Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; September 22, 2018)

Conceptualising a film is not as easy as one thinks it is. Ask writer Vipul Rawal, a former naval official, who started working on the concept of Batti Gul Meter Chalu back in 2009. The film, which released yesterday, revolves around the issue of electricity theft and the way a common man struggles to find a solution to the problem. If you’re wondering why it took so long in the making, and what drove an ex-defence personnel to craft a film like this, check out the excerpts from our conversation with Vipul...

What drove you to conceptualise a film on electricity theft and a commoner’s battle against it?
The journey began in 2009. A friend of mine, also a social worker, was visiting my house. He showed me an electricity bill, which ran into seven columns before arriving at the final figure, which was faulty. That triggered the writer in me. At that time, my friend was fighting a corporation for faulty electricity charges. I started attending court hearings with him, and during the course of that, I started wondering what a person would really do if he is not happy with the electricity services he’s receiving. I then joined consumer groups with my friend, which aided my research. So, I spent a lot of time between 2009 and 2016, putting the script together.

It was your fifth draft that clicked with the makers, and the film made a decade-long journey before releasing in cinemas. Did you get anxious at any point?
Iqbal was rejected by 17 producers before getting made. It was my first film and I never lost faith. Rustom changed hands several times. It started with Abbas Mustan, went to John Abraham and eventually, Neeraj Pandey made it. I don’t compromise on the subject matter of my films. When I approach producers, I go with a bound 120-page draft, not a concept note. In fact, if my films take less than five years in the making now, I actually start feeling that something is amiss. I sold a script to John Mathew Matthan six years ago and it has still not been made. The basic rule of the game is that you have to be patient. It’s not a 100-metre race that wraps up fast. It’s a marathon that takes long before it draws to a close.

Considering that Batti Gul Meter Chalu was written by you, could you tell us why Sidharth and Garima share the writing credit with you?
I gave the bound script to Prernaa Arora, and Shree Narayan Singh came on board to direct it. While I had set the movie in Mumbai, they felt that moving the narrative to a small town in Uttarakhand would make it more palatable for the audience. Since I got busy with other scripts, Sidharth-Garima were roped in to rewrite the script accordingly. I understand that filmmaking is a director’s medium and the director will bring in his sensibilities and understanding of the subject for sure. So, while they retained my core concept, research and characters, everything else was redone.

As a former navy official, you could lend authenticity to the script of Rustom and the characters you crafted. Where did you find inspiration for Shahid Kapoor’s character in Batti Gul Meter Chalu?
Shahid’s character also emanated from my own experiences. I once battled a company that manufactures alcohol. I bought two bottles of beer and one of them had pieces of glass in it. I demanded compensation and moved court. It was resolved in two months, but in the interim, the company tried every trick in the book to procure the bottle from me. I could decipher their moves and was always one step ahead. I learnt that if you can anticipate what their moves are, you can get what you deserve even from gigantic companies. I also learnt that you shouldn’t trust anything on face value. This experience, coupled with my imagination as a writer, helped me create a grey character for Shahid, which is interesting and has layers.

What do you think the audience will take away from Batti Gul Meter Chalu?
Every time I met someone with the script of this film, they’d dig out a copy of their electricity bill to see whether they were also being fleeced. It triggered a thought. I’ve seen millionaires worrying about faulty electricity bills. The middle class suffers even more. After watching this film, no one will take their electricity bills lightly.