When most children their age would play ghar-ghar, the Kashyap siblings played cinema-cinema. “Carrom board coins would become my audience, and board games would turn into a make-shift auditorium. Sometimes I would cut out film posters [to make it more realistic],” recalls Anurag Kashyap, the eldest of three siblings, over a phone call.

What about the plot? “A magazine called Sarita carried a review section called Chanchal Chaya. I would read the review, make up the story and they [Anubhuti and Abhinav] would think that I watched all the films,” he laughs. “He would create random stories… ones with shock value,” adds Anubhuti, the youngest of three siblings.

“He would also draw and turn them into comics and novellas. These would be circulated among all the cousins during the summer vacations.” “One was titled Mr Huge Ho Gaye Fuse,” pipes in her eldest brother. “I had also created a character called Wonder Man. This was back in the 80s, much before Marvel.”

All three siblings—writer, director and actor Abhinav is the middle child—had very little exposure to cinema, partly because their father, an engineer with the Uttar Pradesh energy department, would be posted in remote areas. As a result, the trio grew up in Obra and Anpara, small thermal power colonies near Banaras. Also, cinema was considered a bad influence.

“Besides an occasional Amitabh Bachchan movie on screen,” shares Anurag, “we watched most films on VCR, with pirated cassettes. In fact, the version of Mr India [1987] that we saw was without the climax.”

Anubhuti was the first among them to explore her creative side; she co-wrote a play in college and acted in it. “It also travelled to some festivals, but that was it,” she says, adding that her options for adulthood were simple: Either study and make a career for yourself, or get married.

“None of us actually aimed at getting into movies,” she says. “An MBA seemed like a good option [for me].” After graduation, Anubhuti worked in the corporate sector in Pune and Mumbai for a few years.

Meanwhile, Anurag enrolled in a zoology course at Hansraj College in Delhi, but was exposed to world cinema at a film festival. He moved to Mumbai and was soon writing scripts for television serials and films. “I was young and arrogant,” he recalls, “and turned down a lot of work that came my way, thinking this was not what I wanted to be known for.” But Abhinav, who was in Mumbai to prepare for an MBA degree, saw it as a great opportunity and became a mainstream scriptwriter.

However, it took several years for Anubhuti to quit her job. “I had reached that point where I knew that if I didn’t realign [with my creative side], it wouldn’t happen later,” she says. “So I took a sabbatical. Anurag [who was wrapping up No Smoking in 2007] recognized my talent much before I did. He subtly nudged and manipulated me into joining films.”

Anubhuti joined the team of researchers working on Bombay Velvet, which released much later in 2015. “It involved watching many films,” she laughs. Around the same time, scriptwriter Raj Kumar Gupta was making his directorial debut with Aamir (2008), and was looking for an assistant director. Anubhuti came on board. Later, she assisted Anurag on Dev.D (2009) and Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). 

“All the people who worked with me and went on to become directors—such as Neeraj Ghaywan and Vasan Bala—stayed with me only because of Anubhuti,” says Anurag. “I am chaotic, but she would handle me as well as them.”

After Gangs Of Wasseypur, Anubhuti stopped assisting and moved in the direction of short films. “The first was Let Stalk, my take on stalking, which never saw the light of day,” she says. “Then I wrote and directed Moi Marjaani [about a single mother and her encounter with love].”

It took almost a decade for Anubhuti to stake her claim to the spotlight. It came with the Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Doctor G, which released earlier this month. The movie revolves around a male medical student stuck in the Gynaecology department.

“The script came to me in 2016, but the following three years saw a lot of ups and downs in the production company Junglee. We were just about to start shooting when the pandemic happened,” she says. Anubhuti also directed the web-series Afsos (2020).

Has Anurag been a support system in Bollywood? “He would have, had he known,” she confesses. “But I never shared any of it [struggles] with him.” 

“We are the kind of siblings who hug each other a lot, but never really talk,” says Anurag. “Actually, it is not easy to talk with me around,” interjects Anubhuti, mentioning that during conversations, she is more of a listener than a talker. “I am the one who talks a lot,” explains Anurag. “She is usually worried about me, and wants updates about my life.”

Their style of cinema also differs from each other. While Anurag’s work is best described as dark, Anubhuti’s lens sees shades of grey; Abhinav makes mainstream potboilers. “Anubhuti is far from the cancel culture,” says Anurag. “She sees everyone as a work in progress, and believes everything is forgivable.” Similarly, their personalities are different too.

“While I grew up on world cinema,” says Anurag, “Anubhuti feeds off on real experiences. I have mad energy, while Anubhuti is calm.” “I am also very lazy,” interjects Anubhuti, adding that Anurag can write endlessly, but she needs a lot of pushing. “I am very independent, but I’m also happy doing nothing and I have no hurry in life.”

In an industry where nepotism is brought up every Friday, the Kashyap siblings wanted nothing to do with each other. “I have produced a lot of films,” says Anurag. “Anubhuti could have made a film [with me] long ago, but she wanted to make it on her own. Even Abhinav chartered his own path; he is very enterprising. The credit goes to our parents. We were all told that once we complete our education, we would have to make our own living. And we did.”

As part of its talk show Box Office Careers, Bennett University invited Anubhuti Kashyap, the director of the upcoming film Doctor G, which stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Rakul Preet Singh, to talk about opportunities that await young professionals hoping to enter the entertainment industry. During the talk show, which aims at promoting BA /PGD programmes in films, TV and web series, Anubhuti spoke about her journey, the difference in making films and web series (Afsos), and her experience of working on Junglee Pictures’ Doctor G.

Anubhuti, who has worked as an Assistant Director in Gangs Of Wasseypur earlier, shared her story with the students. “Mine has not been a simple, clear-cut journey. I come from a small town and in those days, the belief was still strong that people from good families don’t join this industry, so I always had this pressure on me to not go join in the footsteps of my brothers (Anurag and Abhinav Kashyap), who are in the film industry. I pursued a management career for seven-eight years. When I was doing really well in my career, I thought this is the time for me to think about whether I want to change my profession. So I took a short sabbatical from work. I started spending time with my brother (Anurag) since I happened to be in Mumbai at that time. He has always encouraged me as he always thought that I had a great writer in me. I had done a little bit of writing so he pushed me into writing and researching for a film. I bought a good computer and started begging amateur filmmakers to give me footage that I could edit and taught myself some editing. I realised that this job demanded too much. It is an interesting process but you have to be very patient. I met Raj Kumar Gupta in one of the social gatherings when he was just about to film Aamir. He told me that he had a position of assistant director and asked me if I would like to join as an intern AD. I agreed and that was really the first film when I observed all aspects of filmmaking and felt like that I fit in seamlessly. I did not feel out of place. From then on, my journey started.”

Talking about her next, she shared that it was an amazing experience to work on Doctor G. “There was a long wait involved in it, but it really paid off. Before this, I had only seen directors go through this experience from a distance, it was a great learning experience and I had fun along the way,” she said.

Anubhuti, who has had the experience of working on both films and web series, spoke about the difference between working for both mediums. “It’s quite different, the entire approach to it is very different. Right from scripting, you are looking at an episode as a film. For each episode, the first 10 minutes is the most important because that’s when you engage the viewers. These kinds of pressures you don’t have in Indian films. You have box office pressures which means you have to draw stars to it, you have to put in masala to draw the audience whereas, on the web, the content is the king.”