SCREENWRITING
Works in Progress
As my friend once wisely said, "You're like a bullet train. You ever think of slowing down a bit?"
To which, I replied by quoting Kanan Gill, "Don't stop. Never stop."
There was only one stretch of time in my life when I took a break from writing, and that stretch of time was the most miserable I had been in my entire existence. I swore to myself I would never let myself get to that place again because, seriously, I live, breathe, eat writing, especially for the silver screen.
RAKSHAKUDU
"In which a stubborn, successful doctor rises to the top of her field, yet no one knows that she uses her skills towards an ugly justice after hours."
There's one phrase that I hate with my entire being: "She was asking for it." I rhetorically asked, "So if she was asking for it, doesn't that mean he's asking to be punished? Doesn't that mean that he was asking for it?"
BIRDIE
"In which there's only one thing Hugh the Cocky Cockatoo wants: to win the golf championship."
This originally started as a joke where I thought it would be funny if a bird played golf and the title of the film was called "birdie." With the help of my friends (Liam and Haley, you guys are real ones), I ended up developing the entire concept mere minutes after I made the joke, and then devoted myself to this script about animated birds— something way out of my wheelhouse.
WEBCAM
"In which a team of hackers spy on people through their webcams."
What originally started as an idea for a fanfiction novel turned into a half-hour comedy show. There's the "joke" that everyone has an FBI agent watching them, so I decided to do the research (thank you Nilesh) and developed a show that I thought would be funny. However, I'm not that funny, so it's a major work in progress.
MALAVIKA
"In which a successful, self-made, female CEO is tied down by her obsessive, jealous fiancé, begins to show interest in one of her reliable employees."
I originally wrote this for an ancient play adaptation class. I decided to adapt a Kalidasa play, but I didn't want to take the boring route and base the film on Shakuntala since there are already a couple adaptations of that play, so I studied Mālavikāgnimitram and made a modern adaptation of that story, but I flipped the genders because it's 2023— let's watch something where the female lead is a CEO and a protagonist!
FIRST GENERATION
"In which a first-generation Indian-American girl who loves Korean culture meets a first-generation Korean-American boy who loves Indian culture, and they fight their traditional families to live happily ever after."
Yes, this is a little self-serving, but I also do have a very real friendship with this same dynamic (hi Kianni). I always found the similarities between the two cultures very fascinating, and I also kept thinking about an immigrant parent's expectations of their kids when it comes to love and relationships— luckily, my mother is very modern, so she isn't so "traditional" and doesn't expect me to settle down with a "nice Indian boy", but I do have friends who face that reality, and I think they deserve proper representation in American media.
ADAGIO
"In which an introverted, perfectionist corporate employee breaks his standard patterns when he meets a fiery, passionate girl."
I worked on this concept for six years. Six. I originally reserved it as an idea for a novel, but after wracking my brain for six long years, I finally flipped it to be a screenplay, and I hate that it's taking me less time to develop it for the big screen, but at least it's not going to sit in my drafts forever and ever.
