"I Am Still Alive. I Am Still Making Movies. I Am Not Dead And Gone.”

The last time we met, Anurag Kashyap was like a man possessed. He was sure that he was on the tip of a discovery. Perhaps a new wave of Bollywood which craftily juxtaposes the commerce with cinematic splendor. There was a renewed sense of confidence sparking across the floor, the entire Phantom Films office actually. But that was a year or more back. The mega flop of Bombay Velvet followed by another failure with Shaandar (as a producer), garnished with the routine Twitter fist fights with the Censor Board (the latest being the one with Udta Punjab), should have transformed the peppy Kashyap, I reckoned. When my Kashyap meeting was scheduled, all bets were off. He could be one of those I’m-too-busy-to-talk-right now filmmakers, or the anti-media maverick, or transformed into a closeted individual giving monosyllabic answers. All of that was wrong. Kashyap was two interviews down when I reached the lobby. The office was being renovated, but the director was in his cabin, in the company of ADs and managers, while giving an interview.

It is normally not the finest idea to meet someone after a spate of interviews, especially including phone ones. But Kashyap was stepping out for a smoke, which seemed to rejuvenate him. A few laughs with his team, two three puffs, and we were scuttled inside with him. He wasn’t sombre. He didn’t evade any remotely depressing Bombay Velvet queries. His eyes darted to the poster of Raman Raghav 2.0, his next, every time he got excited. Yes, and excited he was! Even when he admitted to being greedy with Bombay Velvet. But it wasn’t grief that consumed him today. He has lived that and he is back here to tell another tale. But in this milieu of emotions is strewn the grand mess of