Anurag Kashyap - The Watershed For Filmmakers

Although there are many film makers around you, there are very less who makes cinema, cinema. This blog post is a guest blog post by Aman Sharma (amandcreater@gmail.com). A cinema enthusiast and passionate about this craft, he describes one of the most creative genius in indian cinema today, Anurag Kashyap, in his own words on his birthday.

Anurag  Kashyap has spent 25 years in Hindi film industry and he turns 46 today. He was 21 years old when he started writing , he has co-written cult classic Satya  which later got released in 1996. This was his first film where he got credited as a writer before Satya he had written many films but never got credited . His first feature film Paanch got banned by censor board as it has every thing which was tabooed in films like drugs  and violence . Anurag started making another film “Black Friday” based on 1993 bomb blast and this film was put on a stay by Bombay High Court as the case was still pending in the court. Court feared that film may polarize the opinion on case. Even after all this he did bounce back and made “No smoking” which bombed on box office. He met his first box-office success with romantic musical Dev-D. Like his other  films this film also has everything which a “successful” film doesn't have - a new star cast , hell lot of alcoholism and yes its music director Amit Trivedi making his debut in a musical film. That’s insane.  Anurag didn’t charge money for Dev-d though he received a back hand after the success of it which will be given to a company only and this led to AKFPL ( Anurag Kashyap films pvt. lmt.). First film produced under his banner was “That girl in yellow boots”. Every person who cared for him has said that this is carrier suicidal film but that's what Anurag does. “That girl in yellow boots” didn’t disrupt any box office number but that film had opened the foreign market for him. He gave this film to the distributor for free. 

Anurag says “everybody likes thing when given to them for free “ .  What will you do when your first two films got banned and third film got brutally flop on box office and fourth(Gulaal) got stuck in middle? Maybe you would think of changing your profession or blaming others for your miseries or might say to yourself that god has other plans for me. These  mental demons might have passed through  Anurag’s mind as well  but then what kept him going?  Lust for money?  No!!, Well according to my level of understanding its his love for cinema. People in the industry also see that drive in him and that’s why after so many setbacks he continuously got money to make films. Why every single person associated in “Gulaal”  worked with him for free and that too over a period of eight years, which college graduate work as a waiter for free at prithvi cafeteria in order to know the actors at Prithvi Theater? Who makes a film only by listening to a boy about a gang war in his village which later turned out to be  Gangs of Wasseypur. Gangs of Wasseypur again an unorthodox film spanning over five and a half hour with a regional folk music ,blasphemy dialogs and lots of violence  whose one protagonist  Sardar Khan is a bald man with smidgeon mustache played by Manoj Bajpayee. The second installment protagonist is Faizal Khan played by slender dark  man Nawazuddin Siddiqui as he quote “Mere jese ko film me lead role dena hi keh ke lene wali baat hai” who was also making his debut (though he played some roles before GoW also)  . Gangs of wasseypur is Anurag’s most successful films in terms of box office numbers , it was the first Indian film which showcased at Cannes directors fortnight . He also made “Bombay Velvet” I won't be lying  today but this film was bad simply because it lacked genius, forget genius it's just didn’t gelled up well , but filmmaking is not like making cola bottle once you got the right form of sugar and soda then every other bottle goes according to that. Nobody knows what will work, every body works on their instincts and that’s the charm of it. If not it will be similar to other monotonous  co-operate job.

  

We can't measure Anurag’s contribution to hindi film industry by the film he made or the box office numbers  he hit. He bolsters the believe who aspire to be a filmmaker that films are not only about big cities ,cars, stars with heavy makeups and humongous sets, he made us believe that film can be about your city where you live starring people who just look like us ,no big sets just real location as he says “my film will be as big as the city”. He truly democratize the whole process of filmmaking as under him are all big men now like Vikramaditya Motwani who made Udaan ,Neeraj Ghaywaan who made Massan, Shlok Sharma who made Haramkhoor, Bijoy Nambir who made Wazir. Actors who made their debut under him are Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Kay Kay Menon, Pankaj Tripathi, Richa Chadda ,Mahi Gill. He is simply disrupting the system and by doing the things by himself and not only by saying. As he says”nobody owes it to you ,you want to make a film its your choice your family doesn't owe it to you ,the system doesn’t owe it to you, its you owe it to yourself” . He is a panache who always stood for things which he feels right and that’s why I recite a couplet by Waseem Barelvi

Dua kro salamat rahe iski himmat

ye chirag kahi andhiyoon par bhari hai