Swara Bhaskar pens a love story

Swara Baskar, who’s eagerly awaiting the release of her grand Diwali attraction this year, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo, is always known for her choice of interesting roles and playing it with great aplomb. Accordingly, the versatile actress has decided to write the kind of role she would want to play.

Swara, who has an interesting line up of films releasing in the second quarter of the year including the Salman Khan starrer and also Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's Nil Battey Sannata among others, has turned writer with her script, Split Ends, one of the thirteen final contenders in the Asia Society India Centre New Voices Fellowship for Screenwriters 2015-2016, running with the theme, ‘Making Heroine The New Hero’.

The talented actress wrote the first draft of the story in 2011 and reworked it over the years. Well known screenwriter Sridhar Raghavan helped her nurture the script which is set in the Hindi heartland and draws its premise from her own extended family.

Swara says, “I will be locking in on a producer and director by December and plan to act in the movie,” adding that she prefers taking breaks to attend script writing, theatre and acting workshops. “I realised the final script has the potential to be narrated as a full-length feature. I have a timeline in place and hope to begin casting for the roles by the end of the year,” she says.

Swara is looking forward to an eight-month writing programme, beginning with a five-day workshop by filmmaker Anjum Rajabali, followed by a second workshop in February 2016. “The commendable aspect of this initiative is that each participating fellow receives Rs 2 lakh as funding for their writing work and script development.”