If not for filmmaker Sooraj R Barjatya, Renuka Shahane would possibly have given up acting nearly three decades ago. At least, that, she recalls, had been the plan. After playing Pooja in the 1994 blockbuster, Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!, Shahane had almost made up her mind to quit being in front of the camera. She wanted to pursue a filmmaking course at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. "I told Sooraji about my plans. And he said, 'Are you crazy, you just can't leave [acting]'." Barjatya instead suggested that she learn on the job. "He said, 'Look at me, I don't have technical training. If you get a good team [to work with you], and have a vision and story to tell, nothing should stop you.' That seemed to make a lot of sense, because I was getting a lot of [acting] offers at that time," recounts Shahane, when we speak to her days ahead of the release of her Hindi directorial debut on Netflix, Tribhanga—Tedhi Medhi Crazy.

Starring Kajol, Tanvi Azmi, and Mithila Palkar, it's a dream that took an eternity to realise, but patience has been second nature to her. "I have always been passionate about direction. I began by assisting Dr Vijaya Mehta in the serial Lifeline [it aired on Doordarshan]. I was the fourth assistant there. Vijayabai was like an institution. She was so thorough and such a great guru to have. At that point, I thought I am going to do this forever. After my MA in Psychology, I was planning to do a PhD and then go to film school. Basically, I wanted to take the proper route and get trained. But life happened, and I became a professional actor."

She, however, kept waiting for an opportunity to come to her. In the late 1990s, she directed an episode for Zee Television's Rishtey, a drama series that focused on human relationships. "I took a sabbatical when my kids were born. At that time, it was my husband [Ashutosh Rana], who reminded me of my dream. He said, 'Listen you have some time at home, so why don't you work on a screenplay?'" Shahane turned homewards for inspiration, directing the Marathi film Rita (2009), based on her mother, veteran writer-translator Shanta Gokhale's book, Rita Welingkar. "I absolutely loved that novel, and because it was my mom's work, I didn't have to worry with permissions," she laughs. "When the screenplay turned out well, mom said, 'You have a writer in you'."

It's around that time that the two worlds of writing and direction collided. This is the first time that Shahane is bringing an original story of hers to life, and it hasn't come easy. "These characters first formed in my head in 2013, when I had participated in Mumbai Mantra's Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab. Though, I had done a film, I had wanted some mentoring, in order to understand how stories are constructed," she says.

The idea for the plot, Shahane says, had come to her many years ago, when she was shooting for the show, Surabhi (1990-2001) with Siddharth Kak. "I had met a woman who was recently married. She told me that she was finally happy to be free from the clutches of her mother, whom she hated. I was stunned by the fact. I have such an excellent relationship with mine; she is my core. That was really the starting point. I wanted to write about women, who are not looking for men to marry, who are not somebody's wives. It was also about the choices they made, how those choices passed down from generation to generation. That is at the crux of the story."

When an estranged mother (Azmi) slips into coma, her daughter played by Kajol, a self-made single mom grapples with regret and resentment, while reflecting on their strained relationship.

The script, she says, was mentored at the lab with writers like Bill Wheeler, Anjum Rajabali and Asif Kapadia giving her direction and suggestions. But, it took another three years to develop it, before director Siddharth Malhotra agreed to produce it along with Ajay Devgn.

During this time, it was Gokhale, who was her sounding board. "It's just so nice to have her around. Writing can be a very lonely process, and you require a support system that truly understands what you go through, and mom understands that beautifully. She has also written scripts. There are these tricks of the trade that she shares with me, or some perspective that she comes up with, which helps break the writer's block that I experience very often," says Shahane, adding, "I must admit that I am not a prolific writer. If it flows, it really flows. Sometimes, I am interrupted by everyday duties, and there can be months, when I am absolutely blank in the head. That's when my mother's tricks help me."

Gokhale, she says, is not just a gifted storyteller, but also her biggest inspiration. "I think mom's writing and thought process has influenced me a lot. She is such a committed writer, and there is so much that I need to learn from her—the discipline, the craft. And these you cannot just pass down. But, whenever she reads my writing, she says that I have a quirkiness, which she would love to have in her own. That, I think, is a big compliment."

Shahane now hopes to continue writing and direction, even more seriously. "Everyone in my team is telling me that I better not take another 10 years to make the next film," she says, breaking into giggles. "To be honest, I really like the process of writing. I am not fond of being in the public eye. That's a journey that I am very uncomfortable with. Although, I am on social media, and I am a very social person, I love my solitude.

Writing allows me that," she says. "I might, though, look out for scripts by other writers [that I can direct], because writing for me is very slow. I am also overcritical about my work. So, if it takes time, it does."

The actor-director on her obsession with human nature and how it inspired her script about three women across generations
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 9, 2016)

When Renuka Shahane directed her first film Rita (2009), which was adapted from her writer and journalist mother Shanta Gokhale’s book Rita Welinker, she thought she’d “direct a film every two years”. That, however, did not happen. Instead, Shahane had to wait seven years for her next opportunity. Now, the script for her female-centric drama, Tribhanga, has been selected for NFDC’s Film Bazaar for production collaborations with makers across the globe.

Speaking of her upcoming project, she reflects on its evolution. “When I first wrote it, it was just to check if my writing skills had gotten rusted,” she says with her trademark smile. To put her work to test, she submitted it to the Sundance Mumbai Mantra Script Lab in 2013. “When I went to the script lab, I had no idea about the grammar of scriptwriting. My mentor, Malia Scotch Marmo (writer of Steven Spielberg’s Hook, 1991) was happy with my characterisation but felt that I needed to learn the basics of screenplay writing, especially how the story needs to be told.” Shahane also credits Marmo for introducing her to “the universality of the subject”. “She told me that people will respond if the story was told with conviction.”

Tribhanga is about three women from different generations and is inspired by the asymmetric Odissi pose, which has breaks in three places — neck, waist and knees — “and yet it is a sensual form”. “The three characters (in Tribhanga) are like the three breaks and yet they are all joined,” she says of the story which is partly in English (70 percent) and Marathi (30 percent). “The breakup is because that is how we speak.”

Shahane feels this is a great time for Marathi cinema. “You can really delve into the story and experiment with form. The Marathi cinema-goers have a liberal taste due their exposure to theatre and reading Marathi literature,” she adds. But despite this renaissance in regional cinema, Shahane reckons that there are still many challenges for a filmmaker today. “A disadvantage is the budget. This just means certain subjects are difficult to pitch or sell. Also, while the audience hasn’t increased over the years, the remuneration of stars has.” She holds one-time producers responsible for the whopping fees that actors charge. “They put in a lot of money to work with their favourite stars, often paying them more than what they’d make otherwise, and then the stars expect the same amount every time,” says Shahne who has a tentative cast on paper and shares that “it is the first thing a producer asks about a project”. “I’d like Rekhaji to play Anuradha,” she says of the character in her script who is a dancer and actress and shares a dysfunctional relationship with her mother Nayantara, who is in a coma.

The actress-turned-filmmaker’s desire to work behind the camera manifested early and she assisted Vijaya Mehta in the TV series Lifeline (1988) and even directed an episode for Zee TV’s Rishtey (1998). “I’d turn up early on the sets of Hum Aapke Hain Koun to understand how Sooraj-ji (Barjatya) would plan the day’s breakdown with his assistants. When I told him that I wanted to direct and planned to join FTII to learn the craft, he told me, ‘Ma’am, I don’t know the magnification of lenses, but there is a competent DOP for that. And if you are able to translate your vision to your team, you can direct’.” But her plans of wielding the megaphone were stalled after her marriage to actor Ashutosh Rana. “I had worked in TV for so long I needed a break and when I had kids (Shoryaman in 2002, Satyendra in 2004), I wanted to be there for them. We live in a nuclear family and I didn’t want my kids to be raised by maids,” she says, adding that her husband insisted she continue with the profession and even urged her to write. “Ranaji was the first to suggest that I should write and direct,” she says, adding, “And in 2004, after Shwaas released, a lot of exciting things were happening in Marathi cinema. I wanted work on a subject which dealt with human relationships as my interest lies in human nature and the various possibilities in interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.” In 2006, Shahane wrote her first screenplay centered on child abuse. While it received a nod from husband and mother, it still remains on paper. “I will make that film one day for sure,” she smiles.