I Am Onir and I Am Gay by Onir & Irene Dhar Malik

Author:Onir & Irene Dhar Malik [Onir & Malik, Irene Dhar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789354926754
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2022-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

19

Milestone—My Brother Nikhil

Sometimes you feel so deeply about something that when you start working on it, thoughts simply flow. There were a couple of ideas in my mind, which I discussed with Sanjay before I started writing My Brother Nikhil. We were both tired of knocking on doors in the quest to finance our film. By then, we were also certain of one thing: that our sensibilities about cinema were similar, and perhaps more importantly, that our vision of life was similar and, decided to write the film in the style of a documentary for two reasons.

One, a lot of the film was to have characters addressing the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall. This would reduce the shooting time and stock exposed (we shot the film on 35 mm Kodak). This also worked creatively for me, as it gave a sense of reality. I wanted the audience to know that this was not just fiction but something someone had lived through—that this was a real story.

Two, I was thinking about how I wanted to tell this story. I thought about whom I would trust the most to tell my story if I died, and the answer was Didi. So My Brother Nikhil became a story about a brother narrated by his sister. The person I missed the most during the entire process of making My Brother Nikhil was also my sister as she was based in Pune at the time. As Trisha was still very young, Didi couldn’t really be a part of the creative process of my first film in any manner.

I wrote the first draft of My Brother Nikhil in fifteen days. I would act like each of the characters and then, as they talked to one another, I would keep writing. I wrote the dialogue draft as the first draft. I have never formally learnt scriptwriting and have no idea about the three-act structure or other technicalities. I know my scripts often have many technical flaws because of that. I write from my soul. I write what I see and hear. While writing My Brother Nikhil, I would at times get so moved by what was happening in the script that I had to take a break to get hold of my emotions. I would think a lot about Dominic and try to imagine how he must have felt. At that point, I had not got in touch with anyone who knew the real person as I wanted him to remain an inspiration and create Nikhil without being burdened too much by facts.

The name ‘Nikhil’ happened because I had a huge crush on actor Nikhil Bhagat from the time I watched Prakash Jha’s film Hip Hip Hurray (1984). Whenever I wrote a script, the male lead ended up being called ‘Nikhil’! I loved the name ‘Anamika’ as it means ‘one who is nameless’ and also because of this very beautiful friend of my sister’s from her Lady Brabourne College days.

Nigel’s character was what I would have liked my boyfriend to be: gentle, beautiful, kind, an artist and activist, flirt, loner, rebel .

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