I'M NOT AN INDULGENT FILMMAKER

DIRECTOR Anurag Basu is cheerful and chatty when we speak to him over the phone, after the release of his latest musical, relationship-drama Metro...In Dino.

- KARTIK BHARDWAJ

DIRECTOR Anurag Basu is cheerful and chatty when we speak to him over the phone, after the release of his latest musical, relationship-drama Metro...In Dino. He isn't much for going too deep into the artistic process. "It's all organic, there is no set formula," he says. The film, featuring an impressive ensemble of Pankaj Tripathi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Alia Fazal, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sara Ali Khan, Neena Gupta and Saswata Chatterjee, released recently and Basu, although happy with the responses, is on a wait-and-watch mode. The film business is certainly a fickle one.

We speak to the director about his process of coming up with hyperlinked narratives, musical influences, his views on modern love, and if he thinks of the box office before making a film. Excerpts from the conversation:

How are you taking the responses to the film?

I am happy at the moment but it is too early to make a conclusion. People's reactions and reviews have been favourable, and hopefully, they will turn into numbers.

Since Life in a...Metro (2007) and then Ludo (2020), hyper-linked narrative is becoming your USP. Do film ideas come to you as a string of multiple stories?