Eerie, dark energies surround me. Inside Anurag Kashyap’s penthouse Andheri apartment, walls take precedence over furniture. A TT table and two bean bags seem to make some sort of anti-bourgeois statement against sofas and chairs. Massive posters of Black Friday, A Clockwork Orange, Grindhouse, West Side Story and Kala Patthar dominate the space, overwhelming the black-and-white photo montage of the filmmaker with his daughter. On the window sill, a rag doll slouches uneasily on a copy of James Ellroy’s L. A. Noir. Cigarettes. Newspapers. More newspapers.

As he emerges from the kitchen, Kashyap catches me frowning at a half-eaten pastry peeping out of a confectionary box. He smiles sheepishly. “Sudhir Mishra and some other bachelor friends were over last night.” And the family? “I’ve been on my own for the past two years. My daughter visits me on weekends,” he says, handing me a freshly brewed cuppa. I might not share the man’s taste in interiors but he makes a mean cup of coffee.

Kashyap’s Bollywood journey is a well-documented saga of baptism by fire, a seven-year living hell that saw all his movies — Paanch, Black Friday and Allwyn Kalicharan run into censor, legal, distribution or actor troubles. The recent release of his directorial debut Black Friday has brought vindication and cheer. “Till Black Friday happened, I was caught up in my angst because I had not been allowed to express myself. Two days after the release, I quit drinking and wallowing in self pity. It has been a huge change. I have finally been able to step out of myself.” The actor is proud of his latest short film set in juvenile homes with kids. It’s a very positive film. “I’m looking at street life with a lot of hope and dreams.”

The optimism is a reflection of the change he sees in Bolly–wood. “Earlier I was treated like an outsider. When I ran into censor trouble with Paanch and Black Friday, the industry called me jinxed and wouldn’t touch me. People had a fixed notion of cinema and refused to budge from it. I felt like I was breaking my head against the wall.” Today people are more open to, he says. He feels happy that producers and distributors are backing smaller films and new ideas, which are finding their way to the audience. His own films, No Smoking and Gulal, which had no takers earlier, are finally getting made today. “Suddenly I feel like the world is in my hands. Everybody wants to work with me.”

No Smoking, starring John Abraham and Ayesha Takia, is a Kafkaesque comedy set in Mumbai. Kashyap believes it is Abraham’s best performance till date. “Not once did I tell him what to do. I just created an atmosphere to which he responded.”
The film is shot on a grander scale than Black Friday. “I was tired of being called a documentary filmmaker. My point was that you don’t have to go to New York to make a movie look glamorous. I’ve shot the same city and made it big, yet kept it real and stuck to my story telling.” Rubbishing the notion that he makes niche films, Kashyap says he values creative freedom as well as commercial success. “I don’t want any of my films not to make money. I want them to go beyond the multiplexes. I want them to reach out.”

From going ballistic about writers being underpaid in Bolly–wood to calling Yashraj “the biggest bullies of the film industry”, Kashyap has been scathing in his criticism of the ways of the industry. But every rebel is a potential conformist, admits the maverick. “Ram Gopal Varma was rebelling against the system. Then he became the system. Every time I feel I’m losing myself I go back to films that have shaped me — Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Scorsese’s early films like Taxi Driver and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. These are films I identify with in spirit. They remind me of myself.”

Now that he has found recognition, does Kashyap believe there is a sense of fairness in the world after all? “No. I still think the world is an unfair place. The other day my friend jokingly said to me, ‘Anurag, you’ll have a problem being cynical now because everybody has accepted you with open arms. How are you going to fight this?’ I told him I’d always find situations to fight. I’d generate reason for more angst. The world accepting me is scary. My worst nightmare is everyone agreeing with me!”