Till recently we knew that certain parts of the country were fertile to certain trade and arts. For example Maharashtra for film and cricket, Punjab for bravery and agriculture, UP for politicians and ideal Hindi accent (Khadi Boli), J&K for natural beauty, Uttarakhand for pilgrimages, West Bengal for culture, Rajasthan for princely states and culture, Tamil Nadu for scholarship and southern culture and Kerala as God’s own country. Today this barrier with fast communications and mass education has disappeared and as a result, achievers of different lines from every part of the country are coming up. In this backdrop, I had a surprising pleasure when I learnt that one more Jha has successfully carved out a niche in the literarary field and that too in English. After Prakash Jha, he is the second of that surname making a mark in the film world as well.
Yes, I mean Piyush Jha who has simultaneously tried his luck both in literature and film. He was born in Jhansi, UP and moved to Mumbai at the age of eight. He did his graduation and then completed MBA. In 1995, Jha joined the film business as an accounts executive in a multi-national company. Then he started doing creative work for ad films and went a step further by launching his own production company named as Vitamin J Productions. He had accounts with leading business houses like Godrej, Procter and Gamble, Kitply etc. Ambititious Piyush’s next move was to enter into the field of feature films. He wrote screen-play and directed some successful films, including highly acclaimed ones like ‘Chalo America’ and ‘Sikandar’. He is also a widely travelled person.
What makes us happier is his foray into the English literary field. We know that India has a long line of successful writers in English in poetry, prose, novel and story. What Jha himself admits that fiction in crime has not received a fair deal. In this background, his latest publication, ‘ Compass Box Killer’ is getting wide appreciaton as a crime thriller from different parts of the world. Jha also writes short stories but according to him, he has no account of such pieces. Earlier, he had written ‘Mumbaistan’ a similar book containing three crime stories. Piyush is contemplating to make a feature film on this book. He has been approaching prospective producers. Perhaps he himself may launch the film under his own production company banner. We wish him success in both fields.
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