I was running out of money to even pay my house rent: Dialogue Writer Usha Dixit

Usha Dixit is currently writing dialogues for Balika Vadhu and Punar Vivah. However, she has a big history of her association with the entertainment industry. Having started off as a child artiste on radio, she went on to become a casual announcer on the same. Later, she moved on to Mumbai to seek her dreams. After doing a stint in direction for some time, Usha settled to writing having gone through some rough patches in life. She has fought this battle all alone being a single woman. As a dialogue writer, Usha has been associated with some very well-known shows like Saat Phere, Jyoti, Grihasti, Rabba Ishq Na Hov, Vaidehi, Ghar Ek Sapnaa and many more. Tellychakkar.com got in touch with Usha for a small chat for Behind the Lens section. Excerpts… Tell us about your journey in the industry? Well, well, I came down to Mumbai from Bhopal where I was working as a casual radio announcer to write for Manju Singh’s Show Theme for DD. Soon after, I started working for her Ek Kahani that had different stories. Here, I was the screenplay and dialogue writer. This was also when I started getting an urge to take up direction. I joined the same show as an assistant director. I also directed a lot of stories of this particular show. But that is the time when we had only weekly shows. I also directed shows like Mirch Masala, Rangoli and many more. Sahara One’s D-Line which was a psycho thriller was my last show as a director. I did direct a story for Star Bestsellers called Kabaad. The show had Surekha Sikri and Raghuveer Yadav. Why did you give up direction then? By the time daily soaps had come in, I realised that I would not fit in there. Initially, budget was an issue, as people did not have a lot of money to shoot the episodes on the same day. However, now budgets are good but there is no time. I was offered to direct Mere Humsafar and I did take up the show but eventually couldn’t do it. After this I waited for two and a half years to get a better show. I kept getting writing offers but I was keen on doing direction. And after a long wait I was offered Zee TV’s Aap Jo Bole Haan Toh Haan Aap Jo Bole Naa Toh Naa. But by then, after I had realized that I would not fit into that working pattern, I opted out. I was jobless for quite some time. I was running out of money to even pay my house rent. This is when I was offered two shows namely Balaji Telefilms’ Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii and Ajay Sinha’s Astitva…Ek Prem Kahani. Did you take up these shows? Yes, I did. I took up both of them: Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii as a screenplay writer and Astitva as a dialogue writer. From then, I have just been writing. There are very few people from the industry who know that I have been into direction once. Don’t you ever feel like getting back to direction? Though I feel like getting back, but everything has changed now. Initially, when I used to direct shows, we would rehearse for three to four days before shooting the actual scene. But, today the actors do not know what the scene will be till they are about to shoot for it. Plus the director has to keep in mind which actor is available for how many hours and they have to shoot with body doubles. Hats off to directors who can shoot beautifully in spite of having so many issues to handle. Frankly speaking, I cannot do that. How is dialogue writing for TV? Writing is not my passion; direction is. But I have been doing it for a long time now. In fact even dialogue writing for TV shows has become difficult. People discuss about going to Khandala and Lonavla to write but it’s nothing like that here. I get the schedule of the shoot even before I can start writing the dialogues. There are times when I feel that I must use a better word in place of the word I have used and I know I can but then I need the time to think and there is none. What are the things that you keep in mind before writing the dialogues for a particular show? Whenever I watch other shows, I always look at the usage of words. That is why dialogue writing is nothing but usage of words. I am from a Hindi medium and so have a command over the language. But it does not mean that I will flaunt my vocabulary in the dialogues. It has to be more real it can’t be very dramatic. At times one can use a poetic line or two but not use difficult Hindi words as nobody talks like that today. In fact, even when I watch news channels, people in the interior of our country tend to use English words. So the characters in these shows must talk like that. For example in Astitva there was Dr. Simran. Since she was a modern girl, she did have various situations where I could have let her use the word Astitva. But then that wouldn’t have gone with her character. Similarly, in both my shows Punar Vivah and Balika Vadhu, I use dialogues according to my characters. You’re still single? I was never a girl who wanted to get married. In fact, my family too wasn’t like that. Though we stayed in Bhopal, my parents were creative people. They were writers and my mother was in radio. That is also how I started working in radio from the age of 13. I used to be part of children’s plays on radio back then after which I was part of the teenage play. I also did news reading on radio and then became a casual announcer there. I had a very good track record as I used to work 25-26 days a month. I would have worked for all the days in a month but then the rule there did not permit me as I wasn’t a permanent employee. I always wanted to be an RJ but they always failed me in written test as there were others who would come with influence. Hence, after a lot of trials and frustrations, I moved to Mumbai. In between all this I never met someone whom I could share my life with. I got too busy with work. And when I finally got the time to think, the time had gone. What do you want to do next? I would like to write for films but again there I will not go looking out for work. If it comes my way, I will definitely take it up. But again as far as TV is concerned I will never leave it.