Anurag Kashyap: Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in a new interview, has spoken about the hardships that he endured both in his professional as well as personal life over the years.
Talking about his days of struggle after he arrived in Mumbai in 1993, Anurag revealed that he spent many a night on the pavement. He suffered ‘downslide’ after repeated career setbacks just as he was starting out in the film industry.
No roof over head
Appearing on the latest episode of Mashable India’s The Bombay Journey YouTube series, Anurag spoke about the city and how much it has changed in the 30 years since he came here first. He had a story for every street corner and said he had no roof over his head and had to sleep on the pavement at night.
Sometimes he found some space at Imtiaz Ali’s college and some times he was given ‘special permission’ to keep his suitcase at Prithvi theatre in Juhu. In the morning, he said, he was allowed to use the washroom but nights were the toughest when he had to fend for himself. He said in Hindi, “There was a garden in the middle of the Juhu circle back then; it used to be a roundabout without any signals. We used to sleep there, but sometimes they’d kick us out. Then we’d go to the Versova link road, where there was a big footpath. People used to sleep there in a line. But you had to pay Rs 6 to sleep there.”
The filmmaker broke out after co-writing Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya. But he ran into trouble after embarking on a directorial career, when his first film, Paanch, was stalled. His second film, Black Friday, also ran into trouble just a day before the release. He said, “I locked myself in a room, and that’s when the drinking began. It was over. I used to drink heavily for a year-and-a-half. Aarti (Bajaj, ex-wife) kicked me out of the house. My daughter was only four years old then. That was a difficult phase. I was depressed. Paanch had stalled, Black Friday had stalled, Allwyn Kalicharan was shelved, another film that nobody knows about was shelved, I was kicked out of Tere Naam and Kaante… I was drinking and I was fighting all these battles, and I was unceremoniously thrown out of projects I had written and I was a part of. That was a very bad phase, and it accumulated into an anger, with the industry, with the system.”
Bounced back with Gangs of Wasseypur
But Anurag bounced back with the two-part Gangs of Wasseypur. He also introduced some of Bollywood’s most prominent actors in his films, and co-directed India’s first Netflix series, Sacred Games.
His new film, Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat, will be released in theatres this Friday.
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