In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones

Before she won the Booker Prize, Arundhati Roy wrote the screenplay for this cult 1989 film, directed by Pradip Krishen and shown just once on Indian national television in a late-night slot. Set in a not-quite-fictional Delhi architecture school in 1974, it follows a cast of dope-smoking, bellbottom-wearing, vaguely idealistic final-year students racing to submit their theses - among them a young Shah Rukh Khan in one of his earliest screen roles. Nearly lost when Doordarshan misplaced the original print, the film became an underground favourite passed around on college campuses for decades, until the Film Heritage Foundation recovered and restored the damaged negative. This revised edition of the screenplay includes new introductions by Roy, Krishen and restoration-project founder Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. A must for fans of Roy's writing and anyone curious about the roots of Indian independent cinema.