A perennial desire of any young creative person is to "dream a little dream" of having his name on the main marquee of a performance. Sanjay Chhel has realized this dream on the marquees of stage, television as well as cinema with a degree of quiet aplomb chipping away gradually to fulfill his biggest ambition in life to turn into a film director.
Two words have always been apt to define Sanjay's writing style – Wit and Reality. The special ability to turn daily, mundane acts of real life into humorous vignettes has been the hallmark of Sanjay's professional career. Sanjay is, however, modest about being constantly referred to as the 'king of one liners'. "I am just a very careful observer of life around me. One would be surprised that my true inspiration comes from the average person on the street", says he. Sanjay continues, "The true indicator of good writing, especially for interactive media, is its acceptance amongst the common masses. The modern age Indian, as exemplified by the advent and the success of cable television, is not willing to stomach fancy jugglery of words. All he or she wants is escapism set in a realistic scenario".
Perhaps it is the strong discipline of theatre, where Sanjay received his baptism, which is responsible for his remarkable adaptability in all other media. Sanjay Chhel wrote and directed several Gujarati plays (the Gujarati theatre audience is the most discerning of all Indian audiences as far as humour is concerned), before taking the next transitional step towards television. The rest, as they say, is history. In the golden era of comedy television of the mid-1990s, Sanjay wrote several serials. "Naya
Nukkad", "Filmi Chakkar" and several initial episodes of "Phillips Top Ten" constitutes some of the notable writing, which has guaranteed Sanjay a permanent place in the TV comedy hall of fame. Sanjay also wrote and directed "Dekh Tamasha Dekh" during this period.
The next obvious step was to write for cinema. The respect of the young pioneering filmmakers was soon earned by his clarity of vision in terms of the most neglected aspect of Indian filmmaking – the screenplay. In addition to this, his ability to write simple, yet effective, dialogues was an added attraction for these filmmakers. He was the creator, or a collaborative creator, of some of the finest screenplays of the last five years, notable amongst these are Ram Gopal Varma's "Rangeela", Aziz Mirza's "Yes Boss", Bunty Lutheria's "Kachhe Dhaage" and Santosh Sivan's "Halo". "Khoobsurat" is the beginning of Sanjay Chhel's directorial career. For this simple, beautiful fable, Sanjay has also written the story, the screenplay and the dialogues, besides collaborating with Gulzar for the lyrics of the film. His other assignments as a writer include Aziz Mirza's "Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani" and Shashilal Nair's "One Two Ka Four" besides other films.
