JOIN USEverything that Kiran Kotrial does hinges around his many virtues: his ever-ready sharp wit and instant repartee, his sense of humour, his amazing perceptiveness and his overriding passion for cinema and entertainment of varied hues.
As a college student, he presented successful spoofs on cinema as his contribution to the institution’s annual day. Eight years later, a member of the audience then summoned him to write for a television show he was doing, as he had vowed to call him the day he got his own television show.
“One thing led to another, and his director took me on for his other projects,” says Kiran. “Over time, I became friends with people like Javed Jaffrey. I then even directed shows like Superstars, my first venture, Farhan Akhtar’s Oye! It’s Friday! and others with Shah Rukh Khan and Farah Khan.”
Kiran is best known in the industry now as the writer of reality shows like Bigg Boss and Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi and the new season of Deal Ya No Deal for &TV. So we ask an obvious question: Does a reality show need scriptwriters? “Well, the beginning, middle, break points and ends have to be pre-structured,” he explains. “The shows must get a direction.”
Kiran’s friendship with eminent funsters as well as big stars is only too well-known. It was an easy next step for him to grow to co-writing films like Ishq Vishk, Fida, Kambakkht Ishq, Bodyguard and Race 2. “Television gave me speed, so I even had passing issues with filmmakers who took time to understand and accept scenes I had written instantly in a couple of my films,” he says.
He has recently turned down a new reality show as he wanted to do something that he “had swept under the carpet for too long” — script two films, one of which he will direct as well. “It’s a romantic, comic thriller like Hera Pheri,” he tells you — he can never be away from humour, of course. “My father had a whacky sense of humour, and my mother’s too was sharply developed! I must have got it from them.” Also, Kiran’s brother, though working elsewhere, was a film maniac.
All this rubbed off on him, and the sense of fun took a new turn when Kiran watched Dev Anand’s Gangster and found it “unwittingly funny”. He asked his friends, mostly stand-up comedians led by Johny Lever, to come and watch the film together and that’s when Johny suggested that he take his own angle on such movies. Gradually, this developed into a passion.
“I would watch every good film again,” recalls Kiran. “And that’s when my eyes would roam around the screen and notice things most of us do not,” he says. “With bad films, I would lose interest, and start noting such things immediately.”
This exercise soon developed into a systematic tabulating of what he calls “bloopers” by listing them out on his cellphone. “It’s all done with a sense of fun, and not to run down anyone or be rude,” he clarifies. “Often, out of practical exigencies, some of these gaffes were unavoidable, or even convenient.”
And that, he feels, is the reason why his show, named Timepass Talkies, is so successful. “People come to enjoy, not be derogatory, just as we meet and make fun of a common relative, and several stars have even asked me to include such flaws from their own films too on the two-hour show. For 11 years, I staged it by invitation to people I knew, who in turn called in people they knew, with friends sponsoring stuff, like Ramesh Taurani of Tips paying for the samosas.”
Eleven years later, in 2015, it was time for a ticketed event. The terrific word-of-mouth, backed by shrewd ads in national dailies and support from a local FM station has ensured a great audience response. After all, when a Riteish Deshmukh says that he wishes his movies were as funny, or when Sonu Nigam compares Timepass Talkies to a comedy show with the analogy of a nuclear bomb compared to dynamite, people will listen.