Progressive writing, the right way

Meet the writer behind the runaway hit web series ‘Posh Poris’ Gautami Challagulla, who is a Mechanical Engineering graduate. She worked in IT industry for seven years (both in India and abroad) before she quit her job to pursue Masters in Communication from University of Hyderabad. Post her Masters she and her classmates set up a media firm that works in educational films and documentaries. With ‘Posh Poris’ she ventured into screenwriting.

Apart from making films and writing, she keeps an interest in classical dancing and has been learning Kuchipudi for the past 17 years. She is also fascinated about is animals and fosters pups and do community petting and volunteer rescues occasionally.

‘Posh Poris’ centres around how three young girls lead their life. It shows how their struggle to be independent and keep their individuality. The series has garnered a lot of praise from the tinsel town and is helmed by Aparna Malladi.

Excerpts.
What was the idea behind ‘Posh Poris’?
The executive producer Rama garu from Telugu One and the director Aparna Malladi, an independent filmmaker gave me this concept of three girls who are roommates. They wanted 10 episodes revolving around their lives. Essentially portray the lives of girls in the way they live daily.

How did you conceptualise the characters?
I got a basic briefing about the characters. Hyndavi character is from Rajahmundry, works in IT industry and wants to go to the US. Maya is an event manager, who does weddings but dreams of opening her own corporate event management company. Sesh (Seshamma) is the daughter of an ex-MLA, who wants to get married to her boyfriend.

Once I had these details, I came up with elaborate character sketches. Like, Maya is the seductress, the sensible ones, stable, no-nonsense girl who lives her life by her terms unapologetically. Hyndavi is the mother figure -- soft, patient and not judgemental of one. And lastly, Sesh is the queen, the playful, silly and overacting. See, personally, I have friends who fall under all the three character types and I myself fall into these types.

So that did help a lot. Also, my Masters' thesis was on ‘Female Bonding’. So my literature review included a lot of things about girls such as studying notes from the diaries of women in the 19th century, observe the activities over which women bond, what are their conversations, etc. So, I think most of my observations and analyses were helpful while designing the characters and writing. Every episode of ‘Posh Poris’ passes “The Bechdel Test”!

How much time did you take to write the script?
This is a little tricky. Writing a few episodes was a cake-walk... like episode#2 ‘Swacch Bharat’ or Episode 6 and 7. A few took really long time... And for the last two episodes, I sought help from Aparna. All of them would go through reviews by the director and the producer. And I think I wrote at least two drafts of each episode. On an average, I took three days to write the first draft of every episode.

Did you think this series can break stereotypes?
Well, I would say yes with a lot of humility and caution. We consciously didn’t want to portray the girls as daring, dashing and radical types. The idea was to show that these three are representative of this generation. Independent and confused yet firm, unapologetic and willing to experiment and learn from their mistakes.

So yes, they did break certain common stereotypes such as girls have to be shy, girls have to be sticklers of cleanliness, they should not be lazy, the only topic in their lives is boys, girls generally do not discuss careers and ambitions, it is wrong for a girl to drink and smoke, etc. And lastly, girls do not have a take on their sexual life.

The series received both appreciation and backlash. How did you handle the negative comments?
Well, I categorised the backlashes into two (laughs). One is from the “Sanskaaris”, who thought we were "spoiling" the girls and showing girls like this is an insult to our traditions and customs.

Firstly, we did not show any extraterrestrial activities from another planet. We showed everything that is around us. It is not uncommon to see girls wearing different sizes of dresses and that should be so normalised that it should not even be a topic of discussion. And secondly, as far as dating is concerned, I think having statistics of Tinder users in our country speaks for itself.

So, if girls wearing shorts and dating boys of their choice is an insult to our tradition and spoiling, then well, that's what we intended to do. And I think, all those who really use this reason to criticise should go and read about Laura Mulvey's ‘Male Gaze’.

The second kind of backlash is with respect to the writing or direction, which I think is mostly a perspective. Because several liked this kind of storytelling and some did not. Having said that, this was my first writing in Fiction, so I think there is a definite scope for improvement and I intend to improve as I write more.

What are your future plans?
I am writing for a web series that I would be directing under Telugu One production. In general, I plan to write more, make more movies and use the medium of film to tell a lot of stories.

By Navin Pivhal