The first offer I got to make my feature film debut was in the middle of Rockstar, and I was beyond thrilled at the opportunity. I quickly doubled down, shared a script with the studio and things were ready to go. Unfortunately unknown to me at that time, the company was going through a hell of a financial crisis and after six months of working on the film, the entire company shut down and filed for bankruptcy!! Never has a dream come crashing down this hard and this quickly. I didn't know it back then, but my journey was just beginning.

I floundered a little. Luckily I was hired to write a film for a studio, and I wrote that script as a way to earn money for my everyday living in Mumbai. I will be forever grateful to this opportunity because even though the film did not eventually get made- the work made it possible for me to continue pitching my own projects without having to take on a full time, 9-5 job. Meanwhile the hits and losses continued.

Pitch 11: I was at a very big studio house, who had really liked my script and I was riding high on optimism as I had just pitched my script to the Head of the Studio last week and had been called in to talk with the Executive producer. I was very excited about talking to this Executive Producer, particularly because she had really championed my script and I knew without doubt that she loved it.

I walk in and after the usual pleasantries, the executive producer very kindly told me that I was not going to be making the film with them because they had in fact decided not to commit to any films where the Director was new. I was a bit stunned, because my gut at the end of my meeting with the head of the studio had been a super positive one.

I politely told her that what she said was inaccurate because I did in fact know of a new Director who would be debuting with them. And I said his name. The lady smiled gently and said, ‘Oh he doesn’t count, he’s not in your category.’ I had no idea what on earth she meant by that. Sensing that, the lady explained to me…

‘His brother (read Big Famous Director) is the Creative Director of his film. We are not signing him because of him; we are signing him because of his brother. Don’t worry, your script is better than his, I’m sure you will find someone to make it.’

The rest of what happened is a blur. I thanked the lady, because at heart I knew she was trying to encourage me… but it broke my heart.

It’s not that my work wasn’t good enough, it was, it’s just that I wasn’t well connected enough. What the hell do you do about that?!  Nothing. You can do nothing, so you continue to pitch of course.

Pitch 25: In another studio, I met another group of incredible studio executives who immediately loved my script. They championed and rallied my script through a series of narrations- all the way to the head of studio. He wasn’t sure. He asked for a Hindi draft (yes, I write my scripts with English dialogue). That meant me going back to the drawing board and finding someone to help me write in Hindi. Again the wonderful studio executives helped me out and put me in touch with someone to help. We rewrote the script, and by the time we got it back into the hands of the studio head, he had completely lost interest.

Back to the drawing board. I wrote another script. Many people praised its writing; told me how well-written it was, but no one wanted to fund it.

When I made Dear Maya, I had done the rounds of these studios like maybe four times… with different scripts and different ideas and the only thing I was truly a hundred percent sure of was ‘my script is good’ and I cant waste a single second more of my life waiting for things to happen like this. This is what I like to think of as, the birth of my alter ego: Kamli. Kamli is my alter ego, the girl/woman who is crazy enough to believe she can do everything she wants and brave enough to see it through, no matter what the consequences or challenges maybe.

Her superpower is her determination and inability to see people as anything but equal. I decided if these guys weren’t going to do it, then I would have to find my own way to do it. I would raise the money that I needed to, get the actors that I wanted and just go ahead and make the film the way I wanted to. My first film Dear Maya, didn’t reach it’s audience at all.  We were promised 500 theatres; we ended up with 180 theatres only. The show timings were awful and most people couldn’t see the film. But I am so damn proud of the film and somehow I had willed the universe to allow me to become that elusive thing called the Director!