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'A Movie is a Director's Vision of a Book'

Arthur J Pais

R K Narayan never forgave Dev Anand for making a big, popular Bollywood movie out of his mystical novel, The Guide.

Now that two of her best-selling books, Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, are being made into movies, does Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni have fears about her books being mishandled?

A reader asked her this question at her book-reading event at Kepler's, one of the best-known independent bookshops in California.

Divakaruni, who began her national tour to promote her newest book, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, at Kepler's in Menlo Park on Wednesday, said she was aware of Narayan's disappointment. But she personally had no desire to be involved in the movie script of her books.

She said Suhasini and her husband Mani Ratnam, who are turning Sister of My Heart into a television miniseries in Tamil, had had a few discussions with her. So did Gurinder Chadda, who has completed the script for Mistress... and is looking for financiers to join Miramax Pictures to produce the film.

"I am familiar with their work, and I trust them," she said, pointing out that Chadda's Bhaji on the Beach was a wonderful and very feminist film. She expected the film-makers to interpret the novels using their own sensibilities.

"It was my choice not to have anything to do with the script," she said. "I feel that a movie is not a book," she explained. "A movie is the director's vision of a book."

"I don't feel I am responsible for the movies based on my books," she said. After all, what is the worst that could happen in adapting her books for the screen? "People may say the book was better than the movie," she said, chuckling.

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