within the Partition of the subcontinent. Tell us extra about it.
I truthfully consider that tales select us. For Across the Line, the seed was an unstated dialog with my grandfather, once I was about ten years previous; a dialog I want I had had however didn’t discover the phrases for on the time. My grandparents, like hundreds of thousands of others, have been rendered refugees within the aftermath of the Partition. Yet, they by no means spoke about this cataclysmic upheaval of their lives. Except for as soon as – however, sadly, that dialog remained unfinished. I felt the silence of what was left unsaid devour me – till the silence was deafening. I had to revisit these unstated phrases – and the one approach I knew how was to write.
The ebook has two intercutting storylines – one set in 1947 and the opposite within the current. My intent in penning this story was not to bask in a blame recreation, however to give our children a window into the occasions that led to the Partition and what adopted – and to discover what we may maybe take away from it in right this moment’s tumultuous instances. My hope was that this ebook would ultimately assist to construct bridges in a world that appears bent on constructing partitions.
Across the Line has made it to the Honour List of the celebrated South Asia Book Awards and acquired some very encouraging accolades from main voices on either side of the border, together with Sachin Tendulkar, Vidya Balan and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Academy award successful filmmaker from Pakistan).
Which are a few of your favorite movies.
Some time again, as a Facebook problem, I did a fast checklist of movies that struck a chord with me – and fairly coincidentally, they have been all movies by women administrators and/or writers: 36 Chowringhee Lane, The Namesake, Persepolis, Lady Bird, Capernaum, Monsoon Wedding, Gully Boy, A Death within the Gunj.
First revealed in eShe journal