India, July 9 -- Actor Brijendra Kala has turned writer with his first commercial film, Pariwarik ManuRanjan, starring Pankaj Tripathi and Aditi Rao Hydari, and he reveals that this is a result of a four-decade-long process of honing his craft.

A protege of the legendary writer Achala Nagar, whom he calls his "soul guru," he says, "I assisted her in writing on many of her films, and she even paid me. I even used to live in her home."

The actor reveals that filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar gave him a line to develop a story for the family entertainer, and he also features in it.

Brijendra shares that he started writing in his radio and theatre days. "In the late '80s, I adapted Hari Shankar Parsai's story Matadin Chaand Par into a play where I...