Anuja Chauhan on Netflix film Murder Mubarak, based on Club You to Death: 'It's looking lovely'

Pankaj Tripathi in Murder Mubarak (Screen grab / YouTube / Netflix India)

It seems like author Anuja Chauhan wrote ACP Bhavani Singh, a mild-mannered detective, keeping actor Pankaj Tripathi in mind. Her book Club You to Death, which marked the debut of the detective, was released in 2021 and the movie based on the book, Murder Mubarak, is slated for release on Netflix on March 15.

Under the direction of Homi Adajania, the cinematic tableau unfolds with a star-studded cast, featuring Sara Ali Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Vijay Varma, Suhail Nayyar, and Tisca Chopra. The minute-long teaser for the film, already creating a buzz, has Tripathi donning the hat of detective ACP Bhavani Singh, introducing the suspects in a murder within the fictional world of the Delhi Turf Club. Murder Mubarak promises to retain Chauhan’s preferred blend of crime, romance, comedy and social commentary.

The literary-to-cinematic journey is not unfamiliar to Chauhan, with Murder Mubarak being her sixth book to be embraced by the silver screen, its rights being bought by Maddock Films. Her first book, The Zoya Factor (2008), was bought first by Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment and then by Walkwater/Adlabs. Battle for Bittora was bought by Saregama and they passed it on to Anil Kapoor Film Company - this film is slated to release this year. Those Pricey Thakur Girls (and its sequel, The House that BJ Built) was first produced by the Zee network and then by Hotstar. Baaz was first bought by Yash Raj Films and is now with Dharma.

Chauhan says about the Maddock Films deal: “The Murder Mubarak experience has definitely been the smoothest so far. They contacted me literally the day after the book trailer came out (February 2021) and they were very clear, once they had read it, that they wanted to make it. And the film's out in less than three years, and it's looking lovely. I'm so happy.”

Readers familiar with Chauhan’s books will know that The Zoya Factor was a popular, out-and-out romance but the film, starring Sonam Kapoor, didn’t do well at the box office. It was followed by Battle for Bittora, another love story but its cinematic version has still not released. Incidentally, its rights were the first to be sold. Chauhan says she has “absolutely no idea” what’s happening with the film. “It was one of the earliest contracts I signed, and I did not have any experience in what to watch out for or what small print to read. In fact, it was after the Bittora experience that I got myself an excellent lawyer, Raddhika Singh at Aletheiaa Legal, to handle all my contracts.”

After five rom-coms and during the Covid19 lockdown, Chauhan decided to switch genres. A self-professed fan of Agatha Christie, she decided to venture away from romance considering the dystopian news pouring in at that time. Club You to Death takes readers inside Delhi Turf Club, which is set to hold an election for its president but things unravel after the discovery of a dead body.

Anuja Chauhan

With Murder Mubarak streaming on the OTT platform, a wider audience will be introduced to Chauhan’s fictional world which has now got a wider ark. She talks of her expectations. “Of course, the dream is that people all over the world will enjoy the film, like ACP Bhavani Singh and demand a sequel right away!”

But the process of adapting a book into a film is fraught with artistic tensions. How much creative liberties can a film take? Screenwriters Suprotim Sengupt and Ghazal Dhaliwal had shared two drafts of their screenplay with Chauhan and set up an exclusive screening for her last October to watch a work-in-progress edit. She shared her feedback with producers Sharada Kardi and Dinesh Vijan of Maddock Films. But as the author, she has minimized the ‘involvement’ in the process of making the film.

“Unlike a book, which is entirely the writer's vision, a film is the director's vision, so me hanging around whining about how what they're doing isn't 'by the book' will be nothing but nuisance value. So when film offers come, I pick carefully, choose people I trust, and then respectfully leave them alone to do the thing they're good at,” Chauhan says.

If you struggle with the choice of whether to read the book first or watch the movie first, here's how Chauhan looks at it. Calling Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women as one of the best adaptations, she discloses her bias—the initial encounter with a story, unadulterated by expectations, often shapes preferences. “If I read the book first, I generally like it much more than the movie. And if I happen to see a movie first, and then go looking for the book, I generally like the movie more.”

Chauhan lives on the outskirts of Bengaluru and prefers sitting in her garden and writing her books, answerable to no one, “except my readers”. That’s why, in spite of selling the rights of six books, she doesn’t want to be a movie producer.

“I did consider it, though.”

The garden won.