Nishad Neelambaran (HINDUSTAN TIMES; January 6, 2020)

From being a screenwriter in Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998) to turning director with Black Friday (2007), Anurag Kashyap has come a long way. His movies have been appreciated by the critics and audiences alike. With movies such as Dev D (2009), Gulaal (2010), That Girl In Yellow Boots (2011) and the Gangs of Wasseypur series, to his credit, Anurag says that he has evolved over the years. “The young me was idealistic and angry, but then I found sarcasm and humour,” he says. The 47-year-old director, who has always been vocal about his opinions, says that he’s approaching mid-life and “the crisis has kicked in big time”.

He says, “It has started reflecting in my work, my stories and the choice of things that I am trying to do. Now, I think I’m getting more condense and complex. But at the same time, I also simplify the complexities. Earlier, I wouldn’t care about this.”

So does he care about box office numbers? “Everyone cares about numbers. Over the years, I have understood that I don’t want to dumb down to reach out to the maximum, but I want to reach out to enough that it sustains me.”

The filmmaker is all praise for regional cinema. “They are way more braver than us. When you look at filmmakers such as Aashiq Abu, Geetu Mohandas and Lijo Jose Pellissery, the kind of work they are doing is on another level. The way Geetu has handled the subject of Moothon (for which Kashyap wrote the screenplay), I don’t think any male director would have been able to do it. The kind of rawness of Mumbai that she shows in the film, I have never seen anybody do it. I wish I knew any of the south Indian languages. Main udhar jaake (in south India) movies banata.”

About how the digital world has changed the industry, Anurag says, “As a storyteller, my primary job is to tell stories and now I can tell them in an uninhibited way. I am totally anti-censor.”