13 years of Chak De India: Writer Jaideep Sahni recalls how Shah Rukh Khan-starrer was born – bollywood

Monday marks the 13th anniversary of Shah Rukh Khan starrer Chak De! India and on the occasion, film’s writer Jaideep Sahni has spoken about the film starring Shah Rukh Khan, Sagarika Ghatge, Vidya Malvade, Chitrashi Rawat and Shilpa Shukla, among others.

Jaideep Sahni, who has also written some brilliant films like Bunty Aur Babli, Rocket Singh : Salesman of the Year, Shuddh Desi Romance and Aaja Nachle, said he had wanted to tell the story about female athletes for a few years. “When Adi (producer Aditya Chopra) asked me after Bunty Aur Babli what I wanted to do next, I told him that I wanted to do this film which could somehow form a bridge between the world of women athletes and the rest of the country. As I told him more about what I’d seen and felt, he agreed that it was a shame that not enough people knew about this world, and also that it could make a really great film if we got things right,” Jaideep said.

He also spoke how director Shimit Amin came on board. “Shimit and I have been friends since the time I was writing Company and he was editing Bhoot at Ram Gopal Varma’s office but it was Adi’s conviction after seeing Ab Tak Chhappan that he must be the director for this film. Adi’s and Shimit’s faith in the film as producer and director at that early stage was very reassuring for me since I knew my writing was going into the hands of people I trusted and respected,” he added.

About the appreciation that the film received, Jaideep said, “Sometimes people call Chak De! ahead of its times but I don’t know how to judge that. It’s just that as audience we get too busy in our daily lives and forget how happy something new can make us if we give it a chance, and as storytellers, we are always under pressure to be entertaining which can impose an artificial ceiling on our choice of subjects. But subjects are always bigger than the storytellers, and if we respect them, they gently show us the way.”

Interestingly, Jaideep also completes 20 years in the film industry this year. He debuted as a writer for Jungle in 2000 for Ram Gopal Varma. He says, “On my first film’s set someone mistook me for the DTP operator even after seeing me every day for two months because I used to work on a computer. To witness screenwriting come back from that forgotten corner to the forefront of everyone’s attention today is the greatest satisfaction of all for us writers.”

Jaideep adds, “To have imagined and written films of different genres, set in so many different environments, with different rhythms and dialects and slangs, has been a great joy. So many of these characters, dialogues or phrases of songs having become a part of peoples’ everyday conversation is something I didn’t aim for but have finally learned to enjoy gracefully without getting shocked. But I am always conscious that this is also because of the reach of this medium, and we should not let go of any opportunity to put this clumsy power to some good use, to build a few bridges of trust or maybe start a useful conversation.”