Bollywood: ‘Gen-Z’s biggest struggle is to be them’ says filmmaker Anurag Kashyap

Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, best known for cult films like Dev.D (2009), Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016), is returning to the big screen with his new film Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat that releases on February 3. The Gen-Z romance has two different stories running in parallel. One revolves around a Muslim boy and Hindu girl in Himachal Pradesh, India. The other story, set in London, centres on an Indian boy and a Pakistani girl. The titular character of DJ Mohabbat links these two stories on his podcast.

In an exclusive interview, Anurag Kashyap talks about experiencing the Gen-Z expressions, his anger turning into sarcasm and humour, the importance of commercial success and why he does not want to make another Gangs of Wasseypur.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

You’re ready with Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat. The only thing that feels like an ‘Anurag Kashyap film’ in this musical love story is the tagline ‘Mohabbat se hi to kraanti aayegi’ (love will bring in a revolution). What is this revolution you’re talking about?

Revolution is about the world we are living in, the world that is so full of prejudice, hate, intolerance. We need to change that. We need to change ourselves. We need to learn to love and accept.

Ah! So the Anurag Kashyap anger is there… against parenting, patriarchy and society?

When he was asked about the ‘angry young man’, Javed Akhtar had once said that anger gradually turns to sarcasm and sarcasm gives way to humour. I think I am somewhere in the middle… trying to put sarcasm and humour into my anger. And hoping to pull it off in some way or the other.

But you have said many times that you don’t relate to the love stories made in Bollywood. Why this love story?

I still don’t relate to them (laughs). But I’ve always wanted to address relationships. This film is Gen-Z-driven, but it’s also real. It is about the times we’re living in. It is about us, our problems that we see through our children. It’s about how we are the invisible villains in the lives of our children with our conditioning, prejudices, deep-rooted patriarchy and an inability to accept what we don’t understand in interpersonal relationships. So while it’s driven by Gen-Z, it’s actually about the problem that we are.

So does the film unveil Anurag Kashyap 3.0?

This is the new me. But the film is not an out-an-out romantic musical. There’s so much more to this film. The message is the only way this world will survive is with love.

The story has two different time zones… two different stories running together (with the same actors — Alaya F and Karan Mehta).

That sounds like Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal (2009). Is it similar to that film — in structure or form?

This is not a Love Aaj Kal-kind of zone. Imtiaz has helped me a lot with this film. There, stories were about the past and now. My film has two different stories.

In this Gen-Z love story, is there a character who thinks or talks like you?

This film has a character who talks and thinks like Vishal Bhardwaj (laughs). I’ve stolen a lot from him in this film. He helped me with Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat. I asked him how should DJ Mohabbat talk, and he would tell me. Whatever I remembered, I stole it and put it into the film.

You don’t belong to Gen-Z. Their worldview, their language and expressions are entirely different. How did you get the Gen-Z perspective?

It began with exactly the point when my daughter said, “Mom doesn’t understand me, you don’t understand me”, and I replied, “Let’s talk”. She initiated the conversation. Then I have my friends’ children who have similar problems.

I feel that my parents are also very successful (as parents) since I am doing well. But the Gen-Z kid says your struggle was to make something of yourself, make a mark in this world, pursue your dream, my biggest struggle is to be me. My friends’ kids said that it is so hard just to live my life as who I am and navigate this world of social media and wanting to belong to my people, wanting to find my own tribe. And this ‘my tribe’, ‘my vibe’… this is not the language we used.

So literally, it began with my daughter. She was the bounce board at every stage of the film. She found the actor Karan Mehta for me. Karan is a millennial while Alaya is Gen-Z. Casting them helped me a lot in terms of finding the language of the film.

Talking about the language of this musical, it’s a cool sounding album. There are lyrics like Netflix & Chill and Ghanghor Connection. Were you sure about such lyrics?

Shellee (lyricist) is a Punjabi poet and the poet in him came out so well in Manmarziyaan (2018). We had to undo the poet in him for this film (laughs). He started interacting with my daughter. We had to understand the language of this generation. I was adamant that before being deep or poignant or profound, the words in the songs have to belong to this generation. Amit Trivedi (music composer) had found his tones and tunes pretty fast, but he did it with gibberish. We spent a long time finding the real words.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com