A lot can happen over java. There was Ziba Bhagwagar sipping her black coffee with a friend at Max Mueller Bhavan, when she was informed of a job opening at Trends, the ad filmmakers. Three years later, she is very much around and making films, even ending up co-directing Freaky Chakra, the Deepti Naval starrer that hit the theatres last week.
Roohi Dixit’s happened on the film-editing table. There she was doing her own thing, when her boss-to-be VK Prakash walked in. Dixit, who had long been a fan of VKP’s work (after he won a clutch of awards at the Big Bang awards that year), expressed a desire to work with him. And she landed the job. “I was not really writing when doing copy at ad agencies,” says Dixit. “They were merely one-liners with a bit of copy that no one may ever read. Films excited me more.”
Their vital stats differ by degrees. Bhagwagar (26) has done short stints (with Siti Cable, Zee TV and Black Coffee, Preetam Koilpillai’s theatre group) and Dixit (29) has had longer ones (one year at Lintas, Delhi; 7 months each at Maa Bozell and Pratibha Advertising).
Reinventing the wheel (in their case, Freaky Chakra) took some time, if only because the plot was similar to A Beautiful Mind. “Originally, we had this PG boy falling for this widow living in an apartment,” says Dixit. “And then, she gets this phone call from a girl. She thinks it’s his girl friend and suffers a nervous breakdown. She is taken to the shrink who rules that she had imagined it all and that she’s schizophrenic. That’s when A Beautiful Mind happened and before people would think we had copied it, we decided to look at the story differently.” (Check out the film to know what.)
Avers Bhagwagar: “Freaky Chakra just happened with seven people on board. But we enjoyed every bit of it. It’s different from making ad films. Ads require 20 takes because we have to be extra safe, but when shooting Freaky Chakra, we didn’t take more than four takes because we were dealing with accomplished actors like Deepti Naval who are their own masters. In ad films, models just don’t know how to emote. In fact, we prefer actors over models because our ads demand acting and not so much looking good.”
Bhagwagar and Dixit met through work and are now great friends. Both share the same workspace – scripting and directing ad films and now feature films (‘we are one-film wonders!’). Both complement each other. “Ziba comes across as an extrovert, but is actually an introvert,” says Dixit. “Roohi is very good at breaking the ice and she follows her heart while I think with my head,” chimes in Bhagwagar.
There’s the common thread, too. “Both of us love to eat pastas with extra cheese and chill out together,” coos Dixit. “We love all kinds of music, including retro and rock.”
Ad films are their first preference. “There’s concentrated effort for a week or two and then it’s over and there are lots of things within your control. But in films, you have to factor in other things like actors’ tantrums, distribution hassles and of course, the censor board.”
Working with kids gives them a kick. Says Dixit: “They are a little more refreshing and spontaneous, and are willing to experiment unlike models who are very conscious of how they look.”
WE, US, OURSELVES
Iran-born Ziba Bhagwagar (26) and Bangalore-born Roohi Dixit (29)
Both are scriptwriters and film directors
A part of the Freaky Chakra team
Ziba has studied mass communication at Bangalore University and Roohi at Symbiosis institute, Pune
Both have done over 25 ad film campaigns
Finds working with child models more refreshing
Hang out at Koshy’s
Both consider themselves as a one-film wonder with an exclamation mark
Ziba thinks with her head; Roohi follows her heart
Ziba comes across as a big extrovert, but is really an introvert; Roohi is the opposite
Both love to eat pasta with extra cheese and listening to retro and rock
Both don’t make future plans because life is a big surprise
(First published in City Reporter, 2003)