(Note : I= Prawin himself)
The very first day I went to meet anyone at all from the Nepali cinema world, I met Alok by happenstance. He was busy finalizing the edits for Sano Sansar, and had dropped in to say hi. Later, just before Sano Sansar was released, the team decided to change the monologue at the start of the movie, and add a new one for the end, to bookend the story. I was asked to write the monologues.
A few months after Sano Sansar was released, Alok asked if I would be interested in writing a mainstream Nepali movie. I wasn't sure. I don't write teenage romances, and I hadn't yet written a complete script. But Alok showed confidence in me, and that is always a good place to start.
He told me the story idea he had been toying with. The story was going to be different from his debut venture, in essence, and in style. It was going to be a lot more filmy, more masaledar. I wrote my first treatment accordingly. I'd overdone it. We scaled back, simplified the story once more, and focused on the friendship, how it matures with each of us. The second treatment was closer to what we wanted in the story.
At that time, Kathmandu was suffering 18 hours of loadshedding a day. I couldn't imagine trying to write a 120 page script in a condition like that. Fortunately, a friend offered me their place in Kolkata to write the script.
Once back in Kathmandu, Alok and I sat down to revise the script. The second draft was a radical change in terms of structure, but not in terms of the story--which was as close to Alok's original story idea as we could keep it. With the second draft--and with production pressing to get started--Kohi Mero went to the floor.
In any kind of commercial art that, by the nature of its form, must be created well before the consumer has access to it, a lot of assumptions are made. The story-writer imagines the audience will like something. The producer imagines how the returns will come. The director imagines every frame, every movement, every splash of color having a particular effect on a viewer. Of course, none of these calculations or assumptions need to prove true. But, the endeavor is always full of assumptions. Because, it is impossible to make a movie after it has already been judged by the audience. The making comes first, the viewing later.
Therefore, it is useless to say--I have written a story people will like. At best, we can say--I know people have liked these stories before, so we've made this film in the hope that they will like this particular story too. I am sure Alok has devoted a lot of his energy towards making a film that is close to his vision. Even there, because of the collaborative nature of the business, his partners both detract and elevate his vision. I hope I have been able to add beauty to his story, but I also know that at times I have failed the task given to me, and therefore made the movie worse than it needs be. I should get all the blame for what is seen onscreen in terms of everything narrative in nature, but the praise for anything at all should be spread equally between the producer, director, actors, musicians, technicians, everybody, including the young men who bring around the scalding hot tea to pick everyone up after a dusty afternoon of shooting in the sun.
