In Conversation with B.P. Singh

B. P. as he is lovingly called went on to become the Writer, Producer, Director of one of the longest running TV shows in the country; a serial which sets new records every day.

CID has become an iconic show with a cult following that has won many laurels. In 2004, a special episode of 111minutes long single continuous shot, 'The Inheritance' was aired to celebrate the completion of 7 years of CID whichalso gotthe show mention in the Limca Book of Records. In 2010, CID Gallantry Awards were instituted.

Today B. P.is not only a famous icon in the Indian Television Industry, but also a respectable figure for many established writers who owe their success to the learning whichthey got from him. Sriram, Shridhar, RajatArora, VirendraSawhney, (you can see some of their interviews in our archives) openly call him the Principal of their learning School, the Screenplay writing Institute of B. P. Singh!

His production company Fireworks Productions has also produced the hit horror series Aahat (1996 to present).

Bijendra Pal Singh,had finished his Diploma in Cinematography from the Film & Television Institute of India (Pune) before starting his career as a news cameraman for Doordarshan, in 1973. He spent 10 years doing that. Thenhe made a murder mystery telefilm, SirfChaar Din. In the 80she made a TV seriesin Marathi named, EkShunyaShunya.In 2010, BP came up with a silent comedy show called GuturGuand most recently, he has launched his second crimebased show named Hum Ne Li Hai- Shapath.

The man who knows the Crime Branch of policeinside-out, thanks to his R&D for CID, comes across as a very warm and soft-spoken individual. His keen interest in detective work and its dramatic possibilities resonates when he starts narrating stories in the middle of a conversation. Currently, BP Singh is working on a feature film based on CID.

(Excerpts from the interview-)
Tell us about your journey.
My father was a photographer and we had our own studio. I developed a fascination for the camera while I was doing my M.Sc. and would go to the jungles with my friends to click images. At one point of time, my father suggested that I should go to the film institute. From that very moment my interest in M.Sc. started fading away and subsequently I landed up at FTII (Film & Television Institute of India).

But even before that, I had been an ardent fan of the Pakistani writer Ibn-e-Safi's thriller series JasoosiDuniya. In the north,a whole generationthat I belong to has been brought up either on his writings or magazines like Chandamama, Phantom, Mandrakeetc. Reading those stories would create visuals in my mind which have still not left me. Even those characters like Colonel Vinod, Rajesh and Hamid which I loved so much in my childhood, are still stuck in my mind. It all makes for the various inspirations behind the episodes of CID and Aahat.

Later, moving to the literature of Hemingway and Steinbeck, I started developing an understanding of human relationships and the kinds of situations people get into. I started regretting my decision of choosing cinematography at FTII. I now wanted to be a director. So I would suggest the stories of my liking to my friends in the direction course at FTII for their diploma films. I thought I would learn a lot if I could become a part of any film made on such a story but it never happened. The atmosphere at FTII whichsomehow only favorsGodard and Truffaut,never allowed for it.

I joined Doordarshan as a news-cameraman as soon as I came to Mumbai after finishing my course at the film school. In a span of about 6 years, for which I worked there, a completely new world had opened in front of me. It was the world of poverty, rich & poor, hotels & restaurants, outdoors & locations and the amount of subsequent learning which took place, was more comprehensive that what I had learnt at the film school. I learnt the power of camera. It was no longer a machine for me but a part of my body. I would just need to command it and it would behave as if it was one of my limbs. I would think in terms of visuals all the time. Those shots, visuals, moments, use of lenses, hand-held camera movements – I employed all of them in shooting CID and Aahat at various point of times. These elements took my kind of thrillers closer to people.

Another thing was that as journalists we would wait in the evenings until something newsworthy could take place, and in the meanwhile, we would watch a lot of television. In those days it was having a run of the classic show Old Fox. That show had a language of storytelling, comprising of startling camera movements, which has stood the test of times. Its camera would break all kinds of set rules of long-shot, mid-shot, close-up and would not shy away from inventing newer angles.I was fascinated by that show. So the training at FTII, the learning as a cameraman and all that which I had imbibed from that show; came together and helped me in becoming a director.

I am lucky in a way that I don't need to make an effort to bring visuals to my mind. Whenever I get an idea or see any written material I automatically start visualizing them.

How did your become a writer?
I had thought of making a crime-thriller serial for Doordarshan but it was easier said than done because the national channel was very conservative at that time. Around 1975, I went to meet the police commissioner who got fascinated by the concept and introduced me to the Crime Branch. I met all the famous detectives including Wakatkar, Sahasrabudhe, Pendse, Waghle and a lot of others. Observing them keenly added to my earlier learning and got transformed into solid ideas. But since nobody had heard of a thing like that at that time,our project got shelved for many years.

In the meanwhile I figured out that,even after having my whole mind and heart into this project, an essential ingredient was still missing. I had all the ideas, the stories and the visuals in my head but I didn't know how to write. I hadn't realized till then that if someone would have finally allowed me to make that show, how was I going to write it?Somebody else could not have written it for me because it was me who had gone to the Crime Branch and had seen all those happenings.

On the top of that, I didn't know how to converse with a writer because in my training at FTII I never had an exposure to the process of writing. No one was even bothered about it and no one insisted that they should be.

So in spite of spending so much time with the material and having all the stories with me, nothing would come out of my pen if I was to sit and try writing it down. I went to a great friend of mine,Anil Tejani who had been one year junior to me at FTII. He was a brilliant student belonging to the batch of people like JahnuBarua, ShahrukhMirza, and RK Munir. They had formed a group of 15 students and would call themselves Cine Pendre.

I said to Anil, "I have to make this show. Please teach me how to write." And we started. He would make me write and help wherever I got stuck. He would listen to me intently and push me to convert my ideas into scenes. I already had the ability to know which scenes were good enough to put into the story. I could argue with him on this but beyond that I had no knowledge. It took me months and innumerous visits to Anil Tejani's house before I could get a hang of the basic process of writing. Then this practice somehow got fizzled away as we both got busy with our lives.

So this is how I learnt writing. I wish I had learnt it earlier. Even today I feel that it's the most difficult job in the world. A person who can write even 7-8 lines is surely gifted. Somebody who can have an original idea or thought and can also transfer it on paper is someone who should be respected. Of course, the director and cameraman are important, but the person who can generate new ideas and conceptualize them on paper is the key to the whole system.

In about 1983-84 Mr.Tatari at Doordarshan heard my narration and got excited. He asked me to go ahead and make the show. I realized that the stories which I had developed were still lying with Anil. I went to him and asked if he had kept any of that material and he, being the meticulous person that he is, took out a file and handed it to me. It had all the stuff which we had written!

But still it wasn't enough as those scripts were not complete. I again sat for a few days and completed one of the scripts. It was based on a real life story which had become a big sensation at that time. It was about a severed head being found in Rajbhavan which made cops speculate that somebody had killed someone in the Rajbhavan!

What are the major influences which have shaped up your writing?
I made a Marathi serial named EkShunyaShunya where, again, I had the backing of the police department. I used one of the stories of ShrikantSinkar, a genius writer of thrillers whom I admire very much. After making the pilot episode I went to his house and told him that I had already used one of his stories and asked him, "What kind of payment would you accept?" I was apprehensive that the production cost would get increased if he was to ask for a big amount.

But he said "Thank god you came to my house because most people would not even inform me if they had used my story. They would steal it right away!" He asked me for a small amount and I paid him then and there. I saw this great writer in tears as he received it from me. It was surprising to him that someone had bothered to come to his house and wanted to pay for his story. He offered me his whole collection of stories and said "Take it!" but I didn't have money to buy all of that gold.

What is it that you like the most about ShrikantSinkar's writing?
Once I started reading ShrikantSinkar, my whole life changed. I had realized by that time that I was to have a life-long association with thrillers but the actual art of storytelling I learnt from Sinkar's stories.I have read a lot of Hindi pulp and later I moved to reading English novels also. I realized that most Hindi writers borrow a lot from English writers.But Sinkar has his original style whichis remarkable. He writes about cops and crime and the way he unfolds the story is purely an Indian technique.I will give you an example whathis stories read like –

"A cigarette is taken out of a packet. The time is 11:30 and at 11:31 the match is lit. At 11:45 the packet is put in the drawer by the inspector and at the same time, a police van is heading towards the highway."

This is how he creates visuals which automatically startme thinking in terms of shots.He gives away a little information and hides the rest while jumping to and fro in the narrative with the help of flash-forwards and flashbacks. It taught me a great deal about writing.

How do you manage to write while functioning as a producer-director?
My job has now come down to interacting with writers, pushing them into developing their stories and guiding them in exploiting the maximum drama out of it. It started when we began writing stories on a regular basis.

We are a few lucky guys who are on air since last 17 years. We write every day and every day we meet writing problems. Every day we have production meetings and every day we bump into production difficulties. There are days when we have nothing in hand but the shoot has to take place. In that crunch moment something has to be done.But I still maintain a discipline and write for 5-6 hours every day. And I have been doing itfor many years.

All the mistakes I commit while writing make me learn a lot. Writing requires re-writing. Sometimes you have to dump whatever you have written and start afresh. You have deadlines of half an hour, one hour and the scene has to be worked out within that small timeframe. Even if I am in America, Paris or Switzerland I write from there and send it to my unit. This whole process of writing every day, reading stories every day, writing scene after scenes is an amazing process and is very fulfilling.

Considering the epitomic long run of CID, how do you manage to keep getting new ideas for the stories?
I have realized that one should not ever discard an idea because they don't come about easily. We need ideas everyday and I know their value. It has taken me many years to understand the worth of even a not-so-good idea.I tell my writing-team not to be ashamed of any idea because for me, every idea is gold. Even if someone comes up with a thought like 'I found a two rupee note while walking on the road and I picked it up', it's in our hands to decide what happens once the note has been picked up. This way we can convert even a redundant idea into gold.

To inspire my writing team is my job. We sit together and create stories out of every idea which we come across. We have the clarity of the genre we are attempting and know what elementsare to be added in the story. After a point of time, it becomes like juggling.

I never judge writers as good or bad but I evaluate them on the basis of how much they have evolved in due course of time. Some writers are progressive, some are still stuck and some become too confident of themselves. The third stage is not a good position for a writer to be in.

A writer's journey is continuous and until and unless he is struggling with the insecurity and the anxiety to do better, he won't be able to invent new things. So I don't criticize writers. I handle them with care and affection. There are people who would fume when they read a story, "What crap this guy has written!" but I say "He has at least written five pages. Can you do it?" I tell my team to respect even that guy who has come up with a single page. I know how a writer manages by getting up at 5 in the morning and struggles to write something which he can deliver at 9 o'clock.We never dishearten a writer if he runs into troubles like these. I understand their heart thoroughly and I learnt it only when I started to write myself and found how difficult it was.

I have also come across writers who don't have an understanding of their own scripts. Understanding of the script is another very difficult thing. People start yawning after reading 6-7 scenes. So if you don't understand your own script, how will others get something out of it? Going through 80 to 100 scenes and understand them is a hell of a job and requires many years of experience. I have now learnt to decipher the graph of a script and I can see how a story is flowing.

It's an accomplishment to first get a good idea, then make a good story out of it and thento write it in such a fashion that it makes for a compelling reading. If the script is a compelling readit is bound to turn into fantastic visuals. Then it's upto the director; no director can spoil a well-written script.

Being a TV guy, I can say that good writing never flops. I have come to certain definite conclusionsthrough my years of learning. When I get new people to write my show it allows me to tell them what the first scene will look like, how the climax will take place and stuff like that. I can pin-point my requirements. If the story does not fitto my paradigm, I immediately come to know that it would cause problems.

Since we are into producing eight one hour long stories every month, it requires huge amount of writing. We have a team of 8-9 writers who are writing 24 by 7 sitting in a special room where no one disturbs them. It's demanding to ask them to come up with well worked out stories and two dozen fantastic scenes every time. So we try to make them as comfortable as we can.

I am very much part of this process. Every story comes to me after it passes through a supervisor. I juggle it up, add a few things and send it back. It again comes to me after a revision and when I am satisfied, we send it for production where the dialogue writer takes over.

Dialogue writing is another department and it's still far behindfrom what it should be. It's still at a very amateur level because there is no school which is teaching dialogue writing. We expect brilliant dialogue writers to just emerge from somewhere and give us fantastic lines. But it's not happening. We must concentrate and do something about this. We need fantastic dialogue writers because ultimately it's the dialogue writer who adds flesh to the scene.

I find that thereare very few dialogue writers who understand the flow of a scene. A scene should have a beginning-middle-end and its climax should be carried forward to the next scene. Then only will the story flow. The next scene can't emerge from some other tangent or culture. Not many dialogue writers know this and they are not willing to learn it either. They depend on their knowledge of the words which they think is the only thing which can take them forward. That is why you see thateven a good dialogue fails to fit into the scene. So what's the point of using words which might sound good but are not helping the story?
We involve our dialogue writers even in the production meetings so they have a clear understanding of the story. I am not a trained dialogue writer myself and I try to make use of my limited knowledge of the language. I keep a check that everything doesn't turn into my kind of thoughts. If the scene requires a youthful thinking then I have to think from the point of a young person otherwise it will spoil the scene.

On theother hand, the young writers whom we have and who have the knowledge of the language find it hard to understand the flow of the story. This is one of my major concerns.

Itmakes me think of RajatAroraa, who has been one of my associates. He has an exceptional flair for storytelling which comes from his heart.He uses the same in his dialogues as well. His dialogues do not demean the storytelling but are a part of the flow. That's when you start enjoying a story. I have seen his film The Dirty Picture and have found girls clapping over every line. It was a rare occurrence.

So you necessarily draw a line between dialogue writers and screenplay writers?
We have different people writing the dialogues because the screenplay writers are always under constant pressure. But if any one of them wishes to write the dialogues for his story as well, we let him have a go.

What do you look for in a writer?
When a writer calls me or sends me a message, I call him to the office immediately. I never say,"I don't have time for it" and try to meet all the writers. Then first thing I would look into a writer is that,is he hungry enough? Is he still into reading or not? Today one doesn't need to search for books as internet has made everything readily available. But that hunger should be there.

We buy books in hundreds and distribute them among our writers. It's very important because what we can't write ourselves, we can at least read. Reading enhances your experience of situations and emotions. Unless somebody is reading and evolving constantly there would be a point where he would go static. Sometimes we realize that a writer is not reading nor evolving and though he has some success under his belt, his growth has stopped. A writer requires a mix of hunger and experience and many young writers are not experienced. That's what we look for.

People come to me and say "Give us idea and we will write." I tell them that it's their job to come up with new ideas. We have already produced a great deal of ideas in about 800 episodes of CID and about 700 episodes of Aahat. It's likely that we might repeat ourselves and only younger writers will take this ship forward.

Another thing is that the person should be ready to slog. Young writers get tired very easily and if you ask them for a second draft, it might come after 15 days or it may never come.

Then commitment is also essential. Writers need to be punctual. If it needs to be delivered at 10 o'clock you can't goof it up.It brings me to think of ShridharRaghavan who has worked with me for 6-7 years. He has written for both our shows,Aaahat and CID, which function in different genres. One needs less of logic and the other,can't have even a single line without taking into account the repercussions.

Shirdhar, and also Rajat, have continued to help us even after they got busy in film writing because they know that we would collapse without writers like them. I have learnt a lot from these two and also SriramRagahavan. These people value time. Till today we get involved in exchange of ideas.

Coming back to Shridhar'swriting,let me share how good he has been for us. I would call him a day before the shoot and we would confidently plan the shoot for the next day, at 9 a.m. because we knew that he would come up with something well in time. Sometimes I would be so busy with the shoot that the production meetings would take place on the sets where he would come and narrate. So we would plan the next shoot knowing well that we didn't have the script ready and we haven't ever shot without a script.So by morning,Shridhar would deliver the script. I don't know what magiche had and when he had time, away from his meetings and other regular activities. He has never ever fumbled. Meanwhile he would even come for channel meetings and narrate his stories and screenplays! He has never failed us. Can you just imagine?His narration is so good that he mesmerizes everyone.While narrating a story to the Channel he would come up with bright ideas which would make me wonder. I would ask him later, "You twisted that part of the story, didn't you?" and he would say "Ya, a little."

Tell us about the making of the epic episode of CID 'Inheritance'?
There came a point when we felt that we needed to create something drastic for the future journey of CID, somethingwhich could set a milestone.

I am cameraman and am good with visuals. Besides, we have a great team of writers who can write brilliant scripts. And we have great artistes who never find it difficult to remember their parts as most of them are from theatre and are pretty disciplined.

So we thought ofdoing something in a single shot and decided that we would do a one hourthing. I happened to meet SaurabhShukla who told me that one 80 minute single shot program had already been done in Russia. It then compelled me to inspire my team of 50 people to go for a two hour long single shot and ultimately we ended up doing a111 minute shot.

We convinced the channel to telecast it without any cuts and exactlythe way it was filmed. The channel faced a loss in doing that but throughout,we were backed by Tarunwho sanctioned a whopping budget of 34 Lacs for us. It took me four years to execute my planning and if he wasn'taround it would have never been made.

Next we realized that we needed a controlled place to shoot. By the same time, I accidentally saw an abandonedbuilding while coming back from the Film Institute. Itwas exactly what we needed. I convinced the owner and took it on rent for 10 days.

ThenViru, (VirendraSawhney),Rajat, (RajatAroraa), a couple of other writersand me came together to work out the most important component which was the story. I told them an idea which I had kept aside since long. It was about a person who comes to a lavish house and while he is sitting there he hears a gunshot. They put up a question, "How many scenes do we write?" I had no answer because there was only one single shot!

And to make a thriller without a single cut was unheard of.It was CID. It had to have a murder, an investigation and a proper climax. So we divided our task and thought of writing 30-30 minutes to begin with. In 7 to 8 days we came up with those first 30 minutes and it was a compelling read. I grew in confidence.I believe the day your writing is finished, your work is done. Then you only need to go and shoot it.

There were huge complications as I was trying to create something splendid. A helicopter had to come, a murder had to take place, cops were to arrive, a car had to come, there was the question of time lapse etc. When the story was ready I found that I wasn't able to connect with it. It wasn't inspiring me to read it again and again. It was imperative that it holds because the tools which a director has at his disposal like cut-away, zoom-in, zoom-outs; were taken away from us.Question was how do we create mystery and suspense in a long mid shot when everybody was in the frame all the time?
I solved the riddle of mid-shots and closeups by adjusting actor movements. Then one day Viru and I went to the location and spent some time there to get the feel of that place. Spending two to three hours in isolation at the place we were to shoot helped us a lot. I asked him to shoot me on a handy cam.He took a 20 minute shot of mine and when I saw it, I was confident that we could create a story on that location.

To control the whole shoot and monitor it for performances entry-exits and continuity was also a big challenge. Taking a two hour continuous shot meant that everyone would find it hard to keep his or her concentration going for that long.

Another problem which surfaced was that no cameraman was ready to do it. I had initially thought of doing it myself but I found the 27 kilo camera gear too heavy for me. Then NitinRao walked in and proposed that he would do it if he liked the story. We wanted to keep our story a secret but then were compelled to take a chance. He finally came onboard.

After that lighting took us another 10 days, blocking the whole story took 7 more and it was followed by 7 days of rehearsals. We went in shoot on the 8th day and got what we wanted in the very first take! There were a lot of mishaps which happened but we ultimately pulled it off. We started it when the sun was about to set, then we went inside and when we came out after half an hour, it was dark. The accomplishment for us was that we could manage to write a story which had no cuts and then could execute it with the help of an efficient team.

How do youhandle the use of 'False Drama' or 'Red Herrings' in creating a thriller?
I am game for false drama. Red herrings are important for thrillers and we can't get away from them. What I don't like are false flashbacks. I won't call it cheating but it is something which I don't use. When a writer writes a flashback and takes the audience with him to show them what had happened earlier, then it better be true.

The film Kahaani is an exception where the false flashbacks of VidyaBalan's character have been shown. It has been done rather nicely. They have shown the wrong husband and later repeated the flashback with the real one. It has worked for the film because it's a nicely directed thriller which keeps the mystery enacted till the very last moment. It's an example of good screenplay writing. But I don't generally prefer such kind of flashbacks where I have to lie to the audience.

As far as figuring out whether a red herring will work out or not, you can find that on the writing stage itself.

Is it true that the plot in a thriller is essentially villain-driven? We don't think of that in those terms. May be when one has to write a film he thinks of this technical jargon. When we write for TV our basic concern is that the story should hold the viewer for one hour. We also have to contemplate and ask ourselves "Have we told this before?" If yes, then "How are we going to present it in a fresh manner?" is our second concern. Our third concern is that if we are dealing with a new writer then the source of the story should be authentic. We ask all writers to get their story registered and claim that it's their original piece of work before we can take it up for production.

When will the film based on CID be made?
The project is all set but we are still waiting for the right story to come about which can suit the subject of a film. We want a subject whichhas not been touched upon in CID. We have almost covered everything in the genre. The cast of the film will be the same as that of the TV show. The difference will be that the CID team will up against a big powerful villain and we will probably rope in some big actor to play it who will fit our budget.

Your favorite director of thrillers and one thing which you like the most about him.

(In disapproval.) Forget about this. It's a clich question demanding some clich answers!

Tell us about the new workshop which you are conducting in Kolkata.

I am conducting a workshop in Kolkata where the Bengali version of CID is being launched on TV. I am trying to prepare a team of young writers who can write it for us.

It is a new territory for us and it's very exciting to meet new writers. It's like starting from zero. I need a team of about eight writers and it's a tall order because everyone tells me that writers are hard to find. It might take me about 2 to 3 months but I am confident that I can inspire new talent. I am keeping an open mind and looking forward to channelize the creative energy of young writers.

Another thing which we have come across is that everyone in Kolkata is quite familiar with CID and they have already seen the entire episodes. I had not expected this. It means that we can't repeat ourselves and we now have to come up with new stories. It's a matter of concern and also something which is very exciting.

It's quite a challenge because if you notice, we have the same elements in every story.Seven detectives and a dead body. And in a span of 15 years we have found that people havenot got fed up of it. I had realized it long back that mystery and suspense never die. I am doing it for 35 years and am still surviving.So it's an avenue which everyone can try.

Once I have trained the writers in the basics I will ask them to write keeping the location in mind. It is, in fact, a new style which I have developed while making CID. We have learnt to write stories according to the locations. Sometimes when we are shooting in outdoors like Jodhpur or Jaisalmer, the location becomes equally important. I take my writers to the new locations and then we build a story around that place. It changes the whole language of the scenes and the camera angles, actor movements,everything contributes to the content. In doing so, we also have to be careful that the episode doesn't turn into a travel show. We have realized that the best way to crack it is to make the cops walk on the roads.

Second important thing while shooting in a city is that we feel obliged to that city. We get helped by the locals when we shoot in a place like Jodhpur and it's not in our interest to show that city or its people in bad light. So we have to show the murder, the murderer, the city, the lanes, the buildings, thepeople; everything in one story. We have evolved a system which allows us to write in that fashion. We go to a new place and roam for 2 to 3 days. On the 4th day we write the story and on the5thday our production team arrives and we start shooting.

When have shot in Keralawe incorporated a boat chase to make use of the lake and backwaters which we found there. We have also shot in Kolkata, Switzerland and Paris.

Anything which you would like to share with young writers?
It's not correct to lecture anybody but I can say that todaynew writers are lucky as there are many opportunities. But they need to learn and keep themselves updated. They should also learn to narrate. Many a times new writers start narrating the screenplay straight away saying,"There is thunder, there is lighting and the night is dark..." It is not the right thing to do. This is your screenplay and not the story.

In that manner, sometimes I feel that we need to train them in reverse. First comesyour story and then the screenplay. It's not vice versa. This is what I want to tell to all the young writers.

And how it feels to turn into a successful actor with Agent Vinod?
(Laughs) Sriram had confidence in me and he said "I have many options but I need this face of yours." I asked him "Are you sure?" and he said "Yes, I need that face." He gave me a free-hand and trusted me for such a big role. I feel obliged to him for doing that. Sometimes I also act in CID as it's my own production so it's kind of a family affair.