Rage Against the Machine

The life of Anurag Kashyap has two phases8212;pre-Paanch and post-Paanch. The fall of a gifted writer/director who8212;burdened by a never...

The life of Anurag Kashyap has two phases8212;pre-Paanch and post-Paanch. The fall of a gifted writer/director who8212;burdened by a never-released debut8212;became an outcast, is now a classic tale of how life can suddenly go wrong.

Sitting in a dim outpost of a popular cafe, 32-year-old Kashyap is invisible to most people. As he relates the story of his past, you realise that for a man whose first script he co-wrote Satya was a watershed for the Bombay gangster genre, Kashyap has zero recall factor. With a day8217;s stubble, crumpled T-shirt and windcheater, he could be anyone, especially someone slightly unsuccessful.

But this is a landmark time in Kashyap8217;s career8212;the first film release. With Black Friday, Kashyap breaks a five-year-old jinx that saw him at the edge of oblivion.

The Benaras-born writer came to Mumbai in 1993 fired by two things8212;writing and a failed love affair. 8216;8216;I used to even do her homework, so when she left me, I went a bit crazy, did drugs,8217;8217; he says of the ill-fated romance.

By 2001, Kashyap8217;s debut film was ready. 8216;8216;Our first baby and Paanch were supposed to arrive at the same time. Today, my daughter8217;s four, the movie8217;s still unreleased,8217;8217; he says.

It was the card that felled the house. After Paanch, at least five Kashyap projects were either stalled, killed, or lost.

Superstitious Tinseltown, which 8216;8216;thrives on success8217;8217; dropped Kashyap like a rotten apple. 8216;8216;People said that if Anurag Kashyap is part of a film, then it won8217;t happen, the guy8217;s bad luck.8217;8217; For months, he lived off his wife Arti, a film editor. 8216;8216;I had no money, I did nothing but drink and sleep. I got no calls, even my wife was getting tired of me,8217;8217; says Kashyap quietly. His weight shot from 72 kg to over 90 kg. He borrowed money from friends, including Ram Gopal Varma and Jhamu Sughand, the distributor of his new release.

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Kashyap8217;s indifferent run can probably be traced to a combination of his lack of streetsmarts and his defiance of the system.

Ideals and principles make great vox pops, but Kashyap8217;s track record backs him up. In 2000, he walked out of the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Mission Kashmir because he didn8217;t like being asked to tailor the script to suit Roshan8217;s status. Seven months ago, he penned a biting article in a news magazine, which criticised everyone from Subash Ghai to Sooraj Barjatya, and unambiguously stated that 8216;they were swimming in the shallow end of mediocrity8217;.

Kashyap still hasn8217;t learnt his lesson: 8216;8216;80 per cent of Bollywood is full of people who8217;re playing film-makers,8217;8217; he says.

8216;8216;He8217;s too much of a live wire,8217;8217; says friend and theatre collaborator Makrand Deshpande. 8216;8216;He fights other people8217;s battles. For instance, if someone said something about me, Anurag toh usko mar dega.8217;8217; Back in 2002, it was Deshpande who saved him with Sir Sir Sirla. Kashyap8217;s acting gig in the play brought him out of a four-month long bout of depression and drinking.

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In circa 2005, his coming out is almost complete. Last year, Kashyap scripted Mani Ratnam8217;s Yuva, and the Hindi version of an Indo-German production Valley of Flowers. 8216;8216;I have rediscovered my love of writing,8217;8217; he says. Then there8217;s the role in Deshpande8217;s new film Raja, Dil Ka Ghulam, and a three-movie deal with the producers of Black Friday. And Kashyap is reviving two old dreams: Allwyn Kalicharan, for which he8217;s still finance-hunting and the thrice-abandoned Gulal, which has found backers. But for now, Kashyap8217;s just praying and hoping he8217;ll be around for good this time.