shetty

Sakshi Juneja

Okay before you shoot bullets of abuses at me, hear me out. But I would like to warn you, if you are a die-hard Anurag Kashyap fan, you might as well bump off this piece of cynicism. Because lets face the fact here, you will never agree to what I say or think and I would not budge either.

When I interviewed Anurag Kashyap sometime around last year, I loved the man. I never had doubts over his artistic capabilities but what impressed me the most, was his bold outlook towards the Hindi Film Industry. Despite many failures, his passion for his films took precedence over his misfortunes. He didn’t mince, he openly bitched about the Chopras and Johars and their underworld kind-da nexus in Bollywood. All in all, I respected his “never say die” attitude and more importantly I thought of him as an artist with his heart in the right place.

But all of this was way then, today for me he is just another wanna-be in the glamorous world of pretense where people will go to any lengths just for some space in the Page 3 section or few minutes of stardom on the tele-screen. I guess it all started, once he signed on one of Bollywood’s most popular ‘non-actor’ actor for his upcoming project (Yes, I am talking about John Abraham) and then followed the release of the much-stalled, Black Friday.

The said film without any doubts was fantastic and very true to its conception and this not only the critics but also whose-who of Bollywood took notice of. Anurag Kashyap had arrived and that too with a mighty bang. But I believe in an industry like Bollywood, it’s f****** difficult to maintain sanity and not get high headed especially when everyone’s sucking up to your butt. Only the ones with a firm mind and even stronger will-power succeed in sticking to their path and staying away from tempting distractions and sadly, to me Anurag wasn’t one of them.

In one of his posts (on Passion For Cinema, excellent assortment of filmy write-ups, unfortunately leaning more towards commercialization), he blasted a well-known film critic for his thoughts on the forgetful Kabul Express and even more forgetful portrayal of Suhel Khan by John Abraham. Now it does make sense if was playing the role of a good friend by defending John and blaming everything on the film’s director and the critics’ double standards – but what about the opinion from a professional point of view. The truth is John Abraham sucked and so did his acting.

The next few months we saw, heard and read nothing but Anurag’s series of rants against some or the other big-shot belonging to the Hindi Film Industry (actor Anil Kapoor being one of his targets). The ONLY good things he had to say was either about his soon-to-released film, No Smoking or one his close buddies. Nothing wrong in that, me thinks, this is the way Bollywood works; the most shit your blabber the more noticed you get.

But what seriously shocked me, was his (recent) open criticism of his so-called mentor, Ram Gopal Varma.

I can’t see the Ramuji I used to know, at all now. I have stopped watching his films completely. I have not seen Aag or Darling and have no intention of watching them either.

And then he tries to nullify the effect with this…

I firmly believe that he is quite capable of doing so much more than what we see him doing. I would love to see the new film that he has announced, about the underworld. I am sure it will have the Ramu touch in it, I hope.

From a director’s standpoint, his thoughts on Ram Gopal Varma can be accepted but why was Ramuji not given the same treatment as his Johnny boy. Is it because Ramuji is no more needed as a stepping stone? Or maybe because he is no more part of circle of close buddies? Or maybe now he is looked upon as competition? Or it was just a stint to get some media footage, right in time with No Smoking’s first promo release. Don’t know about you but personally I would never talk shit about someone whom I regard so highly and that too in front of the whole wide world, irrespective of what others may think of them.

Well I can go on and on here but in stead will stop, all I have to say is that Anurag may have a creative vision but he desperately needs to get his head back to Planet Earth or soon he too would be on the same path of digression as his mentor Ramuji. An urgent lesson in nobility from fellow contemporaries such as Madhur Bhandarkar, Vishal Bhardawaj and Shimit Amin is highly recommended.

Ps…my thoughts are my own and this post has nothing to do with my personal vendetta against expressionless Mr. John Abraham.