In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard hundreds of masterpieces talked about over bars in pubs, restaurant tables, coffee shops and social gatherings. But I've never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked. Period! So I wonder what happened when the creator and producer Sid Jain talked to writer Anish Patel? I wonder what the writer Anish Patel talked to the artist Harshvardhan Kadam? I marvel what Kadam must've told the colourist Rahul Arora? I speculate what Rahul chatted with creative supervisor Vaspar Dandiwala? And in the end I question what all of these put together must've nattered in the company of Naina Patel, Neeta Shah and Carmen Zainabadi? - The iRock angels who helped put India's first ever Zombie graphic novel together, called 'Zombie Talkies' - Bloodfest In Bollywood. Lesson learnt! Collectively as one big fat team, they did it right, they published it and actually left something behind for us readers that can last forever. UK's Harrow Observer columnist and Bollywood Hungama's London correspondent brings you the exclusive sneak peek into the must read graphic book of 2011 and talks with writer Anish Patel. By the way, you need not be a Zombie fan to read it because it's fun sometimes not to take yourself so seriously.
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History is being made. The shooting has started for Bollywood's first ever Zombie film. But no one suspects that before the next day dawns, they will have to face real zombies. Will the cast and crew of a Zombie film escape from the clutches of the living dead? Will we get to see a Bollywood style climax for the undead? Will India's first Zombie film ever get made?
"Sid gave us the seed two and a half years ago about a graphic novel. That came from the fact that the script of Rock The Shaadi was ready and Navdeep Singh was on board as a director. We came up with a very different story and a lot of creative inputs came from the creative team at iRock. I wrote the first draft of the novel with the page numbers and final layouts and then collectively it was launched at Comic Con Mumbai a few days ago."
The crew improvises and fights the Zombies, Bollywood style
"I think Hrithik Roshan will make a brilliant Zombie and a scary one too. He can be a lead in any Zombie movie. But once Rock The Shaadi comes out, you will soon come to know the 'zombiegiri' from Abhay Deol. He too makes a decent Zombie. Did I say 'decent zombie'? (Laughs)"
Co-director Meera attacks a Zombie with a boom mike
"Zombie Talkies is available in all leading bookstores in Mumbai. It's an 'R' rated graphic novel. We've gone all out in blood, gore, language and even sex. You don't see many graphic novels pushing the envelope in India. It's a whole new hybrid of Zombies meeting Bollywood. We've put them in an Indian context."
The first one to turn is actress Srinita Chopra who attacks her co-star Aakash Kumar on the set of "Shaadi of the Deadly Dulhan"
"Initially, the title of the graphic book was 'Bollywood of the Dead'. But later on, when we got the publishers on board we decided that it wasn't connecting to the Indian audiences in what we wanted to say. The theme was Zombies and then Bollywood. So we decided to call it 'Zombie Talkies'. It's universally accepted then. It made more sense."