"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.