Bengalurean’s book makes it to Bollywood

Entrepreneur and author Varun Agarwal’s novel is about startup culture

Entrepreneur and author Varun Agarwal’s novel will be made into a Hindi film soon.

The 2012 book ‘How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company’, will be made into a Hindi film ‘Bas Karo Aunty’, helmed by Abhishek Sinha. It will be produced by Nitesh Tiwari and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Ronnie Screwvala and Star Studios.

The film was supposed to start in 2017, but got halted due to other projects the makers were committed to, and the pandemic.

“It was one of the first books on entrepreneurship that was mainstream in Bengaluru then. The book is probably more relevant now because of the craze for entrepreneurship,” says Agarwal.

Varun’s book came out in 2012.

Entrepreneurship is “more psychological than any other skillset”, notes Varun. “Entrepreneurship is a journey where one can experience failure,
uncertainty, among many other things, every day. The book is more about what a person feels while they’re going to be an entrepreneur,” he says.

Film discussions

It was during a lecture at IIM Lucknow in 2014 when Agarwal met Kapur. “I was a big fan of his. After the lecture, we spoke and hung out and I gave him a copy of the book. He read it on the flight back and messaged me saying he liked the book and hoped to do something with it in the future. I met Nitesh Tiwari in Mumbai in 2016, just before he was going to start ‘Dangal’. He also expressed his interest to work on it and things fell into place,” elaborates Agarwal.

After the halt, discussions restarted in 2022 and the film took off. “About 25 days of shooting is already done,” he says.

The film will star Ishwak Singh from the web series like ‘Paatal Lok’ and ‘Rocket Boys’, and Mahima Makwana, who was seen in Salman Khan-starrer ‘Antim: The Final Truth’.

“I’m a big fan of Ishwak as ‘Rocket Boys’ is a story set in Bengaluru. We don’t know who Anu aunty is yet,” Agarwal says.

Ask the entrepreneur if the film will be based in Bengaluru and he is tight-lipped. “Sorry, can’t say,” he quips.