WOW! Bareilly Ki Barfi is adapted from this French novel and this is how the director came across the book

July 18, 2017 - 5:24 PM IST

Bareilly Ki Barfi will bring together the trio Rajkummar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana, Kriti Sanon for the first time. While the film has already been wrapped up, we recently came across an intriguing fact about the script of the same and reportedly, the film is an adaptation of a French novel ‘The Ingredients of Love’.

WOW! Bareilly Ki Barfi is adapted from this French novel and this is how the director came across the book

And guess who came across the book, the director of the film, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari. When she was returning to Mumbai from the final schedule of her directorial debut, Nil Battey Sannata, she was whiling away time at a bookstore at Delhi's international airport. She picked up an English translation of a French book, titled ‘Ingredients of Love’ out of alacrity. Totally captivated by the story of that book, not only did Ashwiny complete the book in a couple of days but she also ensured that her husband, writer-film maker Nitesh Tiwari reads it.

Talking about the same, she said, “I was tired, but I couldn't put the book down. I even made Nitesh read it and he agreed that the basic story could become the theme for a film.” She added, “I was so excited, I even told my producers, Abhay Chopra and Juno Chopra (late filmmaker BR Chopra's grandsons) about the story immediately. They put in a lot of effort to contact the publishers in France and procure the rights to the book."

In fact, Nitesh, who adapted the book into the script, has changed the setting of the story from France to Uttar Pradesh. It has been co-written by Shreyas Jain along with him.

Describing the difficulty they faced whilst adapting it as per the theme, Nitesh went on to say, “It's difficult to adapt any book into a film. The French settings are alien to us, so we've only retained the basic theme and infused our own colours, quirks and characters into the story. The parents, friends and lovers, their professions and their basic habits have all been adapted to our culture. I got time to work on the script because Ashwiny was caught up with the post-production of her first film. I just hope that the audience likes my first tryst with breezy cinema."

When asked if both of them were under pressure to deliver, as both their films were praised, Ashwiny admitted, “I'd be lying if I said no. I don't want people to say, `Yeh kyun kiya!' Though Nitesh is a harsh critic and has not been too critical in his views so far, I'm still anxious about what the audience would think. I hope I have done justice to his writing. The team was excited at the very thought that Nitesh was writing it.”

Bareilly Ki Barfi is scheduled to release on August 18.