Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur Was Inspired by my Work But he Never Acknowledged it: Director Ankush Bhatt | Interview

Ankush Bhatt of Mumbai Mirror and Bhindi Bazaar fame, opens up on the story of his success and failure. The director talks about being wronged by the industry and never losing his spirit of filmmaking.

Ankush Bhatt has proved his mettle in the industry with films like Bhindi Bazaar and Mumbai Mirror. But, things didn’t go as planned for him. A personal tragedy struck and a lot of professional goof-ups happened that paused his active movie life. The director is back again with the story of his surviving everything that the industry took away from him. He is back to narrate his story. In an interview with india.com, Ankush accepts that he has been wronged by the industry but doesn’t blame anyone.

This is one conversation for those who have seen themselves falling down only to get up again. Excerpts:

Before I ask you anything, Ankush, please tell me what happened with your film Firrki. What conspired there? Why was it not made after such a grand buzz?

I will tell you the whole story, my version of the story. There are several versions of the story. So, whenever I enter the office and I hear a new one after a point I was just amazed at what kind of stories people could make things off. So, it started off very well, as the producers were very accommodating and they wanted to make something really good in the industry. So, we had Neil Nitin Mukesh, Karan Singh Grover, KK Menon, Jackie Shroff, this kind of an ensemble to gather. It wouldn’t be easy for a new producer to manage all of this. So, till the time of the script and the actors were on board, they were like one of the most brilliant guys to work with. But, a lot of budget issues came into the picture.

Mumbai Mirror director Ankush Bhatt

Did you guys then shoot something or it did not happen altogether?

We were supposed to be there for 40 days and we shot around for 26 days, which was nearly around 75% of the film, 75-80% of the film. So, there was one tragedy that happened to me – two days later, when our schedule was supposed to start, my father expired.

So, keeping everything in mind, there were budget issues. There was a schedule mess up. I came back to India and cremated my father. My wife took care of everything and I stayed there and I, in that mental frame of mind, started shooting with them and I completed one of whatever was given to me. What started happening was that we shot for two days, then we took a gap for two days because they didn’t have the locations. Once, the entire unit was ready waiting in the lobby for the producers to come back to us and say ‘Hey, you know, let’s go and shoot here, or let’s go and shoot there’. The other thing they did was to save some GST money, they started asking for cash from there. Some hawala thing or whatever! I don’t know what the equation was over there. One fine day, after 10 days, we were thrown out of the hotel. The entire crew was standing outside. This was in London.

I realised somewhere down the line, somebody was making money out of it – either it could be Mohan or Vipul Tiwari or whoever and they were taking money from the financers telling them that, money is going in. They put in a case against me in the producers association saying that that the director is not cooperating.

Ankush , do you believe that Bhindi Bazaar is sort of a benchmark for you in your career? 

Correct. So actually for me, you know what has happened is that I have not mastered one genre. Bhindi Bazaar was a hardcore gangster drama. And in a little bit of commercial zone was Mumbai Mirror which appeared like Dabbang. Then I did 3dev, which was comedy. So, I was very lucky to dabble in different kinds of genres and different kinds of film sets, and different kinds of filmmaking in all my five films. That was one plus for me. But, if I do a subject like Bhindi Bazaar, then I have to surpass this I feel but the other subjects I did, never needed the intense treatment like that of Bhindi Bazaar. As far as the content is concerned, I have been surpassing my own. If somebody tells me to make a Bhindi Bazaar or something like a Mirzapur right now or you know a film in that genre,  then I will obviously revisit the drawing board and look at how brilliantly I had made those two films.

A poster of the movie Bhindi Bazaar

Do you believe that somewhere, you have been wronged by the industry?

Yes, a certain set of people which I was very careful not to work with, but then circumstances happened in a certain manner and I am sure that is my mistake. I can’t blame it on anybody else. I can’t blame it on the industry. I could have said no even when they made me hear the subject. I put in a whole lot of clauses in the contracts and you know to safeguard whatever transpired. When Bhindi Bazar was released a week before Shaitan released and a week before Pyaar Ka Punchnama was released, so, Luv Ranjan, Bejoy, Nambiar and I were like three people who got all the critical acclaim and everybody thought that these were directors who could, take the ship forward. Then, the next three films of all were – 17th January was Mumbai Mirror, 25th January is Akashvani and 1st February was David. All three of them flopped because we tried to make commercial films, which are not in our era. Luv is still a very good friend. But, because 3dev was not releasing, I just lost that race and could not go forward, and then they actually leaped to bounce ahead. So, I can’t blame anybody else except me for taking those decisions. Luckily, they had producers who could make their films release and pack them up with superstars like Wazir’s cast.

When Piyush Mishra saw Bhindi Bazaar, he called up Anurag Kashyap and he told him that, this is one of the best films I have ever seen. And Anurag called me up and he said that Piyush Mishra hasn’t appreciated any director in the last 10 years. Then I realised that Anurag was so influenced by Bhindi Bazar that in Gangs of Wasseypur, the entire climax of 45 minutes – right from the encounter – is Bhindi Bazar. If you just pick, you would find it a scene-to-scene copy. Then, he did the same during Bombay Velvet – the pickpockets scene and all those shots were very similar to what I did in Bhindi Bazaar. In Raman Raghav 2.0 as well, in a scene when Vicky Kaushal and Nawazuddin sit face to face, you find the promo line from Bhindi Bazar there.

Manoj Bajpai in a still from Gangs of Wasseypur

Did you ever try to speak to Anurag Kashyap about it?

No. So, I only thought that since you are so influenced, I tried to message him once or twice that, you know, give me a film in your production house. I am okay with that because I also get inspired by a lot of things that other people do. So for me, Ram Gopal Verma was the ideal. If you like it so much then it just gets stuck in your subconscious and then it comes out in a manner in which you don’t even realise that you are picking it up from somewhere. I don’t think much about it now. The masters of the game have acknowledged my work and I am happy about it.

So I am not trying to make you feel bad about it, but acknowledging and yet not acknowledging, right?

See, the whole problem is that even if I say it now, or even if I go and tell Anurag something, it is not going to hold any value because he is the more successful person today. So, everybody thinks that it is my problem, not his. You have to move on. You have to make your own thing over and over again. I don’t even think this is an issue for us, so I will have to move on and make something very nice. So that he calls up one day and tells me that “Chalo Ankush ab hum sath mai kaam karenge’.

 The kind of positivity you are showing for your work, it almost looks like you are just about to get back at doing something really big…

Yeah, I know that I am just a Friday away. I seriously can’t help but hang in there.

All the best for your upcoming projects.

Thank you.

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