The Real behind the Reel

A book captures the making of Gangs of Wasseypur through anecdotes and local legends.

Authors Jigna Kothari and Supriya Madangarli saw 20 unedited minutes of Gangs of Wasseypur at director Anurag Kashyaps office in Versova and they loved what they saw. It was unlike anything we had seen in a Hindi film, says Kothari.

This prompted them to author the book Gangs of Wasseypur: The Making of a Modern Classic (HarperCollins India,

Rs 399). The book,designed like a paperback Hindi pulp fiction,also contains the complete screenplay. It includes interviews with the cast and crew of the film besides legends on the place.

An anecdote includes Anubhuti Kashyap (Anurags sister) managing a crowd that had gathered to watch the shooting in a slaughter house in Wasseypur,many of them were armed.

The movie draws from real-life stories of Wasseypur and one of the main features of the book is separating fact from fiction. Wasseypur is rooted in oral history. Anurag and Zeeshan (Quadri,one of the writers) had different versions of the legend of Sultana Daku, she says,referring to the mythical tales of a bandit of United Provinces of British India,that was used as a crucial point in the story.

Kothari has a company that specialises in providing research material for books which include Still Reading Khan and The Making of Om Shanti Om.

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