These are good days for Neeraj Pandey. The credit for Prashant Nair’s Tryst with Destiny winning the award for best screenplay for an International Narrative Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festival 2020 goes to the indie-scriptwriter and lyricist.
He is also a part of the motley team of writers who wrote the lines for Hasmukh, the Netflix dark comedy serial which stars comedian and actor Vir Das as a small-town-comic-turned-serial-killer.
Often, artists get subsumed by their own characters: Hasmukh has explored his dark side through the characters. Since Ravi Kishen, Ranvir Shorey and Manoj Pahwa made up a versatile and challenging cast, he synced the subjects of the story with the image of the actors in his mind.
“This is how I created different voices for different characters in my head, caught them and wrote for them,” he explains.
Pandey has written all the songs for two upcoming projects—Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, the debut of actress-turned-director, Seema Pahwa, as well as Hardik Mehta’s widely-praised Kaamyaab starring Sanjay Mishra.
While Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi is a family drama featuring the veritable who’s who of the Indian alternative cinema, in which Pandey’s lyrics unravel a family’s dynamics after the death of their patriarch, Kaamyaab was recently given a thumbs-up by well-known Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho for its poignant portrayal of forgotten character actors.
Of all his work, Pandey finds writing lyrics most challenging. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, write four lines and go back to sleep. The process is so satisfying that whenever I crack a song, I experience a high,” he beams.
Currently, he is busy developing a relationship drama for a leading OTT. Last year, he also wrote the dialogues for a period drama set in old Bollywood, the announcement of which he is still awaiting. Can’t put a good man down for long: he has also started working on his own film.
Growing up, Pandey was aware of his artistic inclinations. He always knew he would do something in the field of art. This intuition led to a career in gaming and animation. It was only after working for several years in the industry that he realised that his career was a means to something else that lived deep within him—writing.
When he moved to Bengaluru in 2013 to work in India’s biggest studio, it felt like a dead end. The ‘now what’ question kept him awake, and writing began to resurface in his life. Pandey says that he is lucky to have met like-minded people and make a living out of his calling.
“The sheer pleasure I get from the surprise and the possibilities of discovering the unknown keeps me going,” he says. No matter how busy his day is, Pandey manages to take out some time to sit in his writing chair and dream. “I’m nostalgic about places I have never been to,” he adds.
If poetry is the sister of lyrics, Pandey is a family man who is enchanted by verse from different cultures and different authors.
He is fascinated by language and its impact on people. Finding new metaphors and expressing himself through different images stimulates him.
“There are things I can’t say in my poems, so I verbalize them as jokes. Sometimes a story is the perfect medium to express my thoughts. I can express some emotions better through a song. And sometimes the urge to crack a PJ is irresistible.
I have named them Pandey-Jokes,” he concludes. However, such versatility is no joke.
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Favourite films - Midnight in Paris, Kung-Fu Panda and Ankhon Dekhi
Favourite book - On Writing by Stephen King
Writing poetry or screenwriting? - Writing poetry is a compulsion, a process from internal to external, whereas screenwriting is my profession, a process from external to internal
The living person whom you most admire - Shahrukh Khan. He taught an entire generation to dream.
Greatest achievement - To have met Shahrukh Khan through my work, and of course, chilling with him
The moment that changed your life - Every time I resigned from a job or left a city
Your life’s motto - Be honest and empathetic