Happy Birthday Anurag Kashyap: A impeccable storyteller

Lucknow: Writer and director Anurag Kashyap the man who can write, direct, produce and act in movies is no less than a film institute in himself. Thanks to him, offbeat and arty cinema which was only celebrated at film festival circuit earlier is now enjoyed by regular cine goers on the home turf too.

Anurag Kashyap, a impeccable storyteller and a multi-talented personality, was born on 10 September 1972 in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. His father Sri Prakash Singh is a retired Chief Engineer of the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited and was posted in Obra Thermal Power Station in Sonbhadra district near Varanasi. Some of the locations used in Gangs of Wasseypur are also influenced from his own old house where he himself lived with his parents, sister Anubhuti Kashyap and brother, Abhinav Kashyap. Abhinav is also a filmmaker, while Anubhuti has been his assistant in most of his films.

Kashyap desired to become scientist and for his higher studies he enrolled himself into a zoology course at the Hans Raj College (University of Delhi); he graduated in 1993. He then eventually joined a street theater group, Jana Natya Manch; and did many street plays. The same year, his couple of friends "urged him to catch a De Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India. In ten days, he saw 55 films at the festival, and Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves was the film that influenced him the most.

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Kashyap's work inspired British director Danny Boyle, who has cited Black Friday and Satya as the inspirations for his Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Boyle stated that a chase in one of the opening scenes of Slumdog Millionaire was based on a "12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum" in Black Friday. He also described Satya's "slick, often mesmerizing" portrayal of the Mumbai underworld, which included gritty and realistic "brutality and urban violence," directly influenced the portrayal of the Mumbai underworld in Slumdog Millionaire.

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Multi-talented Anurag Kashyap needs no introduction. His directorial ventures like 'Gangs of Wasseypur', 'Dev D', 'Raman Raghav' and even his acting debut in 'Akira' earned him appreciation from the audience and critical acclaim. In between the success stories, Kashyap is known for his share of controversies too. His fresh battles with CBFC with every new film release to his strong opinion on political scenario in the country, Anurag Kashyap is known for being as badass as his movies.

He was first married to film editor Aarti Bajaj, with whom he has a daughter. They divorced in 2009. Later he married actress Kalki Koechlin, whom he first met during the making of Dev D, at her maternal home in Ooty. In 2013, Kashyap and Koechlin announced that: "They are taking time apart from their more than two-year-old marriage." In May 2015, they were divorced at the Bandra family court in Mumbai.

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He serves as the Member of board of the NGO, Aangan, which helps protect vulnerable children around India. When asked about his religious views, Kashyap replied: "I am an atheist. Cinema is the only religion I believe in."

Kashyap is regarded as an auteur and is credited for pioneering India's indie scene in the early 2000s. While promoting Bombay Talkies in Anupama Chopra's show, Dibakar Banerjee described Kashyap's aesthetics as "purely new age or purely Indian"; projecting "modern post independence India" in his films. He prefers shooting on real locations by employing guerrilla-filmmaking techniques with hidden cameras, and often makes his actors improvise their dialogues on set. In Ugly, he did not show the script to any of the lead actors. He frequently uses hand-held camera and experimental soundtracks.

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The protagonists of his films often deal with excessive drug, smoke or alcohol consumption, personal guilt, extreme rage and arrogance which leads them into self-shattering situations. Often portrays small but strong female characters. Most of his films deal with realistic scenarios and take clues from real incidents.

Film maker Zoya Akhtar wrote about Kashyap : "He has a very strong storytelling style and he proved that you could tell a great story with not a lot of money." Actor Ranbir Kapoor said: "All his films may not be big money spinners but the impact Anurag has, his contribution to Indian cinema, is immense." Canadian film critic and festival programmer Cameron Bailey has called Kashyap as "one of the most knowledgeable filmmaker".

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