Once upon a star: A Bollywood scandal

Born and brought up in Delhi, Gajra relocated to Mumbai after her marriage and has loved her 15-year-long journey as a writer. So when did she find her penchant for Bollywood in her writings? She answers, “I realised around two years ago that I wanted to write a novel that was set in Bollywood.

I felt very strongly that I wanted to see the human faces behind the beauty, glitz and glamour of the stars. After doing some scripts for non-fiction shows like Bharat ki Khoj and Apradhi Kaun, I started my fiction scriptwriting with Mahesh Bhatt as a script associate on a film Ye Zindagi Ka Safar directed by Tanuja Chandra. My television break came from his wife Soni Razdan, who wanted to make a sensitive TV serial and chose my story Hamare Tumhare.”

An award-winning writer, Gajra got a great response for Balika Vadhu, and says she owes her success to “freshness of the concept, consistency of purpose, sincere performances and sensitive execution of the script”.

Talking about Once Upon a Star, and how different it is from her first book, Gajra reveals, “Both the books deal with crumbling marriages and their effect on children. But because the settings are very different, the stories shape up differently. Broken Melodies is set in Delhi of the ’70s in a classical musician’s family. Once Upon a Star is set in Bollywood in current times.

It’s interesting to play the guessing game which part of which character resembles whose life in Bollywood. There is much unrest in Vardaan, home to one of the most important film families. Raj, the superstar, has decided to leave his wife Simran for the reigning queen of Bollywood, Sia. Simran, former actress but homebody now, is out of shape and down in the dumps.

Her in-laws dote on her but can’t seem to dissuade their son. Besides, their only daughter, Ashima, has walked out of an unhappy marriage and returned home to announce she wants to be an actor. They have their hands full, and in the midst of all this, Raj and Simran’s children suffer as news of their father’s alleged affair trickles in relentlessly.”

Gajra’s new novel is an insider’s view of the world of cinema and the many faces of an industry where fame is fleeting and everything is as real as it is dramatic. She says, “I sincerely love writing and get inspired by real people, events, news items and social trends. I write every single day. Between my books and two to three shows, I write at least eight hours a day, roughly about thrice a week, when I am at home. On days when there are channel meetings, or writing team meetings, for the same amount of time away from home, I can only put in about three hours.”