His pen has produced some big Bolly — Stree to 83 to Jawan — and even bigger TV — 24 to The Family Man to Dahaad and Guns & Gulaabs. Now, Sumit Arora has brought alive the real-life story of Murlikant Petkar in Kabir Khan’s Chandu Champion.

The film, which tells the story of the real-life braveheart who overcame a host of obstacles, including paraplegia, to win an Olympic gold medal, stars Kartik Aaryan as the lead and is now playing in cinemas. t2 caught up with Sumit to know more.

What was your first reaction when you heard about the incredible story of Murlikant Petkar?

I couldn’t believe it! There was total disbelief that so much had happened to one person and he had overcome all of it and yet had powered on in life. Honestly, it felt like a fable to me. This is the kind of story where you can tell someone: ‘Listen, you know there was this guy and this happened with him.’ The remarkable thing which lends this story a fable-like quality is that he achieved all that he had dreamt of achieving when he was a child.

In the film, we have also shown the story like a fable... it is not treated like a biopic. It is more like a fairy tale with elements of magic but all of which is real.

Did this quality of the story challenge you in a different way from what you have done so far?

It did. What was also a challenge was the fact that it was supposed to be the biopic of a man that no one knew. There was no reference point for us to build on unlike when you write a film on somebody who is there in the public domain. We had this man who was an enigma that nobody had heard about.

The idea was to capture the spirit of this man while also trying to tell people why we were telling this story. We had to figure out why the story had to be told first. And that, for us, was the undying spirit of Murlikant Petkar. We wanted to tell this story so that everybody could look at this man and say that he faced unimaginable odds that would break any other person, but he never gave up. He kept fighting till he achieved what he wanted to achieve.

That was the challenging but also the most interesting part of writing this script. One challenge was that we had no archival footage and so we had to rely on whatever little records we had. We spent a lot of time with Murlikant Petkar to try and understand the man behind all these incidents and achievements.

That the world didn’t know about him was definitely a challenge but would you agree that it was also an advantage of sorts because you had the freedom to tell the story the way you wanted it, of course keeping the facts intact?

You are absolutely right. We did have a free hand in certain things but as you said, it is based on real-life events that happened to a real person and, therefore, one cannot create whatever one wants.

As a writer, when you have a reference point, you have to stick to what is out there publicly. That is a challenge but the benefit in that is that you have a clear line to operate in — this is how this person talks, this is how this person walks, this is how this person behaves...

We had to figure out our own boundaries because it is eventually a real person who is going to be watching this film along with us. Thankfully, Murlikant Petkar did not feel that we had taken liberties with his life.

83 and now Chandu Champion. What works for the great partnership that you and Kabir Khan share?

There is mutual trust and respect. Our working styles match... we both like to tell stories from the heart and also add a lot of humour to it. I have always looked up to him and wanted to work with him. When the chance came with 83, it turned out to be a great experience. We both know what the other brings to the table.

Last year, you said that the Shah Rukh Khan blockbuster Jawan was your most enjoyable writing gig so far. Has Chandu Champion managed to top that experience?

There is something that one takes back with every project. Jawan was
a humongous film and working with Shah Rukh Khan sir is the experience that I am going to hold in my heart throughout my life. On the other hand, Chandu Champion is special because as a story, it resonates with me the most. It is the story of a small-town boy dreaming big.

I am a small-town boy from Meerut who wanted to come to Bombay and do something that was unimaginable. That spirit of believing in your big dream when others don’t and fighting every day to make it happen is very relatable. I have faced situations where I have been laughed at for my dreams and that is where the line ‘hasta kaiko hain?’ in Chandu Champion came from.

What spurred the interest in writing films?

When I watched Lagaan, I was like: ‘Oh my God, this is so cinematic and yet so rooted and real!’ That film changed my life and made me decide that writing films is what I wanted to do.

What would you attribute this remarkable journey of yours, peppered with so many noteworthy projects within a very short time, to?

I wouldn’t say that it has not been long. I think my age gives people the wrong idea (laughs). The truth is that I came to Bombay at age 17 and it has been 17 years since. Starting early has helped me build a good body of work. I have been able to do a lot of work with different filmmakers within a short span because a lot of this work has also happened in the last six years or so. I enjoy writing a lot and what I enjoy the most is collaborating with different minds. I am an explorer, I am an adventurous person by nature. I like going into uncharted territories. There is no math involved... I go with the flow and I do what makes me happy.

The Family Man to Guns & Gulaabs, how do you manage to bring alive the quirky worlds of Raj & DK so well?

I started out by writing satire columns in Hindi newspapers and that helps me when I write for Raj & DK, whose work has a satirical and humorous tone. Apart from the three seasons of The Family Man and Guns & Gulaabs, there are a couple of other interesting things that we are working on.

Do you have a process?

My only process is that I open my laptop and just write! (Laughs) There will be days when I am only thinking and not even picking up my laptop, leave alone writing anything. And then, there will be others when I won’t get up for almost the whole day when I am writing.

Writing just the dialogues of a film warrants a different process as compared to the process I adopt when I have to write the whole script. A screenwriter’s process is never as beautifully described as a novel writer’s process where you can say: ‘I am in my cottage, there is a beautiful view and I am sipping on coffee as I am writing.’ I have nothing like that... my process is very chaotic!

Are there any particular genres that you find yourself gravitating towards naturally?

Satirical films are full of humour and also have a lot of heart. Films need to have a heart but they have to be told with a lot of humour. That is what I think my natural habitat is.

The volume and variety of work out there indicate that this is a good time for writers in Bollywood. Would you agree?

While people have understood that writing is extremely important, respect for content has gone up but not so much for writers. There is a very thin line that separates the two. It is important to treat writers as equal to directors because directing and writing have to go hand in hand... without a good script, a director cannot make a good film and without a director, a good script can never be turned into a good film.