Before 'Krrish 3', Hrithik was bad at reading Hindi: Sanjay Masoom

Sanjay Masoom is one of the most wanted writers in Bollywood today was in the Ranchi recently for a professional engagement, where he shared his views on the changing art of dialogue writing and how language is becoming an issue in movies with TOI.
A script writer, dialogue writer and a lyricist rolled into one, we started off the interview by asking Sanjay how he juggles so many hats with ease, to which he says, “Writing something is very easy.You just need to have an idea and can go on spinning yarns around it. But writing a quality product requires hard work. Though people know that I started off as a dialogue writer in the industry, not many know that I used to write shayaris before entering Bollywood. Upon hearing my shayaris, Mahesh Bhattsaab offered me to write lyrics for his movies, which again was a difficult task. But everything worked out well in the end and it was only because of the hard work I poured into my work. You don’t need to be a PhD to write something, only a clear vision and sincere effort is enough,” contends Sanjay.
Having written scripts and dialogues for many sequels, latest being Aashiqui 2, we asked Sanjay how difficult it is to implement his unique style in these films and he simply brushes it off. “First of all, almost all these so called sequels are not really sequels. If you’ll notice, almost all of them, whether Raaz 3 or Jannat 2 or even Aashiqui 2, every film starts with a fresh plot and set of characters. Hence, calling them a sequel is wrong. I rather consider them as a franchise, with a set theme for storyline. Jannat 2 was a crime thriller while Raaz 3 suspense thriller, like their predecessors. Only Krrish 3 can be considered an actual sequel as the storyline picks up exactly from the last scene of the earlier movie and the main character, played by Hrithik is constant,” the writer stresses.
Its the only film I have seen so far which had its dialogue sheet typed in Devanagari script. In fact, Rakeshji had issued strict instructions for the actors to read from Hindi dialogue sheets and for me to write dialogues in Hindi only. It helped Hrithik a lot to improve his Hindi reading and writing skills. However, this is a one off case as most of our new generation of actors have issues while working in Hindi. The will to learn new things is also less among them as they know that the lines would be dubbed later on in the studio anyway so why the fuss. For example, Emraan requires his dialogues written in roman script, which makes it difficult to catch the exact pronunciation of the words or their sometimes, even their meaning. This trend is on rise and increasing problems for the writers in the industry.
In light of the increased use of slangs and abusive words in the dialogues of movies these days, which some people consider offensive, we asked Sanjay if it is really necessary to use profanity in the script to justify the scenes and he explains, “Speaking from a writer’s point of view, sometimes a situation arises where I’m forced to include a particular word in the dialogue, with no other option available. I do understand the dilemma of a family audience but they also need to understand that it’s all around them 24*7. Mene koi hawa mein se kuch nahi likha hai. Sab kuch logon ko dekh kar hi likha hai. Still, I have become cautious after writing Jannat 2, which was criticized for using abusive language at the drop of hat. I want to clarify here that I had used abusive words in only two places in the script. But one the camera started rolling, Emraan and Randeep improvised and mouthed profanities wherever they felt it was required and I was blamed. The director also kept the scenes, thinking that it would add more weight to the movie. However, I’m doing another movie with Emraan, called Shaatir, and this time, I have ensured that there is not even a slightest hint of the scope to use any abusive word during the shoot,” the writer says.
Sanjay has his schedule choc-o-bloc with work until next year, with Krrish 3 being the most awaited film of his career, so far. “I’m waiting eagerly for Krrish 3’s release, which is due by the end of year. Post that, Gundey, starring Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor is under production and post that, Shaatir, starring Emraan will be out. So, you can say I’m running busy at the moment,” grins Masoom.