Pathaan writer Shridhar Raghavan: Few people are as charming or funny as Shah Rukh Khan. We utilised those strengths

Shridhar Raghavan

ALSO READ: When Pathaan star John Abraham called this actor to polish his Hindi for the Shah Rukh Khan blockbuster

Aditya Chopra has appointed Raghavan as the mentor writer for YRF’s Spy Universe series of films that brings together characters from Salman Khan’s Tiger Series and War. Plotlines from these films are woven into Pathaan, which marks the official announcement of the Spy Universe. Next in line is Tiger 3, also written by Raghavan.

Raghavan’s screenplay for Pathaan pits the titular Indian spy hero (Khan) against rogue Indian spy-turned-freelance terrorist Jim (Abraham). Mixed in the fray is Pakistani spy Rubai (Deepika Padukone) who might be working with or against Pathaan. The 146-minute film consists of clever twists amidst genre staples and references to Shah Rukh Khan’s on-screen and off-screen persona, in addition to an earth-shaking cameo by Salman Khan, playing Tiger.

Raghavan has occasionally taught screenwriting at the Film and Television Institute of India and Whistling Woods International. He mentors young writers and shares advice such as switching off the internet while writing and only switching it on for quick research. In an interview with Moneycontrol, Shridhar Raghavan discussed the writing of Pathaan – and the craft of screenwriting at large. Edited excerpts from the conversation:

What was your objective while writing ‘Pathaan’?

There were no preconceived notions about what Pathaan should be like. We all know what we want from a big spy action film that's a mainstream popcorn entertainer: cool characters, cool action, smart one-liners, set pieces, reversals, the story surprising you at regular intervals, with you expecting something but getting something else, and in the end, you are still fulfilled.

I try to live up to the films I loved as a kid, those of Manmohan Desai and Vijay Anand as well as Alfred Hitchcock, especially his North by Northwest, which constantly surprises you. There's a saying: 'pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge'. I find that so cool. I think on those lines.

When I am writing, I am writing for the eight or 14-year-old me who has bunked school, saved a lot of money, and is watching a film he had been dying to watch, and he is entertained, impressed, happy at the end. Movies help us forget how old we are. We temporarily become ageless; we return to that kid we were. We forget to pose or appear a certain way, as adults do, and we become liberated and free like kids in a playground, and throw coins at the screen or dance or whistle in the theatre.

I still remember how watching Shakti or Sholay or Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy made me feel. As a writer, I'm always thinking, can I replicate that feeling in others? If a film works, it will make you feel young, make you forget who you are, take you back to the most wonderful phase of your life when the whole world was an adventure and reality hadn't hit you yet, when you didn't have to think of Karl Marx or your career.

I try to create that: an unreal, gravity-defying and physics-breaking Disneyland rollercoaster ride that lasts three hours. After that, there is reality to return to. I often fail in my attempts. Sometimes, I succeed.

The writing of ‘Pathaan’ draws a lot from Shah Rukh Khan’s onscreen and offscreen history. It feels as if the film is having a conversation with the Shah Rukh Khan fan.

I have been seeing Shah Rukh Khan since his Fauji days. Naturally, we have some fun with references that are tongue-in-cheek. If the audience doesn’t get all of them, no problem. If they do, double the fun. I can speak for me and my brother Sriram (Raghavan, writer-director of Andhadhun) but we don’t think so much on lines of wanting to be meta or subtextual. We are just having fun.

So, if Pathaan was this kid dumped in a movie theatre, and the Indian State raised him, and he is repaying that debt by doing the only thing he can do. That’s fun, cool, and interesting.

The action hero is rarely vulnerable. He is a He-Man. But, here, Shah Rukh’s Pathaan gets frequently hurt, needs painkillers, wears his heart on his sleeve, and often gets played by the villains.

Vulnerability is a fantastic quality for an action hero to have. Take Amitabh Bachchan. He never had to bare his body but he was the biggest action hero. Or take Liam Neeson from Taken. He is fighting for the love and respect of his daughter, while his wife has left him. Or take Sunny Deol from Ghayal. He has to go through so many trials to find the truth about his brother. Or even Sunny Deol in Ghatak, whose heart is the father-son relationship. Here, you have a son seeing his invincible father, played by Amrish Puri, who had never bowed down to anyone but is now dying from cancer.

Sure, I like Dirty Harry and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-kind of action hero too, but I also like the kind of action hero played by Gary Cooper, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson. Vulnerability makes an action hero relatable. If you cut him, he bleeds, he feels pain. Since films like Kabhi Haa Kabhi Na, Shah Rukh has always scored as an actor because he has a connect with the audience. People think, hey, he is one of us. Few people are that charming or funny. We utilised those strengths.

It is a preconceived notion that the action hero has to be invincible, or, a romantic film should have young, good-looking people. Take the film Marty, which is about a middle-aged, plain-looking man, wishing for love. It was a superhit and won Oscars for acting and writing. Let’s not be shackled by notions and try to do something new.

Shah Rukh Khan, in the ‘Pathaan’ success bash, called John Abraham’s character Jim ‘the backbone’ of the film.

An action film is only as strong as the villain. The stronger the villain, the stronger the hero. A lot of time, energy and discussion went into creating Jim. He must have a point-of-view he believes in so that you emotionally understand where he’s coming from.

You have to remember that whether it’s the hero, heroine, villain, a one-scene or a 10-scene character, everyone exists in a film from their point-of-view and rationale. Everyone has a backstory and character graph. All of it might not make it to the screen but the writer better know it if the actor comes to you and asks you to explain their character.

If three films later in the Spy Universe, I am not there, the next writer should be able to see my notes and makes sense of everyone’s character graph.

A film is not just the world of the film you see, but there’s a world existing in the background too. For example, post-interval, I had written this philosophical torture sequence, where my essential question was: how do you handle torture? After writing it, I called Adi sir, and told him I have written the best scene of my life, but I know it will be cut. Because that doesn’t belong to this film.

John Abraham in Pathaan. (Screengrab from trailer)

Do you write the action sequences as they play out on screen in the screenplay itself? Or is a lot of the action changed and improvised later?

I write every action beat but what you see on screen is not necessarily what I wrote. In many places, Sid or Adi or the action choreographers would have better ideas.

For example, in Khakee, I wrote all the action as I could imagine that world very clearly. In this world, Sid and Adi were, like, let’s freak out, such as the two-building heist scene. But, yes, it is very important to write the action beats properly.

A good action sequence is like a good tennis match. Your beats in the film ultimately may not be the same but the emotion behind the action has to be on-point: What does the hero want? What does the villain want? How will the hero foil that? What is the villain’s counterfoil? What does the hero have up his sleeve to counter that?

You are the ‘mentor writer’ for the YRF Spy Universe. What does that entail?

Very courteous of Adi Chopra to put it that way but remember, the concept is fully his. He is the link between all the films in the series, starting from Ek Tha Tiger in 2012 to films down the line when I may not be there. I came in only during War and I am writing Tiger 3 and developing more.

Adi has certain ideas, plans, ambitions. I am helping him get that done to the best of my ability. If I feel incapable, I’ll look for other talent who can work independently or work as a bouncing board or a member. Tomorrow, we may want to make a personal story of a spy, for which Jaideep Sahni is great. The Spy Universe won’t end if I suddenly have, say, a heart attack.

You mentioned succeeding and failing in your career. In 2004, you wrote Rajkumar Santoshi’s acclaimed superhit ‘Khakee’, starring Amitabh Bachchan, as an older, grizzled version of his policeman character from ‘Zanjeer’. Just two years later, Santoshi’s ‘Family: Ties of Blood’, also written by you, and starring Bachchan, flops.

Many a slip twixt cup and lip. You can only write what you intended to do right but you can’t predict the outcome. Anybody saying they know how the script will end up being on screen is being delusional.

Now, Khakee was written by me and Santoshi's Family was written by me, Santoshi, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Rajat Arora and Shaktimaan, who was coming straight off a blockbuster, Gadar. Somehow, we managed to cancel each other out.

Success and failure is not in my control. Only my learning from failure is. When I used to write CID, I would insist on narrating the next day’s episode to the entire unit and getting their feedback. Before shoot, I would ask, what did we get wrong or right in our last episode? I would build on their feedback. Every time I failed, I went back and tried to understand where did I screw up and try to avoid that mistake. Then I make new mistakes.

When I sit to write down today, I find it just as hard as I found it 20 years ago, but I am also just as excited. I look forward to the writing process, not the selling process. I enjoy coming up with stories for timepass. I wonder: five ways to escape a prison, six ways to escape a locked room. I write action scenes for timepass. I imagine an action scene in a fan factory, with fans whirling everywhere. Does that happen really? I don’t know. But I enjoy writing these things to amuse myself.

If you’re in the business, you have to be tough as nails, learn to get hammered, have a thick skin. There was this American screenwriter Tom Benedek who had a garage full of boxes of unmade scripts, something Martin Scorsese could have made, something could have gone to Steven Spielberg. He had a shotgun in that garage. He took those unmade scripts, threw them in the air, and fired his shotgun at them. That became an exhibition in New York: shot by the writer. That’s the attitude you should have.

You are a voracious reader, as followers of your private Instagram account will know. You read a wide range of books: pulp fiction, literary fiction, non-fiction. How important is reading for a screenwriter?

Let me put this crude mathematical formula: 100 kilograms of reading will yield one gram of writing.

Everybody should read. Do you know any other way to live multiple lives and time-travel? You’re depressed? Read. Happy? Read. Lonely? Read. I’m in a business where everybody is always late so I always carry a book with me, or, I’m listening to an audiobook. When you read a book, you are interacting with a great mind you otherwise wouldn’t have access to. Currently, I’m reading journals of Franz Kafka, Patricia Highsmith, Georges Simenon. These they wrote for themselves, not the public.

Now, for an aspiring screenwriter, if you are writing thrillers, you must have read enough thrillers to know where the genre has already been. Many writers are limited by their lack of knowledge. If you want to write a murder mystery, you can’t say you haven’t read Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie wrote 80 books. You must read in the genre you are attempting.

But don’t read with an agenda. Read for fun. Write for fun. No point in those people advising you online to read five pages, 10 pages a day.

But writing doesn’t only come from films and books. Writing comes from the Brownian motion inside our heads, millions of things hitting each other, from where creativity sparks out. You also need to absorb experiences, meet people, travel. If you don’t have the budget, travel to the next street or the next suburb or the nearest village. You need to have lived a life. I know 80-year-old army veterans who want to write a script but are insecure. I tell them, you have lived a life! Who are we?

I treat life like I am 12 or 14: extremely curious and fascinated. Wherever I go, I meet as many people as I can, talk to them. I don’t take life seriously. I am open to something working, not working. On my Instagram, I only post about books. I joined Twitter to interact with youngsters, but then stopped using it much, as nobody is really interested in books or films or writing, but War and Pathaan. All these will keep coming. You must not get swayed by success, as, anyway, one sees little of it.