Coming from a traditional Bihari family, Anu Singh Choudhary's reasons for taking to writing are as unique as her background and her perspective. Catch Kiran Manral in a freewheeling conversation with the writer of some of TV's biggest recent hits and more is one that will open your eyes to the process of creativity and more.
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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to yet another episode of chasing creativity.
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Speaker 1: This is Ken Munro, your host. And today I have
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Speaker 1: with me a very dear friend and a wonderful writer.
00:00:31
Speaker 1: Anu Singh Choudhury. Welcome to chasing creativity, Anu.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: What a pleasure to be here, Kiran. Thank you so much.
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Speaker 1: So we did a bit of chasing creativity on the
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Speaker 1: way here. It was a long trek, made longer by
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Speaker 1: every single road that was dug up
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Speaker 1: in the city. We
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Speaker 2: must thank the city and the city gods for making
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Speaker 2: us take all the possible twists and turns. Because as
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Speaker 2: we are navigating through the dug up city, we're also
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Speaker 2: creatively thinking about the plots and every other twist and
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Speaker 2: turn that will bring to our story. So, yes, the
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Speaker 2: city adds to our creativity, doesn't it?
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Speaker 1: Absolutely. They say boredom adds to creativity. But I think, uh,
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Speaker 1: traffic does not give you boredom. It gives you anxiety.
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Speaker 1: What is your process like? How do you get into creativity?
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Speaker 1: Such a
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Speaker 2: profound question. Uh, so let's begin from how to deal
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Speaker 2: with anxiety, creativity and anxiety, I think are best buddies.
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Speaker 2: They're probably bed mates. Um, along with imposter. So the
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Speaker 2: three go hand in hand. So you just have to,
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Speaker 2: um, at some point acknowledge that as long as you
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Speaker 2: want to be creative, you will also have to deal
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Speaker 2: with your anxiety. And you will also have to let
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Speaker 2: the impostor be, and probably, you know, deal with her.
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Speaker 2: With love and affection
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Speaker 2: and anxiety, it will be. And now I started to
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Speaker 2: see anxiety as a good friend. As in, if you're
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Speaker 2: a little anxious, then it keeps you on your toes
00:02:01
Speaker 2: and it keeps you invested in what you're doing. If
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Speaker 2: you're not anxious, then it means that you're indifferent, which
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Speaker 2: is not a very good space to be in for
00:02:09
Speaker 2: a creative person. So, yes, traffic gives us anxiety and, uh,
00:02:14
Speaker 2: also boredom. So but we are creative. People will find ways,
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Speaker 2: and we do find ways of, you know,
00:02:20
Speaker 2: also having some very interesting conversations. Also, listen to some
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Speaker 2: great podcast, including this one, that hopefully you're listening and hope. Hopefully,
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Speaker 2: you're not stuck in traffic, but, uh, they're so so
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Speaker 2: It just I think it's just, uh, letting anxiety trigger
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Speaker 2: your CRE creativity in a way that is productive and
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Speaker 2: therefore then dealing with the imposter so that it does
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Speaker 2: not make you anxious, is how one just deals with it.
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Speaker 1: You had a very interesting journey. I know you've gone
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Speaker 1: from journalism. You were at ND TV. You were at
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Speaker 1: the K connection. Then you went to a writing scripts
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Speaker 1: and you're also an author. You've written a a lovely book.
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Speaker 1: How did your journey start in? Into writing into words.
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Speaker 1: What was little Anu like as a child? Was she
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Speaker 1: a bookworm? Were her parents feeding her with books? Or
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Speaker 1: was she going sneaking around finding books? What was that
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Speaker 1: journey like?
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Speaker 2: Uh, it was quite a lonely journey. I have to
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Speaker 2: now admit, um, I come from a very, very conventional
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Speaker 2: bihari family, Extremely conventional. There was no concept of reading
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Speaker 2: or writing.
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Speaker 2: I was, in fact, the first woman ever to have
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Speaker 2: stepped out of the small city and to have come
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Speaker 2: to a college lady Shira at that and, uh, to
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Speaker 2: have had dreams and ambitions. And
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Speaker 2: therefore, in that sense, I was a little bit of
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Speaker 2: a little bit of an outlier, not somebody who was
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Speaker 2: fitting because everybody around me, I mean, I lived in
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Speaker 2: a neighbourhood, which was, you know, in that sense, a
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Speaker 2: very upper caste, A little bit of a privileged but
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Speaker 2: yet full of immigrants who had mostly moved from Bihar
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Speaker 2: to Jharkhand. I grew up in Jharkhand, Jharkhand, Jharkhand became
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Speaker 2: Jharkhand in 2001 much after I actually grew up. I
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Speaker 2: had my childhood, but there was a clear
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Speaker 2: distinction between where I was growing up, which was, uh,
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Speaker 2: in the safe neighbourhood. Um who with people around who
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Speaker 2: spoke the same kind of language. I mean, they spoke
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Speaker 2: the bihari languages either bji or mahi or ranka or
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Speaker 2: maithili or Hindi. Uh, there was very little engagement with
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Speaker 2: English in that sense. Uh, boys were going to English
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Speaker 2: medium schools. Girls were not. Girls were mostly going to
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Speaker 2: sari schools or Hindi medium schools. So I was growing
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Speaker 2: up in that kind of a setup.
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Speaker 2: And, uh, there was this very, uh, very close by.
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Speaker 2: There was this busty of Adivasis who
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Speaker 2: also added to a lot to how I was perceiving
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Speaker 2: the world in the sense that it was also the
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Speaker 2: busti from where our helps were coming. But it was
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Speaker 2: also the busti, which was
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Speaker 2: really, really in that sense progressive, because this was free.
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Speaker 2: And they were also, you know, they they lived the
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Speaker 2: life that they wanted to, and they were fighting for
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Speaker 2: a separate state in that sense, so they were fighting
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Speaker 2: for their identity. So all of those experiences sort of informed.
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Speaker 2: Um uh, also the kind of literature that I was
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Speaker 2: picking up because, uh,
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Speaker 2: when I started to read, um, like I said I,
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Speaker 2: I was in a semi Sarka school, which was a
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Speaker 2: missionary school. It was a convent, but had 50% reservation
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Speaker 2: for the tribal girls, Which was which meant that there
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Speaker 2: was a lot of engagement with girls who were coming
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Speaker 2: from various. You know, this was this was all girls school.
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Speaker 2: So all kinds of, uh, girls from all walks of
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Speaker 2: life they
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Speaker 2: they had, in that sense, some sort of, like, sort
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Speaker 2: of motivation to, uh, make it be independent. So But also,
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Speaker 2: there were girls who wanted to get married and, you know,
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Speaker 2: settle down. So then there were so many kinds of
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Speaker 2: peers that one was growing up with, So
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Speaker 2: I was confused. I was very, very confused with the
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Speaker 2: kind of exposure that I was getting the kind of
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Speaker 2: upbringing that I had, the kind of world that I
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Speaker 2: was living in, the kind of women that I was
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Speaker 2: engaging with, the kind of role models, especially women role
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Speaker 2: models that I had. So while Indira Gandhi was a
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Speaker 2: role model, somewhere out there in the newspapers that we
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Speaker 2: were reading
00:06:20
Speaker 2: at home I was surrounded by homemakers. My mother, my chai,
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Speaker 2: were making at a stretch probably 100 rote at one
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Speaker 2: given time because we were living in a joint family,
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Speaker 2: so it was very confusing. So in order to make
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Speaker 2: sense of the world
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Speaker 2: that I wanted to exist in, I wanted I started writing.
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Speaker 2: So it was first. Mostly like, you know, you know
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Speaker 2: how we all start write poetry. That's the easiest form.
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Speaker 2: Or so we think when we are writing, even though
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Speaker 2: it's the toughest medium of expression. But that's how it started,
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Speaker 2: and I would write these catch up a couple of poems,
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Speaker 2: and then I started to sort of debate because I
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Speaker 2: was very passionate about some of these things that we
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Speaker 2: were seeing
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Speaker 2: around us. So then I would start to write essays
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Speaker 2: and then that's how the creative journey really started. And
00:07:06
Speaker 2: that led me to also, purely out of curiosity, that
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Speaker 2: who were the other people who were writing. So I
00:07:13
Speaker 2: grew up largely on the very, very stable diet of
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Speaker 2: Hindi literature, and that led me, obviously to, you know, translations.
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Speaker 2: That was also the time this was eighties that we're
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Speaker 2: talking about. Also, a lot of Russian literature
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Speaker 2: was being translated into Indian languages, so the libraries had that.
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Speaker 2: So a lot of translations, and then gradually it was
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Speaker 2: only in fact, I remember I started to actually get
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Speaker 2: exposed to English literature because both my brothers were in
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Speaker 2: a public school. They were in an English medium school
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Speaker 2: and purely out of curiosity, curiosity as to what they
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Speaker 2: were reading. So me and the floss is something that
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Speaker 2: I read because it was my brother's textbook. Similarly,
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Speaker 2: I got exposed to Julius Caesar because it was again
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Speaker 2: a part of their textbook, and then slowly. Then, you know,
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Speaker 2: one picked up and started to read. So various things
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Speaker 2: I would say
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Speaker 1: so I know this entire journey as a child and about, uh,
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Speaker 1: you know, all the influences that happened that's so interesting
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Speaker 1: to know. And then the decision to go to Delhi
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Speaker 1: that was a brave decision. So
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Speaker 1: was there any resistance you face from the family to
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Speaker 1: send the girl out of the city of the town
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Speaker 1: of the home to another big, bad city? And what
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Speaker 1: were your experiences there?
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Speaker 2: Uh, where there is a will,
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Speaker 2: there is always resistance on the way.
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Speaker 2: You will not have it smooth. Nobody has ever had
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Speaker 2: it smooth. And especially so for girls who are out there.
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Speaker 2: Women who are out there just wanting to just like
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Speaker 2: challenge the status quo more than anything else. If they
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Speaker 2: want equal opportunities or equal rights in terms of education
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Speaker 2: or something as simple as you know, our right to
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Speaker 2: sit on the board, they have to you, we we
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Speaker 2: all are facing that we that we are that generation
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Speaker 2: which has sort of, you know, had the benefits of
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Speaker 2: our earlier generations. But we have intensified it. So it
00:09:09
Speaker 2: was tough. Obviously, this is 1996 that I'm talking about.
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Speaker 2: But Delhi was dreamland. It was just so liberating to
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Speaker 2: come to a place where you won't have to look
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Speaker 2: at a watch and look at it. You know, worry
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Speaker 2: that five o'clock. I have to be home because, um,
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Speaker 2: back in Bihar, then Pa Pa you love and you
00:09:30
Speaker 2: and or AJ the bar. You're not supposed to be
00:09:32
Speaker 2: out once it gets dark. Pa. Pa. I thought the
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Speaker 2: parents would start to worry,
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Speaker 2: and you would always have to move out with. I mean,
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Speaker 2: I've had friends telling me and friends as in like,
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Speaker 2: you know, boys who would tell me that, um, Hawari
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Speaker 2: guard a bad. So you can't, like, go alone or
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Speaker 2: hum the ma over there there because they also come
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Speaker 2: with that sense of responsibility that girls have to be
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Speaker 2: chota by le But so it was It was very liberating.
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Speaker 2: When you take the bus on your own, you go
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Speaker 2: from one place to the other and then to be
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Speaker 2: in a college which is very, very, very obviously for
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Speaker 2: so it was it was an eye opening experience. And
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Speaker 2: this was also the time when Delhi was sort of
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Speaker 2: like expanding. All the flyovers were coming up, which also was,
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Speaker 2: in a way, my first introduction to a big city life.
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Speaker 2: Everyone would get into a traffic jam, and it would
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Speaker 2: take like 90 minutes from one point to the other.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: Having said that, how much of a girl's life changes now?
00:10:32
Speaker 2: But 7. 30 is your cut off? Because 730 is
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Speaker 2: the time when you're by. If you're in the hostel,
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Speaker 2: you're in the hostel. So by 730 you would have
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Speaker 2: to come back. These sat and these beta I thought
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Speaker 2: you would be gated in, so there would be a
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Speaker 2: consequence to that. And again, this is I'm talking about
00:10:48
Speaker 2: this very, you know, progressive college.
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Speaker 2: So it didn't change much in that sense we were
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Speaker 2: still living with. And the more I started to live
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Speaker 2: in Delhi, I started to realise that if teasing was
00:11:01
Speaker 2: the same, how you were being looked at in the
00:11:04
Speaker 2: public transport was the same. How you still had to
00:11:08
Speaker 2: fight to own the public spaces as a woman was
00:11:11
Speaker 2: still the same. A lot of those battles had not changed,
00:11:15
Speaker 2: and unfortunately,
00:11:19
Speaker 2: 20 years later, when I started to work on a
00:11:22
Speaker 2: novel which also became a Web series with a Web
00:11:25
Speaker 2: series called The Good Girls Show, which was my first really,
00:11:28
Speaker 2: the first Web series that I wrote and directed,
00:11:31
Speaker 2: which was on the lives of these four young girls.
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Speaker 2: This is 20 years later, but we're still fighting the
00:11:37
Speaker 2: same battles. This is really we're still fighting for pinda to,
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Speaker 2: and there's a campaign going on. We're still stepping out
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Speaker 2: from our homes at 8 p.m. wanting to walk towards
00:11:49
Speaker 2: the Metro station for a safe, you know, walk to
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Speaker 2: make the public spaces, including your metro stations, including your parks,
00:11:57
Speaker 2: your road safe
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Speaker 2: for women. So things hadn't changed, really, in that sense.
00:12:02
Speaker 2: So it's while Lili has been very empowering for me
00:12:06
Speaker 2: as a city that that's where, um, I've grown up.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: That's where I found my education. That's also where I
00:12:12
Speaker 2: found my passion. Probably in the sense that the the
00:12:15
Speaker 2: the most most of my mentors come from there. Um,
00:12:18
Speaker 2: a lot of my first exposure to, um public.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: Um, what shall I say? Like, you know, mass media
00:12:26
Speaker 2: came from Delhi. I worked with D TV, which was
00:12:28
Speaker 2: again a very, very strong organisation led by very strong women.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: A lot of these experience have been very, very positive
00:12:35
Speaker 2: and have had a very positive impact on my, uh,
00:12:38
Speaker 2: on who I am and how I create and how
00:12:40
Speaker 2: I perceive the world and how that gets reflected into
00:12:42
Speaker 2: my stories. But I have to still say that we
00:12:45
Speaker 2: still have a long way to go.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: Heaven knows our daughters generations will. They see it.
00:12:51
Speaker 1: What I find very interesting, I know is you write
00:12:53
Speaker 1: in both languages. Do you think in both languages as
00:12:56
Speaker 1: well Or do you have to translate in your head
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Speaker 2: now? I don't I mean, it's very seamless now, I,
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Speaker 2: I don't even think like, you know, if I have
00:13:04
Speaker 2: to switch in Hindi, it'll just very, very organically happen.
00:13:08
Speaker 2: In fact, I,
00:13:09
Speaker 2: uh, think in three languages. BJP is my mother tongue. So, uh,
00:13:13
Speaker 2: it's it's just very organic now. But I think when
00:13:16
Speaker 2: I started to write, uh, in during my early days,
00:13:19
Speaker 2: Hindi came more naturally to me. It was also the language,
00:13:23
Speaker 2: just in terms of a lot of expressions that one
00:13:25
Speaker 2: had to say, like dialogues. For example, I still think
00:13:29
Speaker 2: I I can write better dialogues in Hindi than in English. Therefore,
00:13:34
Speaker 2: I've never attempted like long format in English. Um, I have.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: I have very comfortably just stuck to short stories or
00:13:42
Speaker 2: scripts because screenplays you have to mostly write in English
00:13:45
Speaker 2: all your proposals and everything else. But
00:13:47
Speaker 2: other than that, if there is something that you have
00:13:49
Speaker 2: to express in terms of emotions which, uh is representative
00:13:55
Speaker 2: of what a character is, where she or he comes from,
00:13:59
Speaker 2: then it very naturally is in Hindi that we naturally
00:14:03
Speaker 2: think in Hindi.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Then you're a translator as well. You've translated some of
00:14:07
Speaker 1: our best authors. You're a writer as well.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: How do you switch between these two heads? How does
00:14:13
Speaker 1: a writer impact the translator? And how does the translator
00:14:15
Speaker 1: impact the writer? That's
00:14:17
Speaker 2: such a healthy question. Long time ago when I was
00:14:19
Speaker 2: still a very nervous writer. I mean, I didn't even
00:14:22
Speaker 2: know if I could. I didn't even know if I
00:14:23
Speaker 2: could write. Um, a very dear friend of ours called
00:14:26
Speaker 2: mutual friend. In fact, Natasha B, uh, she was also
00:14:30
Speaker 2: my colleague from ND TV. So,
00:14:32
Speaker 2: uh, I told her that and this was also I
00:14:34
Speaker 2: was a young mother. I had quit my job. I
00:14:36
Speaker 2: was looking for gigs. So writing also actually for me,
00:14:39
Speaker 2: became a source of livelihood, and so did translation eventually
00:14:43
Speaker 2: and editing. And some stint that I had at publishing
00:14:46
Speaker 2: because this was also a way to sort of keep
00:14:49
Speaker 2: oneself going and keep the career, if not career, at
00:14:52
Speaker 2: least some form of job alive. So, um,
00:14:56
Speaker 2: when I got my first translation assignment, I came back
00:14:59
Speaker 2: and told Natasha, and she said that Now you're a
00:15:01
Speaker 2: bona fide. You're going to be like a writer because
00:15:04
Speaker 2: the best way to start writing. A few days ago,
00:15:07
Speaker 2: I was reading Murakami's novelist as a vocation, and he
00:15:10
Speaker 2: extensively talks about how he first was a translator. And
00:15:15
Speaker 2: then he started to write, and he has not, in fact,
00:15:18
Speaker 2: translated his own works. He's translated other other writers a
00:15:22
Speaker 2: lot American authors especially,
00:15:24
Speaker 2: and that informed his writing. And it really resonated with
00:15:28
Speaker 2: me because when you work in two languages while you
00:15:32
Speaker 2: are getting inspired by and the duty of the responsibility
00:15:36
Speaker 2: of keeping the sense, the soul of the writer's work
00:15:41
Speaker 2: alive is on you. You also have the creative liberty
00:15:46
Speaker 2: to play with the other language that you're translating into,
00:15:50
Speaker 2: which means you can
00:15:54
Speaker 2: understand the source language really well. But the translating language
00:15:58
Speaker 2: empowers you to be creative. And that taught me, You know,
00:16:03
Speaker 2: you're learning from the Masters because they were such wonderful authors.
00:16:06
Speaker 2: So you were translating their work. So you're also learning
00:16:10
Speaker 2: how to use the syntax, how they were using sort
00:16:12
Speaker 2: of the wordplay, imagery, everything else. That language does words
00:16:16
Speaker 2: do to us. And when I was translating that into
00:16:19
Speaker 2: the into Hindi,
00:16:21
Speaker 2: I was informing my I mean, I was becoming rich
00:16:23
Speaker 2: as a Hindi potential Hindi writer. And I have learned
00:16:28
Speaker 2: a great deal and
00:16:30
Speaker 2: and I still think after having worked across so many formats,
00:16:35
Speaker 2: and I do not get enough time to translate now,
00:16:37
Speaker 2: I still feel translations. One part of my creative experience
00:16:43
Speaker 2: that puts me into a state of meditation. Really, I
00:16:46
Speaker 2: have no words. I mean, I can't express. It's just inexplicable.
00:16:51
Speaker 2: It's just,
00:16:52
Speaker 2: but it just is meditative because you're working with two
00:16:54
Speaker 2: languages that you're comfortable with. You love your you know,
00:16:59
Speaker 2: sort of being the bridge. It's such a high.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: How wonderful, how wonderful You've written scripts for some of
00:17:07
Speaker 1: our most acclaimed shows. You did Aria, and you did, uh,
00:17:10
Speaker 1: quite a few others, I think, Yeah, now for a scriptwriter,
00:17:14
Speaker 1: it's not just about the creative process. There are so
00:17:17
Speaker 1: many other factors involved.
00:17:19
Speaker 1: I know you've spoken about it in another podcast as well,
00:17:23
Speaker 1: but could you take our listeners through what script writing
00:17:26
Speaker 1: actually entails?
00:17:28
Speaker 2: Uh, script writing 1st, 1st and foremost is our collaboration
00:17:32
Speaker 2: as a screenwriter, whether the story is coming from you
00:17:35
Speaker 2: or it is coming from somewhere else, which means you
00:17:37
Speaker 2: are a work for hire writer. In that sense, um,
00:17:40
Speaker 2: it's always you're always collaborating because you're not writing for yourself.
00:17:45
Speaker 2: Unlike prose writing, unlike other creative mediums, where you first
00:17:48
Speaker 2: try to entertain yourself, What a joy to be in, right?
00:17:52
Speaker 2: You're entertaining yourself and then you're waiting for it to
00:17:54
Speaker 2: go out in the world to entertain or, uh, sort
00:17:58
Speaker 2: of connect with other readers. But here you're writing to
00:18:01
Speaker 2: a vision,
00:18:02
Speaker 2: and unless you submit yourself fully to that vision and
00:18:06
Speaker 2: align yourself creatively, probably even ideologically and process wise, it
00:18:13
Speaker 2: won't work. So
00:18:16
Speaker 2: the one thing that I have learned from script writing
00:18:19
Speaker 2: from the process of script writing is the surrendering of ego.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: I know I'm sounding a little, Not at all, but whatever.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: It's such an important thing. You know, I think a
00:18:29
Speaker 1: lot of us take too much of ego into our writing,
00:18:32
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you're talking about it, which
00:18:34
Speaker 2: is what we do. I mean, even I do when
00:18:36
Speaker 2: I'm doing my own stuff, and I know that Oh,
00:18:38
Speaker 2: I don't care what the publisher thinks. I don't care
00:18:40
Speaker 2: what the editor thinks. I don't care whether the readers
00:18:42
Speaker 2: like it or not,
00:18:43
Speaker 2: because, like I said, it's for myself and but actually
00:18:47
Speaker 2: is real. Is it really? We are expressing not because
00:18:52
Speaker 2: we want to keep it to ourselves. We we are
00:18:54
Speaker 2: expressing because we want to engage with the outside world.
00:18:57
Speaker 2: It's just that the audience changes the so That understanding
00:19:02
Speaker 2: came from script script writing,
00:19:04
Speaker 2: and it also requires you to be in constant communication
00:19:09
Speaker 2: or engagement with other writers who come with different sets
00:19:14
Speaker 2: of skills, uh, different sensibilities, also sometimes very different ways
00:19:18
Speaker 2: of working. So it also in a way teaches you
00:19:21
Speaker 2: to be a part of the team, and it's quite
00:19:23
Speaker 2: a learning because then you are constantly like, you know,
00:19:27
Speaker 2: giving and taking, and initially when I was
00:19:30
Speaker 2: started to write. I mean, I was like, You write right?
00:19:32
Speaker 2: You have to a a page KK. Then, unless you write,
00:19:35
Speaker 2: how do you come up with ideas? Um, and I
00:19:38
Speaker 2: would really be in awe of all these senior writers
00:19:41
Speaker 2: who would keep throwing ideas at you one after the other.
00:19:44
Speaker 2: Like they would be seen ideas that would be character ideas.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: There would be arc ideas. They would throw ideas and
00:19:49
Speaker 2: they would, like, discard it with as much ease. And
00:19:53
Speaker 2: I used to find it very fascinating. But now,
00:19:56
Speaker 2: after having done it for a few years, almost five
00:19:59
Speaker 2: years now, I've also realised one more thing. Creativity is
00:20:05
Speaker 2: a muscle memory. As much as you trigger it, you
00:20:09
Speaker 2: use it.
00:20:10
Speaker 2: The more you use it, the better it gets, the
00:20:13
Speaker 2: stronger it gets, and it begins to sort of help
00:20:17
Speaker 2: you in your journey. You can't sit and wait for
00:20:22
Speaker 2: madam genius to strike or madam creativity to, you know,
00:20:25
Speaker 2: shower her blessings on you. That doesn't happen,
00:20:27
Speaker 2: and I therefore I'm very grateful for for this experience
00:20:32
Speaker 2: as a scriptwriter because it has genuinely informed how I
00:20:36
Speaker 2: also write in other mediums. One basic question, which is
00:20:40
Speaker 2: often asked, is. Is it very difficult for a novelist
00:20:43
Speaker 2: or a short story writer or a writer of prose
00:20:46
Speaker 2: to
00:20:47
Speaker 2: into a scriptwriter? Absolutely not. One thing that you already
00:20:52
Speaker 2: have as a writer is or as a creative person
00:20:56
Speaker 2: is that you already. If you have continued to write,
00:20:59
Speaker 2: and if you have sort of submitted yourself to your
00:21:02
Speaker 2: own process and have in a disciplined manner churned out
00:21:06
Speaker 2: our stories, you have it in you you can write,
00:21:09
Speaker 2: which means you have the diligence and discipline to deliver. However,
00:21:14
Speaker 2: can every writer become a screenwriter?
00:21:16
Speaker 2: Not necessarily because a lot of us do not work
00:21:20
Speaker 2: or don't want to work as collaborators. We don't We're
00:21:23
Speaker 2: not comfortable. We want to write in our own isolation,
00:21:26
Speaker 2: and that's fine. So
00:21:28
Speaker 2: if you have that realisation that this will require me
00:21:31
Speaker 2: to put my work out there, where the credits will
00:21:34
Speaker 2: be shared, where the ideas will be free flowing where
00:21:38
Speaker 2: everybody will be contributing and there'll be constant nit picking
00:21:42
Speaker 2: and this process of feedback to which you will have
00:21:45
Speaker 2: to work and it's like, really work, then a writer. Nobody.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: I don't think the the some of the finest writers
00:21:52
Speaker 2: are there for the script script writers.
00:21:55
Speaker 2: And we have a full like, you know, legacy of
00:21:58
Speaker 2: that starting from Ismat to Manto to to Guara to,
00:22:04
Speaker 2: uh to a lot of the tow to Rahim Masum
00:22:08
Speaker 2: Raza to, um even AnAnd the nin in the near,
00:22:12
Speaker 2: you know, recent times a lot of writers who, if
00:22:16
Speaker 2: we were to only look at the legacy
00:22:19
Speaker 2: Sharad Joshi, who was a satirist and wrote some of
00:22:22
Speaker 2: the most wonderful dialogues for a film like So. Even so,
00:22:28
Speaker 2: it has been proven time and again that writers can
00:22:31
Speaker 2: really become great scriptwriters, but also with the understanding that
00:22:36
Speaker 2: it's not just for yourself that you're writing. You're writing
00:22:38
Speaker 2: with a team you're writing for the director you're writing
00:22:41
Speaker 2: for the producer you're writing for the actors who will
00:22:44
Speaker 2: completely own the material that you're creating and will make
00:22:48
Speaker 2: their their own.
00:22:49
Speaker 2: So you will probably forget Salim Javed, uh, wrote that
00:22:54
Speaker 2: famous line of Meria Mirab Chor or Meria Mahe. You
00:22:58
Speaker 2: will probably remember only Shashi Kapoor and Naab B. So
00:23:03
Speaker 2: despite that,
00:23:04
Speaker 1: so that's where the ego has to be kept at
00:23:06
Speaker 1: this side as a writer, and you have to know
00:23:08
Speaker 1: that what you create is not going to be your
00:23:10
Speaker 1: own anyway. That's such a lovely thought. And that's such
00:23:12
Speaker 1: an important thought because we come with so much of
00:23:15
Speaker 1: baggage of ego as writers
00:23:17
Speaker 1: and to, you know, surrender. That is something most writers
00:23:21
Speaker 1: would grapple with. I know when you're writing a book now,
00:23:25
Speaker 1: because the process is very different. How internal is writing
00:23:28
Speaker 1: a book? Because you're writing for yourself? Now you're writing
00:23:31
Speaker 1: as you said, not necessarily for the readers of the publishers.
00:23:33
Speaker 1: You're just writing to amuse yourself. So how different is
00:23:36
Speaker 1: the process? I know you write short stories. Are you
00:23:39
Speaker 1: also exploring
00:23:39
Speaker 2: long form? Yes, I have, in fact, published a novel.
00:23:42
Speaker 2: I just finished another novel. OK, so but yeah, short
00:23:46
Speaker 2: story is my favourite medium.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: Uh, so I just completely disconnect myself like that. Writing is,
00:23:53
Speaker 2: in that sense, far more quiet. Um, probably. I'm writing
00:23:58
Speaker 2: only 506 101 words in at a stretch, but it's
00:24:02
Speaker 2: completely it's It's a very quiet process of not reading anything,
00:24:07
Speaker 2: not watching any,
00:24:08
Speaker 2: just staying with the story just playing with the words
00:24:11
Speaker 2: and playing with the characters and, you know, sort of
00:24:14
Speaker 2: charting out their journeys or wanting to first arriving at,
00:24:18
Speaker 2: you know, wanting to arrive at what I want to
00:24:20
Speaker 2: say through this story. So theme therefore, becomes important. How
00:24:25
Speaker 2: one wants to see and in
00:24:27
Speaker 2: as less words as possible becomes important. There are times
00:24:31
Speaker 2: when I completely disconnect from my screenwriting job and just
00:24:34
Speaker 2: do that. It happens rarely, but when it happens, it's
00:24:37
Speaker 2: very very. It rejuvenates it completely, I think fills my
00:24:42
Speaker 2: well up. I have no other way to explain this
00:24:45
Speaker 1: screenwriting script. Writing, script, writing, writing, novels, writing plays. What else?
00:24:52
Speaker 1: Testing hopefully one day,
00:24:53
Speaker 1: directing hopefully one day and producing definitely lovely. Do you
00:24:57
Speaker 1: have the script ready? You are
00:24:59
Speaker 2: working on a script? Yes, which is incidentally, I mean,
00:25:02
Speaker 2: I can't reveal much, but it's also an adaptation of
00:25:05
Speaker 2: a short story written by a very 11 of the
00:25:08
Speaker 2: best authors of our times and a female author at
00:25:10
Speaker 2: that one woman. So yeah, it's something that is very,
00:25:14
Speaker 2: very close to my heart because it's a story of sisterhood,
00:25:16
Speaker 2: and it's a story of two very strong women.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: So hopefully one day whether I'll reject or not, I
00:25:23
Speaker 2: don't know. But I'll definitely produce this because the older
00:25:27
Speaker 2: I'm getting, the more I'm writing, the more I'm engaging
00:25:29
Speaker 2: in stories, the more I'm just doing this to just live. Breathe,
00:25:35
Speaker 2: just be. I'm realising that more and more stories of
00:25:40
Speaker 2: women have to be told and the responsibilities
00:25:44
Speaker 2: this responsibility lies on us.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: How wonderful. Thank you so much, Anu for all these
00:25:50
Speaker 1: wonderful insights. And, uh, I'm looking forward to seeing that movie,
00:25:55
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you'll direct it.
00:25:56
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Karen. I hope so, too. And
00:25:59
Speaker 2: it's been such a wonderful, wonderful conversation,
00:26:02
Speaker 2: because sometimes we do need to look at our own
00:26:05
Speaker 2: creative process as an outsider. I mean some. Unless you're nudged,
00:26:09
Speaker 2: you don't think about a lot of things. And when
00:26:12
Speaker 2: you begin to talk about it come there are so
00:26:15
Speaker 2: many other realisations that we that come to us, which
00:26:18
Speaker 2: actually become critical to our own growth, and therefore what
00:26:23
Speaker 2: you're doing is very important. I hope you continue to
00:26:26
Speaker 2: bring more creative people,
00:26:28
Speaker 2: you know, sort of decode their process and continue to
00:26:31
Speaker 2: inspire other people to also live a very creative life.
00:26:34
Speaker 1: Fingers crossed. Thank you so much for that Anu. And
00:26:37
Speaker 1: with that, it's a wrap on this episode of chasing creativity.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: This was Kiran Mal to listen to us on Amazon
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Speaker 1: music on Spotify on bench spots wherever you get your
00:26:47
Speaker 1: audio content. Bye.