The silence among the viewers satisfies me more than the noise of applause. It shows you are able to leave them awestruck with the depth of your work.
— DP Dubey
Divya Prakash Dubey is currently busy writing the script for his Bollywood project, which is an adaptation of his latest novel ‘Musafir Café
Visual writing is the agenda for India’s first ‘Hinglish’ writer Divya Prakash Dubey. From screenplays, poems, short films to books, the versatile writer has carved a niche for himself in the literary sphere. His contemporary form of writing, which is an amalgamation of both Hindi and English words, earned him the tag of ‘Hinglish’ writer.
“I write for the common mass. Though the medium of my writing is Hindi, I try to use English so that readers can easily connect with it,” said Dubey, who was in the city to attend Odisha Literary Fest earlier this month. He left the audience in splits with his fun-filled candid sessions ‘Storybaazi’ and ‘Guftagoo with Piyush Mishra’ at the fest.
Born and brought up in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, Dubey has come a long way from being a BTech graduate to one of the best Hindi writers of the country.
“I used to read a lot of books on Rajneesh (Osho) and Vivekanand during my school days. I always found the description of individual characters in a book more interesting. Even though I was an avid reader, I was never sure of taking up this genre as my career,” Dubey recalls.
Talking about the turning point of his life, the young writer says, “It was during the third year of my BTech at College of Engineering, Roorkee when I did my first screenplay. In fact, we were the ones to introduce theatre at college. The huge appreciation it received from the audience motivated me to come up with more such work.” Dubey did his MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune before pursuing his passion of becoming a full-time writer. His brilliant stage presence and sense of humour make him extremely popular among his audience. While most of the artists look for appreciation from the audience in the form of claps or hoot during their performance on stage, Dubey thinks otherwise. “The silence among the viewers satisfies me more than the noise of applause,”the writer says, adding that it shows you are able to leave them awestruck with the depth of your work.”
Though the young writer has had his stint in poems and script writing, it is story writing which he enjoys the most. Speaking of his inspiration, Dubey credits veteran litterateurs and scriptwriters Manohar Shyam Joshi (Buniyad, Hum log) and Rahi Masoom Raza (Mahabharat), for his narrative form of writing. “They were the catalyst behind my story writing skills,” he said. “Honestly, it didn’t take me long to figure out that most of the people of our generation are not comfortable reading Hindi books. That’s when I realised that I can only evoke their interest by treating them visual writings. My stories should be able to rub their imagination,” Dubey adds.
In a market which is largely dominated by English novels, Dubey has authored two Hindi bestsellers ‘Terms and Conditions Apply’ and ‘Masala Chai’, besides many other short films and creative works in his basket. He uses social media to popularise his books and reach out to people. Dubey is often compared with
Chetan Bhagat for his contemporary style of writing. Though he appreciated Bhagat’s work, he was prompt enough to clarify that there shouldn’t be any kind of comparison as his genre of writing is completely different from the latter.
“The storylines of our books are completely different. While Chetan Bhagat’s stories mostly revolve around college romance, the characters of my novels are inspired from real life unsung heroes. It could be anyone, a barber, hawker or student. If there is anything interesting about the person then I adapt that in my stories,” the writer said.
Dubey, who is currently busy with script writing for his Bollywood project which is an adaptation of his latest novel ‘Musafir café,’ says he has no plans of venturing into the small screen. “Even though I have been getting offers of script writing for the daily soaps, I’m not very keen at taking up the work as I find the TV format quite absurd and monotonous,”
he says.
The above Interview of Divya Prakash Dubey was published in New Indian Express Bhubaneswar on 12th Nov 2016. The Interview was taken when he was in the city for Odisha Literary Festival 2016.
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