Book: Vikram Bhatt pens his pain, says there's a masochist in all creative peop...

If filmmaker Vikram Bhatt’s horror films make you shiver, his writing will leave you shaken. Such is the intensity of romance that the writer-director displays in his book, A Handful of Sunshine – a fictionalised story of two characters, Veer and Mira.

If Veer is Vikram, who is Mira? “Oh! I can’t ever name her. She exists, but is a very private person. And, I think, she likes it that way,” says Bhatt, whose relationship with actor Sushmita Sen was once the talk of the town. Is his book dedicated to his fictional character, Mira? “No, it just says… ‘To her’. I think it’s dedicated to all those who have had a broken heart and have had the strength to love again,” he elucidates.

“The book isn’t autobiographical but a fictionalised version of some things that I have gone through. It’s not a point-to-point kind of representation of what I went through. A lot of it is fiction. It’s based on a few people I know, but not all exact (real happenings),” says the director of films such as 1920 (2008) and Creature 3D (2014).

‘Nothing makes greater fiction than fact’

A master in writing stories, Bhatt didn’t mind bringing out his personal life into public domain. “Nothing makes greater fiction than fact. After all, what’s the point of having a tragedy if it’s not entertaining enough? It’s a sad way to put it but it’s a fact. In everyday life, when we read the newspaper, suppose there’s a plane crash or a bomb somewhere, you are glued to the television screen. For you, it’s a story…”

‘We sell our pain because nothing makes [for a] better creative than pain’

Is he still in touch with his real-life Mira? (long pause) “Yes, I am,” he admits and explains that it’s the nature of his profession that demands him to pen down his pain. “We all artists are basically pain sellers. We sell our pain because nothing makes [for a] better creative than pain. Even music for that matter… the most pained person makes the best music. People wish entertainers pain so that their entertainment sparkles. There’s a nice saying in Hindi ki ‘Ujala failane ke liye diye ko apne sar mein aag lagani padti hai’. So, I think, there’s a bit of masochist in all creative people.”

‘I am a sad sack writing intense love stories’

It is commendable that he’s able to dabble in both — the romantic and horror genres — with ease. “I make horror films because they give me money. I wrote A Handful of Sunshine because that’s who I am, intrinsically. I am a sad sack (laughs) writing intense love stories.”

‘You must be more impatient than the reader you are writing for’

Mention his intriguing style of writing, and Bhatt refuses to tag the book “suspenseful”. “It’s just emotional to me. I think people don’t have too much patience. Perhaps the best thing is, to not to say too much. Telling everything is boring and I hate boring the audience! You must be more impatient than the reader you are writing for.”