Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; February 19, 2014)

Nine years after penning the acclaimed hit Page 3, for which she won the National Award, Nina Arora scripted Heartless that went with a whimper. Ask her what went wrong and Nina says she is puzzled! However, she insists that though it was a wipe out in its first week, it is still running in a couple of theatres.”I don’t think we failed in getting the message (anesthesia awareness) across, but we didn’t entertain the largest number of people. It got sandwiched between Gunday and Hasee Toh Phasee and had to be pulled out. However, I do not regret it as I enjoyed the working process,” says Nina. But what took her so long to pen another film after Page 3? “After Page 3, which was an insider’s kaleidoscopic experience, I got several offers to write... another Page 3, but I had said whatever I wanted to in that film. I would have loved to work on a feel-good movie for KJo or YRF but they weren’t exactly beating down my door so I wrote for TV instead,” she admits candidly.

In 2010, she got a call from Shekhar Suman to script Heartless that is inspired from the English film Awake. “Initially, I was reluctant because I thought it will be a small film, but Shekhar persisted and told me a short fable about a mother-son relationship, which touched me. He then made me see Awake, but except for the plot about anaesthesia awareness, everything is original,” says Nina, who is already onto her next project, a film on political exposé and a TV show, which will be a contemporary slice of life in the metropolis.