“Working on Mrs was a highly liberating experience for me” – Neeraj Pandey

Born in a small village in Bihar, Neeraj Pandey had a creative bent of mind since childhood. After aspiring to become a fashion designer, working in the animation and gaming industry for a few years, Neeraj arrived in Mumbai with a dream to tell stories. Today, one knows Neeraj as the writer/co-writer of streaming shows like ‘Hasmukh’ (2020) and ‘Your Honor’ and the lyricist of films like ‘Har Kisse Ke Hisse: Kaamyaab’ (2018) and ‘Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi’ (2019).

The Sanya Malhotra starrer ‘Mrs’, which started streaming on Zee5 earlier this year, is Neeraj’s latest endeavour as a lyricist. Out of the four songs on the album, Neeraj has written two. The film, which is an official adaptation of the much-acclaimed Malayalam film ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’, has received glowing reviews upon its release.

In this interview, Neeraj talks about working on ‘Mrs’, his journey in the entertainment industry, admiration for Varun Grover, the stories behind some of his acclaimed songs, studying animation, working in the gaming industry, upcoming projects, and more.

While ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’ had two songs, ‘Mrs’ has four. The songs are woven well into the narrative and help take it forward. In the original film, the protagonist’s passion for dance was not discussed in detail. In ‘Mrs’, one can see Richa’s love for dance in many sequences, including the song ‘Bar Bar’ written by you. It is a beautiful song that talks about internal strength and rebellion. The other song written by you is ‘Rukte Rukte Chali Re’. How was the experience of working on this film?

Working on ‘Mrs’ was a highly liberating experience for me. I have had the good fortune of collaborating with sensitive people throughout my career as a screenwriter and lyricist. With ‘Mrs’, I got lucky again. Arati (Kadav) gave me a lot of space and freedom. In ‘Bar Bar’, there is a phrase that goes, “rind rind ke nazron mein jab ghor andhera chhaaye…”. While writing the song, I intuitively felt it fit in well there. I, however, didn’t know its meaning. Once I finished writing the song, I searched for its meaning. I learned that it means “dheere dheere pakna” or ‘dheemi aanch par pakna”. The story of the film revolves around food. Through food, it aims to convey an important message.I called up Arati and told her, “I have used this phrase. If you are not happy with it, I can change it.” She loved the phrase and said that if it has not been used frequently in films, then we have more reason to use it.

‘Mrs’ marked your third collaboration with composer Sagar Desai.

Yes! We first worked on ‘Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi’. Then, we collaborated on ‘Bhai Re’, which was a promotional song for the Malayalam film ‘Moothon’ (2019). It was sung by Vishal Dadlani. I had always been a huge fan of Sagar. I had loved the music of ‘Ankhon Dekhi’ (2013) and when I came to Mumbai, he was one of those people from the industry I wished to collaborate with. Before ‘Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi’, I had written the songs for Har Kisse Ke Hisse: Kaamyaab. In ‘Kaamyaab, I wrote the songs first and then, Rachita (Arora) set them to tune. ‘Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi’ was the first project in which I had to write to pre-composed tunes. I realized I write better when I am given a tune to work with. My habit of writing without a tune broke because of Sagar. Last year, I did a song with Vidya Vox. We come from very different worlds and have different sensibilities. However, the tune became a bridge and helped us work together effortlessly well. Before meeting Sagar for the first time, I was very nervous as I had been a huge fan of his work. With time, we became very good friends. Now, we understand each other’s point of view and laugh at each other’s jokes as well (laughs).

Till early 2015, you were working as a video game artist in Bengaluru. You were a big admirer of Varun Grover’s work and he became the reason behind you moving to Mumbai.

That’s right! Varun has played a very important role in my journey. I was a big fan of his work. I got in touch with him on social media and asked him if he could share the screenplays of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ (2012) and ‘Ankhon Dekhi’. He did and even encouraged me to move to Mumbai. If I had not spoken to Varun and received the push from him, life would have gone in a different direction. I have trained as a modeller and texture artist. Back in the day, producer Bobby Bedi, who has made films like ‘Bandit Queen’ (2014) and ‘Mangal Pandey: The Rising’ (2005), had a production house in Noida. They were making Mahabharata at that time. I was a part of the VFX team. That was my first job. I was involved in the project as a modeller and a texture artist. Around 2008-09, a recession happened and I lost my job. I struggled a lot for the next 4-5 years. After a while, I moved to Bengaluru and started working in the gaming industry. Though I had worked in the animation industry prior to this, one needed to have a similar set of skills in the gaming industry. I started working as an environment artist with a leading gaming studio. I would be in charge of creating the game’s environment or world. I used to create things like roads, pillars, trees and knives and most things you would see on the screen.

What do you like about Varun Grover?

His kindness and honesty. I was always a big fan of his work. However, once I met and interacted with him, I became a bigger fan of the human being he is. When I heard the songs of ‘Ankhon Dekhi’, I felt they had a sense of ‘newness’ in them. I will always be indebted to Varun for replying to me back then and providing me with the encouragement to move to Mumbai. 

Where did you study animation?

I studied animation at Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC) in Preet Vihar, Delhi. I was a part of the institute’s 2006 batch. We were trying to make a film as a part of a competition. Because of that, it took me two years to complete a course which should have been over in ten months. I got my first job in 2008.

Where were you born?

There is a district in Bihar called Buxar. In the interiors of Buxar, there is a village called Naya Bhojpur. I was born in that village. When I was born, there was no electricity in the village. I remember the village getting electricity supply for the first time when I was twelve years of age. My mother tongue is Bhojpuri. I learned Hindi while studying in school. Over the years, I learned English with much difficulty. As a child, I used to think Bhojpuri is Hindi and Hindi is English (laughs). That is how far I was standing away from language.

Did you study in the same village?

For initial years, Yes. Then we moved to the place where my dad was posted.  I studied in a school which was called RPS Public School. Now, it is known as RPS Academy. There is a district in Bihar called Kaimur. Bhabua is the headquarter of that district. After 10^th, most of my classmates went to Patna, Allahabad and Varanasi for coaching. I studied in the State Board during my 11^th and 12^th board. I had made up my mind to study fashion design. My chacha ji, who was in Delhi, asked me to move there. He told me, “jab tak Delhi nahin aayega, English bolna kaise seekhega?”. Once I moved to Delhi, the people there did not have a great command of English either. For two years, I went to coaching classes in Delhi and appeared for the board exams in Bihar. My chacha ji had done his BSc in Mathematics. He used to help me with my studies. Till 10^th, I studied in a Hindi medium school. I  pursued +2 in English medium school. After that, I joined MAAC and studied animation. It was a certification course. I graduated from Delhi University in Bachelor of Arts.

Did you start writing in your childhood?

Yes! Thanks to the bullies in school, I moved towards writing. I didn’t make a lot of friends in school. I had, instead, befriended my books. I wrote a poem for the first time when I was in the seventh grade. Those who heard the poem praised it. I felt motivated and decided to do more of it. Soon, I delved deeper into literature and started enjoying it immensely.

You had a stable job in the gaming industry. Was it easy to quit a stable job and embark upon a new professional journey?

I have reached a point of saturation in my career. Consciously, you are not always aware of everything but subconsciously, you keep processing things in your mind. When I was in the eighth grade, somebody asked me what I planned to do after completing my tenth boards. I had no idea. Everybody around me was either becoming a doctor or an engineer. I didn’t want to get into that space.

I had spent two years studying animation. For seven years, I worked in the industry. There came a time when I started feeling bored. Once I shifted to Bengaluru, I was bit by the theatre bug. I started doing amateur theatre. Writing came back into my life. I felt I was in a relationship with animation and gaming but I am having a fling elsewhere. I wanted to convert that fling into my marriage.

Did you have to go through a lot of struggle after coming to Mumbai and trying to find work in the film industry?

I arrived in Mumbai on 12 June, 2015. I came to the city with a job in my hand. A friend of mine, who also worked in the animation industry, was moving to Mumbai. He was a character artist. He got a job in a start-up. The company was looking for an environment artist. He asked me if I would be willing to move to Mumbai and work there. I told him I was saving money and planning to move to Mumbai after ten months. He told me I can do the same in Mumbai. He had a valid point and the start-up was offering me a decent salary.

Two months later, I shifted to Mumbai. I realized the start-up was run by strange people. They turned out to be frauds and eventually, the start up was shut down and my salary got stuck. By then, Varun Bhai had recommended my name to a few people. I got my first film Sameer (2017) which featured Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in the lead role. The first year in Mumbai was tough. I met many producers and several interesting people. I met a retired army personnel who wanted to make a film on how your life is a waste if you don’t join the army (laughs). Sometimes, I would start working on a project and then leave it owing to not being happy with the people associated with it. In such a situation, I would return the money given to me. It took me a while to understand the city. Even now, I have not understood it fully.

Even though I am not from the industry and belong to a lower middle-class family, I believe I come from a place of privilege. I am a fair-skinned Savarna male. I am straight. If I was not any one of these things, things would have been much more difficult for me. I won half the battle when my chacha ji asked me to come to Delhi. Hard work comes much later. Your privilege helps you pass through certain barriers easily.

You started your career in animation, explored the gaming industry and are now working actively in the entertainment industry as a screenwriter and lyricist. Did you always have a creative bent of mind?

Like I mentioned earlier, I started writing poetry early in my childhood. However, when the time came to decide what I would do in life professionally, I decided to pursue fashion designing. I was good at sketching, so that seemed like a viable career option for me. Somehow, I did not end up studying fashion design. When I got my first job at Bobby Bedi’s production house, I was more interested in departments where the ADs would work. I had befriended some people there and I would, very innocently, share my dreams with them. I would tell them that someday I will go to Mumbai. While I would happily talk about my dreams with them, I guess they were not too keen on listening to all that (laughs). I didn’t know how I would achieve all that I dreamt of but I had this belief that someday I will do everything I wanted to. One day, one of the people working at the production house told me, “jiske paas koi idea nahin hota, wohi aisi baatein karta hai”. I felt a strong sense of hurt upon hearing this. In hindsight, he was right to some extent. Even though I didn’t have a plan, there was this strong desire which kept me going. I knew I had to go to Mumbai someday. Everything I did in life helped me in some way or another.

‘Ek Adhoora Kaam’ from ‘Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi’ has been one of your most acclaimed songs as a lyricist. You wrote some poignant lines like “ek adhoora kaam hai tumse karaaunga, jeevan kiska naam hai aaj bataaunga”.

Earlier, I had written something else. Seema ji had given me some idea about the kind of song she was looking for. I had written a 1.5 page long song. Seema ji really liked it. Sagar came and said we will work on some other tune. He made Seema ji listen to three tunes. Out of the three tunes, Seema ji liked the second one. I went home and tried writing something to that tune but could not bring myself to write anything. Personally, the third tune appealed to me more. I wrote a few lines based on the third tune and Seema ji really liked the thought behind it. She decided to go with the third tune. I started working around it. I remember creating multiple iterations. Seema ji is a very kind and polite person. When she would not like something, she would very politely say, “yeh waala thoda dekh sakte hain”. When Raghav Gupta asked me to meet Seema ji, I was not sure if I would get the film. When I met Seema ji, she asked me to share something I had written. I had written a song for a short film that never got made. She liked it and said that she will give me one song to write. I was a little disheartened as I was hoping to do the entire album. Though I was supposed to write just one song, I got the entire album to do eventually.

‘Sikandar’ from ‘Kaamyaab’ had a philosophical touch to it. It had memorable lines like “kabhi ek haath chutki bhar, bas itna sa reh jaayega, saare kone chhaan ke laute, kaamyaabi ke kinaare hain.”

All the songs of ‘Kaamyaab’ were written first. I was struggling while writing the second song, ‘Ummeedon ke paaon bhaari hain”. It took me a month and a half to write it. ‘Sikandar’ came out of the frustration I was going through at that time. Those days, I was reading a lot about Alexander. I told Hardik (Mehta, director) that there are similarities between Alexander and Babulal, the character played by Sanjay Mishra ji. Sikandar died when he felt he could not win that one corner. Similarly, Babulal considers himself to be a failure as he could not fulfill his dream of doing one film as a lead actor. Both of them looked at themselves as failure. Once I saw the parallels, writing the song became a very easy process.

Which are some of the writers and poets you have admired?

I remember reading and enjoying Shakespeare’s plays in the form of stories. I was a big fan of Prem Chand and Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay. I had read a lot of Osho. I would read anything I would get my hands on. I would read newspapers from the first to the last page. I used to read a lot of Vivekananda. As a child, I used to admire him a lot. As I grew up, I started seeing the problematic aspects of his thoughts. I used to read Hindi poetry as a child. I read a lot of Urdu poetry between 2008 and 2015. Kedar Nath Singh, Vinod Kumar Shukla, Kunwar Narayan and Naresh Saxena are some of the writers I have looked up to.

You have worked as a screenplay and/or dialogue writer on films like ‘Kacchey Limbu’ (2022) and shows like ‘Hasmukh’ (2020) and ‘Your Honor’ (2020-21). What do you enjoy doing more, writing screenplays and dialogues or penning lyrics?