‘The film isn’t a word-for-word adaptation’ (Interview with Saba Imtiaz)

Journalist and author Saba Imtiaz is eager to see her book, Karachi, You’re Killing Me, come to life on the big screen through someone else’s vision and interpretation
Ayesha Khan is goofy, endearing, worried about piling on calories and looking for that elusive love. This makes her like you and me. But that’s where the similarities begin and end. Ayesha is a 28-year-old journalist and for her, dealing with fundamentalists, bootleggers or a Guantanamo Bay detainee is all a day’s job. And she’s from Karachi. Yes, the city which is touted as “the most dangerous” to live in.

Now, Karachi becomes Mumbai. And, Ayesha becomes Noor. Sonakshi Sinha portrays the bespectacled Noor Roy Choudhary. The fiction novel written by Saba Imtiaz is being adapted for Bollywood. And, unlike Ayesha (Noor) who might have got all frazzled with the attention, Imtiaz is all calm.

Excerpts from an email conversation:

Was it easier to write Karachi, You’re Killing Me, because you are also a journalist and could recreate the professional and personal world accurately?
Yes, it helped to recreate some elements of reporting — press conferences and rallies and work schedules — because I’m a journalist and could write about assignments and dialogues. The personal world was fictional.

The book was an instant hit in India and word-of-mouth recommendation really worked. Did you anticipate this sort of success and recognition?
No, I didn’t think about the reaction to the book at all, or who would read it.

There is lot of humour in the book. Does it come naturally to you because of your profession?
I don’t know whether it comes through because of the profession. I think that might just be a Karachi thing — a dark sense of humour and ingrained sarcasm. I don’t think of myself as being funny.

Now that the movie is being made on the book, how detached are you? The name of the protagonist has changed from Ayesha to Noor. How much of say did you have in the big-screen adaptation?
Very detached. The film isn’t a word-for-word adaptation, it is also based on elements out of the book. I didn’t have anything to do with the adaptation. And, I’m really excited to see it come to life through someone else’s vision and interpretation.

Do you expect trouble when the screening of the film nears, knowing the current animosity between the two nations?
If I could predict the future, I’d probably have a much more lucrative career by now.

Would you consider writing more sequels to Karachi, You’re Killing Me,?
No. It would be the easier thing to do, and that’s what makes it tempting. But as of now I don’t think I would ever write a sequel.

Have you visited Mumbai or Delhi? If you had the chance to write Ayesha’s story in either of these cities, how would you do it? What kind of traits would you imbue her with?
Yep, I’ve been to both Mumbai and Delhi, though not for long enough periods to be able to set a character in either place.

At present, you are working on a non-fiction book on your city. Can you tell us something more about it?
It’s a non-fiction book called No Team of Angels: Murder, Violence, and Land in Pakistan’s Largest City: Karachi. It explores the factors underlying violence in Karachi.