It’s not often that you come across dialogue like “he has guitar phobia” or “serial murderers of disco dancers from London”. But if you do, it doesn’t seem right to pass up the chance to write a book on such a movie. t2 gets talking with Anuvab Pal, the author of Disco Dancer — A Comedy In Five Acts

Tell us a little about Disco Dancer…

I had just finished writing the book on The President Is Coming. I was also working on my stand-up act The Comedy Store and Raell Padamsee’s play 1-888-Dial-India when HarperCollins called and said ‘We need you to write a book’. They were doing a series of books on films and asked me what I’d like to write on.

I said Disco Dancer. And the editor said: ‘I’ll call you back’. They offered to set up meetings with B. Subhash and Bappi Lahiri…. So, it was entirely their fault. Though, I admit I had fun… I’ve been obsessed with Disco Dancer for quite some time.

Why Disco Dancer?

It’s really bad (laughs) and yet, in a way, it’s also fantastic. It’s a combination of so many great things. If you look at the structure of the plot, it’s genius. It’s unimaginable, some of the things they thought of in a movie — a mother being electrocuted by a man called Basco, someone cutting a guitar in half or a tightrope walker throwing a guitar in a way that the power line goes around somebody’s neck... and it’s still played!

So you’re not a fan?

No, no I’m a genuine fan. I’m a big fan of Mithunda and his movies… Gunda and the series where he plays a James Bond-like sharpshooter, Gunmaster G-9... Suraksha and two more films. There is one movie where they show New York getting destroyed, so they had this little replica of the Empire State Building that gets destroyed. You could actually see someone’s finger press it down to destroy it... and New York’s finished!

Anuvab Pal at the Calcutta launch of his book. (Aranya Sen)

Playwright, screenwriter, columnist, stand-up comedian — which is your favourite you?

I love writing plays. But movies get across to a lot more people.

What really inspires me is writing dialogue. A large part of Disco Dancer is analysing the dialogue. Like in the movie, this dancer called Sammy says to his manager David Brown: ‘There are 36 managers like you who come out of Sam’s every dance movement. A star like Sam is born every two or four eras.’ How do you write dialogue like that?! I wanted to analyse it from that perspective of writing dialogue. Most of my stand-up comedy is essentially scenes. I throw myself in a situation and see how it goes. The books were an offshoot of that; now I really want to go back to writing plays.

Any plans of bringing your stand-up comedy act to Calcutta?

The Comedy Store might have plans of doing an India trip in association with British Council. But I don’t know when. I want to bring some of my plays to Calcutta. A Calcutta group put up 1-888 but Raell and her group (Ace Productions) haven’t brought it down here.

Are you writing any play or film now?

Yes, I’m writing a play on the bureaucracy. It’s a sort of mash-up between the Yes, Prime Minister series, Democracy, (a play by Michael Frayn) and old-school Hindi sitcoms like Ye Jo Hai Zindagi and Office Office.

The film I’m working on is a romantic comedy centred around… oh, I can’t reveal anymore. The studio has asked me to shut up until the paperwork is done!

Three films that you feel deserve a book on them?

So many. Like Shakespeare in Love — it’s a great film. I love that and would love to read something written on the film. There are books that I love that I would love to see being made into films. Like Plassey by Nirad C. Chaudhuri. It would make an epic Master and Commander-type of film. It would be fabulous.

In pulp, there is Gunda, Parvarish, Gunmaster G-9... anything by Kumar Gaurav, Tarzan — that’s 15 years of cinema.

Your thoughts on Manish Acharya (who co-wrote Loins of Punjab with Pal and passed away last December)...

Manish would enter any room and make it come alive. In a way, I know that everything that I’m going to do from now is just going to be keeping in mind what Manish would think of it. As I edit, it plays on in my head. He will be the perpetual editor in my head.