Filmmaker Siddharth P Malhotra, who has directed the Rani Mukerji-starrer Hichki, has called author Nishant Kaushik’s accusation of the storyline being similar to a story he had submitted ‘baseless’.
On Wednesday, Nishant Kaushik, an Indian author based in Australia, has, in a series of tweets, narrated his ordeal of having submitted a story to Malhotra but not getting any feedback from him.
The author, who has written books like A Romance With Chaos and My Father Is A Hero, claimed that the trailer of Hichki is very similar to his own story that he had submitted in 2015.
In his tweets, he narrated with screenshots how he first corresponded with Malhotra. Kaushik started sketching out the characters and the storyline after Malhotra gave him a one-line brief. He claimed that after submitting the material, he got no response from Malhotra.
Landing in India this morning, I watched the trailer of #Hichki which served as a rude reminder of how easy it is to treat writers like trash. I will rant in this short thread after I have collected my composure.
— Nishant Kaushik (@nofreecopies) December 20, 2017
Meanwhile, Malhotra has clarified on the issue, emphasising that all the writers who had worked on the film have been given due credit. He also said that he and Kaushik have never met in person, and that Kaushik wasn’t the only writer who was given a one-line brief to work on.
“He was given a brief for the film and the story and slant he came up with, was not what we were looking for. So we did not proceed with him and Exceed was informed about my decision immediately,” he wrote.
He further said that the film is actually based on the 2008 American drama film Front Of The Class.
— siddharth malhotra (@sidpmalhotra) December 20, 2017
