"Shahid has earned me my respect back"

Miracles are just second chances – second chances when all hope was lost,” wrote Kaya McLaren. And editor Apurva Asrani’s life reflects just that. From Satya to Shahid it’s been two decades of playing hide and seek with fame and failure. But today if there’s one more name, which pops up along with Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao, it’s that of Apurva Asrani – the editor and screenwriter of the critically acclaimed films, Shahid and CityLights. The films have brought Apurva back in business after a long hiatus. “Shahid got me out of hibernation. I had moved out of the city. I was living in Bangalore; attending to my garden. I looked for success in the flowers that bloomed there,” smiles Apurva as we bond over butter chicken. Well, his story is not less riveting than the narratives he edits…

Circa 1998. A 19-year-old Apurva became the talk of the town for editing Ram Gopla Varma’s cult classic Satya. Massive appreciation, Filmfare Award… everything was going for him. “That kind of high can never be replicated. Suddenly, I was being taken seriously. My parents accepted the fact that opting out of traditional education wasn’t a bad decision after all.” 
What baffles is why the talents of Satya didn’t stick together and do more films as a team. “Satya reached cult status. Talents like composer Vishal Bhardwaj, actor Manoj Bajpayee, Sandeep Chowta (background score) and writer Anurag Kashyap were part of this film. The challenge is to stick together and replicate the success. It’s like marriage. The sex gets better when you get to know each other more. But at that point everyone wanted their individual place under the sun. Unfortunately, the team spirit dissolved. We all were on TV talking about the film. Then there were arguments like you spoke about him but not me, you took the credit for writing, etc. These things pulled us apart.”

Apruva’s next two films after Satya were Snip and Chhal. The films got him awards but failed to garner audiences. So he chose commercial films like Om Jai Jagdish and Out Of Control. And then everything crashed. Both films bombed at the box-office. “I don’t regret doing Om Jai Jagdish. But Out Of Control backfired. Vashu Bhagnani was the only one who offered me a film again after Om Jai Jagdish – that is Out Of Control and I jumped at it. The hope was that it would be what Om Jai Jagdish could not be - an out and out commercial hit. There was greed in me to taste big commercial success.”

He continues, “The director (Ramanjit Juneja) and producer Vashuji had a fallout and weren’t seeing eye to eye. Vashuji would ask me to shoot portions of the film. I had fun directing. When the film was ready and I was editing it, I couldn’t connect with it. We had shot a wacky film… scenes were written on set, they were shot randomly. I realised that I had made a mistake. I got immense flak for the film. So I went from someone who was called a whizkid to being called someone who made a piece of shit. Funnily, Out Of Control made more money than Satya.”

That explains why he stepped back and didn’t do any films between 2003 and 2008. “I did other things instead. I worked for a television channel; I did promos for films. I never deserted my craft. I just stayed away from the film industry. I believed I had let people down. That urged me to move out of the city. Because in the city, I ended up doing promos for the same filmmakers. My ego was crushed.”

Apurva moved to London and got busy with theatre productions. After a few years he came to Mumbai and took up Nagesh Kukunoor’s Aashayein and Tasveer 8x10. “With Tasveer 8x10, Nagesh made the same mistake what I had made with Out Of Control. I fought with Nagesh and told him that he couldn’t go commercial with this film. Fed up,
I moved to Bangalore.”

There he got a chance to understand himself. “I discovered my love for cooking, found a best friend in my dog, felt happy when the flowers bloomed in my garden and wrote a lot. I made short films too. It was a peaceful life. It was a challenge that I could exist as a self-respecting man without awards and the tag of being a celebrated editor.”
And then opportunity knocked once again. “One day I got an email from Hansal Mehta with a film’s poster. It had Rajkummar Rao’s silhouette. The poster had the working title of the film and the credits read – directed by Hansal Mehta, produced by Anurag Kashyap and edited by Apurva Asrani. I understood my bad phase had ended. I immediately moved back to Mumbai.”
But readjusting to the city was a struggle. The film was independent and the team didn’t know if they would be shooting the next day. “We didn’t know when the next funds would be coming in. We put our angst into making this film. After Shahid, I edited Jalpari and Children Of War. I noticed they were all human rights stories. Somewhere, through the years, I had become an activist myself. I could express myself through these films.”

The success of Shahid was followed by CityLights. “Shahid has earned me my respect back. When we showcased Shahid at the Mumbai International Film Festival, people went ballistic. I didn’t witness that kind of response even during Satya. I’m proud of Satya and I’m grateful to Ramu but it seemed that I would just remain a one-film wonder. But when producer Guneet Monga introduced me as the editor of Shahid and CityLights, I realised I didn’t have to rely on my old credentials.

Now I’m back to the point whereI had left. It’s like a rebirth with an understanding of the life gone by.” He continues, “This time around I don’t have delusions. Earlier I rested on my laurels. Now I’ve finished one film and I’m on the next.” Now, he’s taken on a light comedy film called Dharam Sankat Mein. “I love coming to work. My colleagues are Paresh Rawal, Anu Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah. They make me laugh all the time.” Though he has a passion for directing, he has put those plans on hold for some time now. “I’ve just hit the purple patch.
I want to enjoy this phase now.”