Adite Banerjie's Blog - Posts Tagged "bollywood"
An interview with Author Sonali Dev
Sonali Dev is a writer who combines her love for words and Bollywood to conjure up stories that make a crazy tangle with her life as wannabe supermom and domestic goddess, and disgruntled corporate minion. Sonali lives in the Chicago suburbs with her very patient and often amused husband and two children who demand both patience and humour, and of course her characters who can’t stop doing Bollywood dances inside her head. She is a Golden Hearts (2013) finalist and her debut novel, The Bollywood Bride, will be available from Kensington in November 2014.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how long you have been writing.
Hi Adite! Thanks so much for having me. It’s been a year since I’ve visited home and I’m going to pretend this is my India visit for the year. A little about myself… hmm. I was born and raised in India and I’ve lived my entire adult life in America. So, I’m your quintessential first generation immigrant mom living the desi American dream and globe-hopping for leisure every chance I get. I think I’m essentially a nomad who fancies herself as someone who puts the mad in nomad. As for writing, I’ve written for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories, in fact, is of my mother sitting me down at the dining table in first grade to do math homework when the illustrations on the cover of the text book (those little + and – symbols) started dancing around and I had to, just had to write a little poem about them. And no, I didn’t get in trouble, which explains why I’m here writing books instead of designing buildings after spending five years in architecture school. If my mother hadn’t broken the mould and let me follow my heart back then and encouraged my crazy little passion for capturing everything in little ditties, who knows what I’d be doing today. Read more here: http://aditebanerjie.com/2013/07/05/s...
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how long you have been writing.
Hi Adite! Thanks so much for having me. It’s been a year since I’ve visited home and I’m going to pretend this is my India visit for the year. A little about myself… hmm. I was born and raised in India and I’ve lived my entire adult life in America. So, I’m your quintessential first generation immigrant mom living the desi American dream and globe-hopping for leisure every chance I get. I think I’m essentially a nomad who fancies herself as someone who puts the mad in nomad. As for writing, I’ve written for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories, in fact, is of my mother sitting me down at the dining table in first grade to do math homework when the illustrations on the cover of the text book (those little + and – symbols) started dancing around and I had to, just had to write a little poem about them. And no, I didn’t get in trouble, which explains why I’m here writing books instead of designing buildings after spending five years in architecture school. If my mother hadn’t broken the mould and let me follow my heart back then and encouraged my crazy little passion for capturing everything in little ditties, who knows what I’d be doing today. Read more here: http://aditebanerjie.com/2013/07/05/s...
Book Release Announcement
Hello Goodreads Readers,
Super excited about the release of my debut romance, The Indian Tycoon's Marriage Dealin North America on 2 June.
To celebrate the launch of my book as part of #HarlequinE's "new Bollywood inspired collection", I have lined up a host of giveaways. Hope you'll join me in my celebrations at my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/AditeBanerji...
Best wishes,
Adite
Super excited about the release of my debut romance, The Indian Tycoon's Marriage Dealin North America on 2 June.
To celebrate the launch of my book as part of #HarlequinE's "new Bollywood inspired collection", I have lined up a host of giveaways. Hope you'll join me in my celebrations at my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/AditeBanerji...
Best wishes,
Adite
Rakesh Anand Bakshi on writing, filmmakers and his lyricist dad
Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming to my blog Rakesh Anand Bakshi, author of “Directors’ Diaries: The Road to their First Film“. is a huge contribution in filling that gap. The book is studded with interviews of some of the top filmmakers of Bollywood–ranging from Subhash Ghai to Imtiaz Ali, Govind Nihalani to Farah Khan, Zoya Akhtar to Vishal Bharadwaj. Bakshi’s interviews with 12 directors open up the world of Indian cinema and also the filmmakers’ signature styles. It also is a peep into their personal journeys, the ups and downs of their careers, the heartbreaks and triumphs and how these have shaped their own films. The book explores the working relationships between directors and their cinematographers, editors and art directors, providing insights that are valuable not only to the lay film enthusiast but also to budding filmmakers. For Bakshi, who is the son of renowned Bollywood lyricist Anand Bakshi, it is a labour of love. Over to Rakesh….
Hi Rakesh. Welcome to my blog. What inspired you to write Directors’ Diaries?
RB: Sometime in 2002, I read in a book that David Lean, the English film director known for films like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago, etc., used to be a tea boy. He then became a messenger, then an editor and finally a director. It made me wonder about David Lean’s life and I thought if he hadn’t started as a tea boy with a film production company, he perhaps wouldn’t have become a director. Maybe he would not have discovered his love for films. Was that the only job he could get then, or he took up the job as a tea boy in a production company because he wanted to be closer to his dream to be a filmmaker?
I also realized that most people who aspire to be film directors often find the path to their dream unfathomable, because most of them and their families do not have background in films. But maybe it had nothing to do with that. I belong to a family involved in films and I had studied film-making, acting and writing abroad. I had also assisted an excellent writer and director. And yet I couldn’t make a film. I wondered, sometimes almost angrily, how so many people without any background in films managed to direct films. There was an angst in me to explore how they managed to make a film but I didn’t. And this curiosity and anguish is shared by millions of others who are trying to make it into the industry!
I knew there was a book here. This thirst and hunger to know how directors I admire make films urged me to interview them, to somehow know them and their creative processes better. Some of the questions to which I had always wanted answers were: What constitutes a director, emotionally or otherwise? Can a person educate himself/herself to be a film-maker? How does one end up here and how does one get their first break in this industry? I wanted to know more about their experiences and influences as I knew that even my answers lay there.
Each interview in this book left me feeling enriched and today I am more fulfilled than ever because of the things that these directors’ choices, stories, experiences and lives taught me. And that is what I hope this book does for anyone who aspires to be something in his or her life. Most importantly, I hope this effort can help someone make a film someday.
Read the rest of the post here...
Hi Rakesh. Welcome to my blog. What inspired you to write Directors’ Diaries?
RB: Sometime in 2002, I read in a book that David Lean, the English film director known for films like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago, etc., used to be a tea boy. He then became a messenger, then an editor and finally a director. It made me wonder about David Lean’s life and I thought if he hadn’t started as a tea boy with a film production company, he perhaps wouldn’t have become a director. Maybe he would not have discovered his love for films. Was that the only job he could get then, or he took up the job as a tea boy in a production company because he wanted to be closer to his dream to be a filmmaker?
I also realized that most people who aspire to be film directors often find the path to their dream unfathomable, because most of them and their families do not have background in films. But maybe it had nothing to do with that. I belong to a family involved in films and I had studied film-making, acting and writing abroad. I had also assisted an excellent writer and director. And yet I couldn’t make a film. I wondered, sometimes almost angrily, how so many people without any background in films managed to direct films. There was an angst in me to explore how they managed to make a film but I didn’t. And this curiosity and anguish is shared by millions of others who are trying to make it into the industry!
I knew there was a book here. This thirst and hunger to know how directors I admire make films urged me to interview them, to somehow know them and their creative processes better. Some of the questions to which I had always wanted answers were: What constitutes a director, emotionally or otherwise? Can a person educate himself/herself to be a film-maker? How does one end up here and how does one get their first break in this industry? I wanted to know more about their experiences and influences as I knew that even my answers lay there.
Each interview in this book left me feeling enriched and today I am more fulfilled than ever because of the things that these directors’ choices, stories, experiences and lives taught me. And that is what I hope this book does for anyone who aspires to be something in his or her life. Most importantly, I hope this effort can help someone make a film someday.
Read the rest of the post here...
