The Hateful Kashyap - part III

Part-3 – the epilogue

From the day we reached Pune and the shoot was scheduled in next 3 days we were working with a very much constrained budget. And the budget as small as 20k was finalized because Rugved, my cousin and the music director of the film, would cook food for all of us and for all the meals. Right from the breakfast, the lunch the evening snacks and to the dinner of the whole crew…it was Rugved who was feeding us. Walking in the kitchen right when he used to get up till the final rinsing of utensils at night before he slept, Rugved managed to take rest for only a few hours in the daytime.

Working with such a dedication and the helpful nature it was also very difficult for him to digest the fact that we had called off the shoot. He had done everything that he was supposed to do, in fact a little more than the need. Keeping aside his ego, his self-respect and the stature at what he works in his home town he was all in for any kind of work just for me, just so that I could work without pressure. Even at such a time, half an hour after the final pack up, when we went back home and Rugved made coffee for all of us. The taste was amazing but his combined efforts of all the days in that one last coffee were so much that it was hard for me to consume it and even harder to keep the cup aside.

Even after everyone left the sets and went back to Mumbai, I stayed back there for three more days for a reason that, I was too ashamed to face my parents and I wanted to spend time with myself to think over what exactly went wrong. My dad called me and very softly he said that he is proud of me that I dared to take such a risk of making a big short-film…he said that he is not disappointed and not angry coz of the financial loss either…all he wanted was me to be back home in Mumbai. Sakhi was a great support when I was a loner. Spending a few hours talking with her would give me some hope.

A very close friend called Rupal Nand was also keen in keeping me out of my ‘very upset’ stage by taking me to movies or coming along to the breakfast and sometimes getting me tiffin so that I don’t skip my lunch.

Coming back I kept the Being Kashyap topic away for a month. It could only stay away from discussions but it couldn’t go away from my mind. Finally I prepared a rough budget…what if I made the film just as I imagined it before…with the Rs. 70,000 budget.

With that budget in mind and on paper, I started finding producers. I had a couple of short-films that I had already made to convince them that I do complete the projects. Words were spread to Sakhi and Rajdeep to find the producers – the one who they think might be ready to help us. After a month long search I met Abhay Shevde through my Uncle. Abhay Shevde had produced a compilation of short films called Bioscope. He was my hope.

Almost thrice a month I used to discuss him about Being Kashyap and he used to give me hopes and words. After persisting for 3 long months of June, July and August, he finally asked for the budget and distribution plans. I prepared a distribution plan but what possibly could be a plan for distribution for a short film? Festivals, screenings, Dvds…that’s it. What else? If there was any I was unaware of it.

Abhay Shevde was supported by a friend called Vinay Joshi who called me to give a short narration and explain the plans. “The amount is quite small, there won’t be any problem getting this budget.” that’s what Abhay Shevde had told me. I gave the narration and explained the plans of festivals, they promised to talk after the Ganpati Festival.

Finally, on September 9^th2014, Abhay Shevde told me that they are not interested in Being Kashyap.

I was also searching for other options but everyone was only ready to finance if the returns were guaranteed and that’s exactly what we didn’t have.

Ultimately…I started to get a feeling that this film is not meant to happen now. Of course for me to get at this though, it was a slow process and took quite a time. The impact of failure at every step was so much that my mind had blocked itself. I was not able to come up with any new concept, no new script written after December 2013. No new story developed. No new nothing. I wasted my 9 months being Kashyap, and even then I couldn’t be one. By the end of everything I almost started hating this film. I started to think that maybe the people whom I read this script were just praising it for the sake of praising. Maybe the script is not that good. Maybe it’s very very ordinary for a producer to put in money. Maybe…it’s is not a good idea to make this film at all.

I was dreadfully torn between two worlds of, ‘If you want it you have to go n get it’ and ‘if it’s meant to happen it will surely happen’. The feeling of being unwanted and ignored sucked. Then I heard it somewhere…if you have a very strong inner desire, a wish that you want to be fulfilled, then, you shouldn’t hold the wish too tight with you…instead you should let it out in the universe; and the universe will do its job of making it come true.

This blog, The Hateful Kashyap, is what I call ‘just cannot let it go’ impact. I decided to let Being Kashyap go. It will happen when it wants itself to happen. And I just hoped that it will be done by ME.

All I am doing now is waiting for Universe to do its job. The moment universe plans to do it…I am ready.

I am ready with my shoes on, I am ready with the posters of Satya, Taxi Driver, Inglorious Bastards, Fuh se Phantom, Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction and 34 other like these, I am ready with all the actors and crew on my speed dial, I am ready with the paper work…I am ready for the Being Kashyap.

And In all of this…what I exponentially learnt is, if I want to reach the heights at which I have seen myself…that Being Shoneel is going to be very difficult for me. And Being Shoneel is what I would always want to be. And inspite of many failures, I will be one.        

The End

The Hateful Kashyap - part II

Part -2 – the efforts.

Someone comes up to you and tells you that you have to buy a piece of ocean…depending on your budget. You see the problem here? You have a constrained budget and the area, from which you have to choose your part, is so vast. And yet you have to keep it accessible.

I was confused between what parts of Kashyap’s life and movies should be included. How much personal the film must go; What contexts could be included in the movie so that the general viewers (who are not Kashyap followers) will understand them without the internal references; how much amount of Western cinema’s influence on Kashyap and Kashyap’s influence on me should be mentioned and including all this, how should we establish Anurag Kashyap as everything that is described in the first part (the Prologue) – And All of this through the eyes of Kashyap’s fan!

After taking into consideration all of the above aspects, what I felt is needed was that, the script should be trendy & meaningful and crispy & classy at the same time. The genre should be humour and realisation together. With December 12^th to write the first letter of the script, taking a lot of time, doing quite a research and giving it a final specific dimension, in pieces and in halts the final draft of the script was completed by mid February.

The bounded and registered script was narrated to my close friend and a beautiful actress Sakhi Gokhale and I put forth to her the demand to rope in an actor called Rajdeep to play the lead role of Amit. (The protagonist was named Amit as it was shown that his parents fell in love while watching an Amitabh Bachchan movie, which was later excluded from the script taking into consideration the amount of things I already had to juggle with.)

The script was narrated to few others who were needed and many other who were not but were to be an indirect part of project.

In all of this, one person who was with me, Rock solid, was my elder cousin, Rugved Deshpande, a musician and lyricist. Once the things started moving ahead with certain pace, we decided of composing an original song for the film - One, to be used in the film and one more to be used for online promotion. Rupali Moghe, a very talented singer and a personal favourite of both Me and Rugved gave her voice to the unbelievably well composed sound track. This track was composed by Rugved himself after consistent changes of my demands which actually made him drive nuts. (Best-things are the outcome of creative frustration, is what I believe.)

The budget of the short-film, which would be of the 30mins duration, was racing up to Rs.70, 000. But everyone was ready to be a part of this project with one carrot hanged, and that was my craziness about reaching to Kashyap with this film. Everyone wanted THAT NAME IN THE TITLE of this film to read their names in the end scroll. With things like these happening, the budget was cut down to Rs. 20,000 now. With everyone’s dates that could be attained, we had a narrow window of 9 odd days, for us to shoot. But 9 days were more than sufficient. And I prepared a lavish schedule of shooting only two-three scenes a day. With 3 initial days left only for preparations and rehearsals.

The date of the shoot was slated. We were going on floor in April 1^st week. All the arrangements were done. The A3 size photo frames, with Kashyap’s photos in them were made as a part of production design. Leaving a couple of scenes to be shot later in Mumbai, the rest of the locations, shot division & other paper work were finalized. (We were going to shoot in Pune for convenience and location availability purpose). The crew of 12 people who were supposed to be fed and accommodated by the production (us) was set to come to Pune.

Things were going exactly the way they should be proceeding.

And with all smiles on my face a quote by Swami Vivekanand ran through my head – When things are happening exactly the way you want them to be, be sure that something somewhere is going terribly wrong.

A day before we were leaving for Pune – Rajdeep called to say that, as per the contract of the last film he signed, he has to be there for its promotion. The two people who were supposed to assist me for continuity and other technical stuff couldn’t make it as something changed for them at the last minute.

And the cinematographer would only come 8 hours before the call time of the first day, which meant he would only see the locations at the time of shoot.

And on top of everything, the available camera we were going to use degraded from Canon 5D to Canon 60D.

With all this we still began the shoot. Kashyap’s Photo-Frames were hanged as the property on Amit’s house walls. And another ‘Amit’ was finalised only a day before the first day of shoot, named Siddharth Menon. 

With Siddharth’s dates the lavish schedule had to be constrained to the 4-5 scenes a day. And on the first day itself after shooting 4 odd scenes, Siddharth got a call from his feature film director, Sachin Kundalkar, to come to dub his part of dialogues in Mumbai the following day and staying there for the next 4 days as well.

Siddharth, who was roped in, with great efforts and Sakhi’s enormous help, and who was playing the lead protagonist, had to leave the sets of Being Kashyap.

With all the apologetic and motivational words, Siddharth went out bringing the shoot to the halt and putting all of us in a great despair.

Believe it or not, with a whole lot of silence in the room after the actor went, the frame of Anurag Kashyap’s photo slipped down the wall with a huge noise.

The silence grew colder and my heart beats ran faster. All of us only gazing at the frame and then staring at each other.

Hardly had we felt that we should have believed in the sign. Even though you have the faith in 

positive vibes, we cannot ignore the existence of negative one.

The shoot was aborted the next day at the dusk as the sun set, leaving me shattered, speechless, insulted and at the lowest of my moral.

The despair continues…

The Hateful Kashyap - part I

Part -1 – the Prologue

“I am a sucker for Shahrukh Khan”, said Anupama Chopra in one of her reviews and probably on her show on channel Zoom, while reviewing Chennai Express. I guess I know what she meant but I am not aware if there was any pun in that sentence. If we take out that pun and see what she actually meant I would say I am a sucker for Anurag Kashyap.

I have read what Parallel Cinema is…I have known what is Italian Neo Realism and French New Wave. And I would like to believe, even if Kashyap himself doesn’t, that he is in the process of giving the hugest contribution to the cinema world. May it be Directing, Writing, Editing (for Queen, 2014) or for that matter producing a few content wise promising films. For the emerging and aspiring film makers he is known as most accessible and sensible director-producer. He is an inspiration to many. An Atheist himself, Anurag, is The God for many. I don’t believe in the term God or the names given to the idols that are worshipped, but I believe in the positive energy around, to which, people have named - God. The strength of your belief is the level positivity in the energy.

I am fond of cinema. I am not a clichéd person to say that cinema is my first wife…but I love this phenomenon more than how much I might love my wife. And if someone is doing good for something you love the most, you tend to like that someone too. Hence, as a small time tribute from all what I could manage to do it, I decided to shoot a Short-film dedicated to Anurag Kashyap.

The film was called, Being Kashyap.

The lingering thought of doing this one thing for the person who keeps me inspiring and motivated, even without his physical presence and relation with me, got its way out of my mind in December – 13 while I was doing a short term film making course in Pune, just to answer the people who judge the film-makers, not on their films or work, but on where they have learnt. So I had to have the best course and the smallest course as I didn’t want to waste my time attending lectures and writing 15,000 words thesis. I was studying at Vikshi Institute of Media Studies, where A.S.Kanal and his better half, Jayashree Kanal teach the basic film-making.

That way-out of the lingering thought was in the form of dialogues. Dialogues - that would be delivered by the true and genuine fan of Anurag Kashyap. It was when a huge smile came on my face when I saw a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, where we hear a gunshot. In the frame we see a white horse running, being ridden by the character called, Big Daddy…and with that gunshot the film goes high-speed (Slow-motion) so does the sound…and we see blood spilling down the horse’s legs and after a moment Big Daddy enters the frame, falling down, being shot dead and falls down going out of the frame. The rider less horse keeps running.

The huge smile was because I felt that Kashyap is the superb mixture of three-four things together, the Quentin Tarantino, the Martin Scorsese, some garnished Woody Allen and on top of everything, the main thing…Anurag Kashyap himself. The scene of Gulaal, 2009, during the final combat where Dilip is storming into Duke Bana’s Rajwadha, he shoots a couple of guards. The shot is this way, Dilip is climbing stairs and only the lower half portion is in the frame, camera is flowing him from behind and we hear a shot, camera keeps on following and as Dilip is storming in we see a guard lying dead on the right and we hear another shot again as he is walking up, a guard enters the frame rolling down the stairs and frames out. Both the scenes do not reveal the killing in their frames but show is the impact of the gun shot that is heard.

This is one example where I could see the co-incidental similarity of thoughts between Tarantino n Kashyap. Taking into consideration many such examples I felt that I don’t know If I would be working with Kashyap ever ahead…but what I really want is not working with him or for him but I want him to be fond of me or my work somewhere in the future. At least he should be proud of me and feel somewhat nice about him being my inspiration.

And that’s where the writing of Being Kashyap began...

With the Last scene written first and with the initial thoughts kept last.

To be continued…