Y.Sunita Chowdhary
Suman is a family man. He not only works ten hours a day exercising his grey cells, he also spends reasonable time in the kitchen whipping up sumptuous meals for his people. They love his food and there are no requests or suggestions for correction but is it the same case with writing? We ask if he keeps refining his draft and he says writing is rewriting. “I have never heard anybody who went to get his book published or to the sets with the first draft. In the history of writing it has never happened. Ninety percent of any creative effort is not the best and that applies to photographs as well. The reason I call you a good photographer is because you have not shown me your bad photographs. You are recreating actual life and your characters have certain motivation, they react because they are who they are. It is like sculpting. It is impossible to recreate unless you see a character in his perspective. In Family Man, the basic premise has a middle class guy and he is also a world class spy. He does the balancing act of being a good father, good hubby, and he has to save the world. Now how do we introduce him? Do we give him a tuxedo or is he seen as a jet setter? He is the regular middle class guy who takes a local train to office, and has those normal aspirations of bagging a home loan. The characters bild the world and the world builds the character. When you write a draft, the rewriting works like that, you always go back to your character. You also say your character is not going to do that or will not behave in a certain manner. Once you have travelled with the character, it has a life of its own.”
Is there a difference between writing for a film and a web series? Suman says writing for a film also takes years depending on what one is trying to achieve. A web series is like 120 minutes Vs 60 minutes. “In a feature film, the focus predominantly is on the hero, heroine and villain or maybe the hero’s best pal and kids. In a long form, it allows you to break and think for every single character, even if a character has a one line to say. In Season 2, every character..be it Chellam sir who has 15 minutes of screen time impresses. You are able to hold such characters episode after episode. It is like a biryani and an omelette. Biryani is a long process but both are interesting in their own ways.” Are we breaking away from the traditional narrative? “Why should we? If we do this for ten years this becomes formula too. Keep it real and fresh. Ten to 15 years from now, what we write currently may not work. A masala film might make a comeback. It is the cyclical nature of life.”
We asked Suman if he would be interested in direction. He has no plans for now and is enjoying what he does. He quips, “Writing is a different job. A director is the CEO of the project, supposed to know and engage with all the cast and crew and requires a skill set. Writing is the foundation. Do I want to direct? There are some stories that I have and I will think of it when the time is right.” Suman is heavily inspired by Jandhyala and has no qualms admitting that he is influenced by the writer’s humour and character design and also says that unfortunately no one has been able to rise to that level of comedy. “I love his films Ahana Pellanta, Bawa Bawa Paneeru etc. His universe is plausible, intriguing, connectible, I can talk all night, he is my idol. Jandhyala left at a very young age but he was such a genius.”
It has been a while since the Season 2 had begun streaming and people are still obsessed with the characters and many have become judgemental, some have taken it quite personally. Was the story telling democratic? “Absolutely. For example, if you look at Srikant Tiwari, you understand people who are in the business as undercover officers and their modus operandi, how they stay prepared. I don’t know if they are paid less, obviously government jobs are different from private jobs but an IPS officer takes pride in his profession. The brightest people when they go to the private sector make tonnes of money but they choose a particular job because it means a lot more than one can explain. The level of satisfaction is different. Srikant goes one step forward, in real life these people are soldiers in a way not just the police or the BSF.” Suman has done enough research on spies and has seen many films. He states that it is not about brute force, it is about technology and intelligence gathering. “It has been there since the Cholas. A spy has to be a great actor and that is perhaps why Srikant is liked so much. About people being judgemental and sexist, I can only say that none questioned Srikant when he was flirting with a woman. No one talks of Aravind and people ignore him. Srikant Tiwari is not available, physically or emotionally to his wife. There is a certain nuance, life is never black and white. If someone is hating you, that means your effort hasn’t gone in vain, it is a success. The characters have moved them at that level. Most ideas come from research,” he shares.
Suman is quite articulate and eloquent and he leaned towards literature very early in life. He was born in Chennai and brought up in Chittoor. His father Ranganatha Chatyulu, a Tamilian, studied in Bheemavaram and after he retired from his job (animal husbandry department) in Chittoor, settled down in Chennai. He spent equal amounts of time in Chennai (at his maternal granny’s place) during summer holidays and also studied Tamil and Telugu. After living in Bengaluru for more than 15 years, it is obvious he could manage colloquial Kannada. His mother right from his childhood, encouraged him to read and he turned into a voracious reader. He cites a small anecdote, “After the 8th standard, I picked up English literature too and became a good reader. I would go to a library in Chittoor and finish reading all the books in the library; I did the same in Chennai too. During summer holidays in Chennai, after breakfast I would go to the library, stay there till lunch hour and go back. I did this for five years. I loved fiction, war stories etc. Even if I wanted to do research, the library was the only solution.”
Reading played a big role in the designing of characters. He read everything and anything written by Erramsetty Sai, Yandamoori Veerendranath, Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy, Suryadeva Rammohana Rao, Yadhanapudi Sulochona Rani, and ofcourse the greatest influence was Madhu Babu. He shares, “The world he created around Shadow was brilliant and he would come up with a great series. I loved his writing style, it was teasing and titilliating, no explicit stuff though. I asked him if I could translate the Shadow series but it didn’t happen. I would wait for Swathi magazine every week to read the serials. It was a well rounded exposure and with my mom being a good storyteller and my maternal grandpa being a historian, I guess I got the fetish for the written word from them. About narrating stories, I remember being punished as a student and made to sit under the gulmohar tree only to find myself enjoying the art of narrating stories to a fellow mate and there was an audience. I enjoyed the attention. You just do something that is fun for you. Narrate stories that have no logic but that is how it all developed. If I was asked to get sugar, I would carefully unwrap the paper container and read the content. Being curious helps and DK, the producer would always ask how I remember so much.”
Suman had faced a great deal of pressure at home and also from peers for not pursuing a career in engineering. His father found it scandalous that he wanted to do BA and not accountancy. Her cousin was in the USA and here Suman wanted to write a novel in English and become famous. When he actually wrote his first book, he never told anyone. He further says, “From being a salesman, copywriter, technical writer, accounts executive, I did everything. I made a lot of friends and went to the USA, I was in South Carolina and DK was in Minneapolis. I wrote an email to him. DK had done short films by then and wanted to do a film. One day he said, “Looks like you and I are the only people in the class chasing a dream.” That was an epiphany to me and I questioned myself, why I wasn’t writing. In 2001 like I said earlier, I wrote a book and thought it was the greatest piece of literature and it was rejected. I began writing a lot of stories, and my writing started getting better. By the time DK was making stuff he chanced upon my blog. He read that and called me and said ‘bhale detail chestaav stories’. My wife encouraged me too, she told me to write a book.”
In 2016 Amazon expressed interest in greenlighting the Family Man and Suman for the first time did the story, screenplay, writing. Before that Raj and DK asked him if they should be doing it. He contributed significantly to the narrative through everything the three of them were doing. Suman recollects the making of Season 2, “I never went on sets. Raj would scream at me because I wasn’t at the spot. So I went to the Kashmir schedule and spent a few days there. The post production was going on, I pitched the story to DK and he liked it. I was there from genesis, scripting, pre production etc. When we were in the middle of part 2 shooting, Season 1 was released. The world changed for me. I was worried if people would see, appreciate because the template is missing, the hero is so flawed. Honestly I was very nervous but Season 1 was a sleeper hit. I saw the reviews, people actually liked it -the story telling and characters.”
Suman had done it and there is no stopping him now. He grew up with a complex and never showed it. Like a sponge he had absorbed every little thing he read and did jobs that he never found agreeable but finally everything has come in handy to him as a storyteller. He has worked with Y Not Studios as well and developed scripts for them. Right now he is being flooded with many opportunities, interesting projects and also part 3 is on the anvil. True? “Three is at a formative stage. We have basic ideas, and will go through the same journey of genesis to screen,” he signs off.
