Most of the time I wrote, by hand, on little notebooks and small post-its that were stuck all over my room. I would have each of the 20 drafts I wrote, critiqued by friends and colleagues before going back to the drawing board.

Incisively uncovering a painful slice of history in her debut film, Amu, recently screened in Berlin and Toronto, Shonali Bose presents an India that is warm, exotic and real, says ALPANA CHOWDHURY

Shonali Bose

Have you met the real Amu?
One of my lecturers, Mita Bose, had met Amu’s mother and wanted to adopt Amu when her mother committed suicide but she was taken away by relatives to Punjab. Nobody I know has any contact with her.

How did you find financiers?
With utmost difficulty. All the production companies in Mumbai turned my film down. One bluntly told me they wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole as it was too political. Another had me convinced he was giving me half a million but he turned out to be a pathological liar. At the crucial moment, my husband, a NASA scientist, got a cheque of 50,000 dollars for his invention of a technology for creating the world’s smallest camera. He gifted that to me. Then, friends and family pooled in with smaller amounts.

By making the film in English, don’t you think you have ruled out a large number of viewers who may identify with the trauma of 1984?
More than the language, by making the film in the form I did – a tight, dramatic story – I opened the film to a large world audience. This issue of 1984 needs to be known internationally. The fact is that the Kabirs, Kajus and Keyas speak in English in our country.