He said: “I needed to leave my own voice for my grandchild, Alia’s daughter, who is now being called Raha. So someday, years later, she will hear the words of her grandfather talking passionately about this fascinating man whom he has a very intimate relationship with for over the last 30-35 years.”
It is a biography on the life of Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti, who has been called the ‘raging sage’. He was the most talked-about thinker of India because of his ideology and the way he questioned spiritual enlightenment. The book was written by the director in 1992 and now he has done the narration for Audible.
What makes you choose this medium and what makes this book so special for you especially?
Bhatt told IANS: “First of all, it’s my first book. I always wrote screenplays and I’m a film man. So I could think in images and sound and the format, the construct of a screenplay is quite different from writing a book.”
“These books sprouted from the inner core of my being and have a lingering impact on the people who consumed those movies. And so I wanted to tell my love story about a man who I love, even though he’s passed away. I just love this man. So I just felt I should tell that story.”
He further said how he got help from his wife in the narration: “I got my first basic training from my wife Soni because she is a trained actor. She has picked up the craft in the UK in a drama school. And she just told me you must win. And she told me that it’s the most intimate form of communication. So, you’re not talking to somebody out there in the world.”
“But she said that when you do an audiobook, it must have the warmth and the intimacy of talking to a very dear friend who is sitting very close to you. Unless you have that thirst to share with that sincerity you want to reach them and so I found that instruction, the lodestar for me, and I used that instruction as the compass when I recorded my book.”
About his future works, the director talked about his upcoming audio book and a horror film which is a sequel to ‘1920’.
“I’m just about beginning my work on my third book, which is ploughing through the embers of my life. I’m 74 now, almost seven and a half decades on this planet. A journey, I will call it the last chapter, I’m calling it ‘The Last Chapter’, where when you come towards the end of the story and you look back and understand your life differently and the events of the lives resonate, echoing in your heart in a very different way. So I’ve just begun that work. I began working on it and again, this would be dedicated to my grandchild Raha,” he said.
“And of course, I am now playing the creative head for my prodigy of ‘1920’ which was a horror film, released in the early 21st century. It is being made and is almost complete with the final edits going on. And there are innumerable other projects, which are lined up. Some for the web series and I’ve got a very vibrant team of young writers who come from the stream of life of today,” he concluded.
–IANS
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