Zee JLF Conversations: Prasoon Joshi

Verve chats with adman, lyricist and screen-writer, Prasoon Joshi

On his foray into writing and journey thereon
“I’ve always been a man of ideas. I was very imaginative as a child. Brought up in Uttarakhand, where, unlike the children of today who are stuck to iPads and technical devices and don’t even have playgrounds, the world was my playground. We placed a huge amount of trust in people, we didn’t even lock our houses! Seeing nature very closely makes you tough but nature is also not manipulative. A child in the city sees and knows manipulation. When you struggle with a river, river doesn’t manipulate. River is river, till the very end, it doesn’t change. Those values were instilled in me because of my childhood in the mountains. It also gave me a lot of love and time for reading and poetry and music which finally became my profession, but before I joined advertising, I used to write but I didn’t know how to earn my living. When I was studying business management I realised there is a profession here which can pay me for my crazy ideas. It became a good parking lot for me and I am indebted to the profession. Then, I started exploring further interests, which are writing poetry and films.”

On dearth of good scripts in India
“I think everyone is in a hurry. We want everything to be a big hit. That might not be possible. And also the audience will start liking new stuff. We don’t have dearth of ideas, we have a dearth of people who invest in ideas.”

On the ZeeJLF 2015
“I think it’s a great thing. It’s a congregation of so many people together and I feel very hopeful when I look at young people wanting to listen to poetry. I read some complex poems at my session and I feel very hopeful for the future of literature and poetry when I come here.”