Book Review: Pink – The Inside Story

By Joginder Tuteja -

November 7, 2017 - 1:04 PM IST

This could well have been titled as 'The Making of Pink'!

Book Review: Pink – The Inside Story

When a book's title goes as Pink - The Inside Story, you gain an impression that something really striking would be narrated in the book. However, though that doesn't really happen in the true sense as there is no major revelation per se, you do get to know about the making of Pink. Moreover, since the film has just marked its first anniversary since release, the book's timing is good too.

Authored by Gautam Chintamani, who has come up with a brilliant book The Loneliness of being Rajesh Khanna – Dark Star which was followed by a well written Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak – The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema, Pink - The Inside Story takes back the reader into the time when the film was being conceptualized. You get to know how producer Shoojit Sircar, director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and writer Ritesh Shah collaborated for years in succession to arrive at the final draft of Pink which was in fact pretty much being written right at the onset of the shooting as well.

This isn't all as you are also taken into the time when producers Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar spent sleepless nights to ensure that the film is marketed and promoted well, and then the release is not just respectable but also notable so that a large number of audiences actually venture into theatres.

All of this and more is squeezed into this 200 odd page book where write-ups on aforementioned pointers actually take up just 80 pages. Rest 120 odd pages are actually dedicated to the screenplay and dialogues of the film which are brought to fore for a reader to cherish and go through the nostalgia.

As for the first 80 pages, you are made privy to many discussions, cross-arguments, different point of views, conflicts and their resolutions that went into putting together the film on paper first. Not that this is anything remarkably different from the creative process that goes into the making of any other film. However in case of Pink it does stand out since it was dealing with a sensitive subject that centred on the core essence of 'No means No'!

Hence, you realize how drafts were written and rewritten, dialogues were extended or cut short, actors were heard out and then taken into consensus, scenes were shot and then reshot, and last but not the least, all around debates were encouraged. Hence, right from the creative team behind the writing to actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Andrea Tariang, Piyush Mishra, Angad Bedi and Vijay Verma were involved in the making of Pink at different stages, hence resulting in the film turning out to be an all-around effort.

Moreover, the challenge was not just to make the film but also to pitch it correctly before the trade as well as the audience, more so since Amitabh Bachchan's Te3n and Shamitabh hadn't really done well, hence resulting in several distributors catching cold feet. Still, it was the first promo that did the trick and from this point on it was relative smooth sailing.

All of this and more is narrated in Pink - The Inside Story that does take you behind the scenes and makes you well aware about the fact that to make a good product, it is indeed some team effort that needs to come into play, instead of heroic effort of any single individual.

Price: 299/=

Rating: ***