15 May 2018

The Twitter account that documents characters reading books in movies

First published on The Reader.

 When I trace the moments that built curiosity in me, I remember reading a 2014 article titled ‘Books People Read in Hindi Films’ by Diptakirti Chaudhuri in Outlook. As a trivia buff, it really intrigued me, but at that time, I had no plans to start Books in Movies. It was only after I came into contact with Pankaj Sachdeva (one of my favourite bloggers) over Twitter, who’s also interested in such trivia, that I started thinking about it.

I realised I consume enough films on a daily basis and it would be really fun to dig out scenes of characters reading books. I remembered quite a few books in movies I’d seen long ago, which was good enough to give me a kickstart. After tweeting a few posts from my personal account, I decided to create a separate Twitter and Instagram page dedicated to books in movies.

However, I had absolutely no idea that I’d get such a good response. It was more of something I was doing for myself. But, surprisingly, I got wonderful responses and support from fellow movie buffs, authors, writers and film-makers, and that still continues. Eminent personalities like Konkona Sen Sharma, Varun Grover and Mayank Shekhar also follow this account. And it makes me very elated when someone of their stature shows interest in the work I do. This has encouraged me further to keep continuing, and so far I have tweeted over 750 posts.

As far as the process is concerned, I never watch a movie solely for the purpose of finding books in it. But since I watch one movie almost every day, I keep getting my data regularly. Most of the times, I find them easily, but sometimes, the books are not properly visible in the films or I can’t find any details about them. In such cases, I search for the books/authors using related keywords.

While in most movies, books are rarely related to the plot, there have also been films that have shown characters having deep connections with books. Say, for example, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan, where Shaalu (Shweta Tripathi) loves reading Hindi literature and in a scene, she is seen picking Rag Darbari by Sri Lal Shukla. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) is depicted reading parts of 'The Hollow Men' by T. S. Eliot towards the end of the film. 


 K. Balachander’s Ek Duuje Ke Liye is about the love between a North Indian woman (Rati Agnihotri) and a Tamil man (Kamal Haasan). In the film, they read ‘Learn Tamil in 30 Days’ and ‘Learn Hindi in 30 Days’, respectively. Similarly, Kalki Koechlin’s character is seen learning Hindi in Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl in Yellow Boots which is a story of a British girl who has come to Mumbai to search for her dad.


 In Mira Nair’s The Namesake (based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel of the same name), there are numerous references to Nikolas Gogol’s The Overcoat. In the film, Irrfan Khan names his son Gogol after his favourite writer.

It makes me immensely happy when people tell me that they have started noticing books in movies because of this account and it is inspiring them to do their own research. Many people also contribute by sending pics. I would specially mention Sanjay Desai from Gandhinagar (Gujarat) who has been a frequent contributor to this page.

I hope I can continue to gain the love and support of my friends and well-wishers. The journey so far has been better than I anticipated. I wish my ‘Books in Movies’ family continues to grow and win the interest of book lovers and movie buffs alike.

-Abhisek Suman
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