Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat, Anurag Kashyap’s 22nd feature as a director (including the anthologies), hit the screens last month. Just like most of Kashyap’s work, this too met with some polarising responses among critics and audiences alike. In this interview with Cinema Express, the maverick filmmaker talks about people’s fatigue with hatred, his ideas about love, getting inspired by his daughter Aaliyah, being a ‘relatively cool’ dad, and a lot more.
Excerpts:
With The Romantics out, and SRK winning people’s hearts again. Love seems to be in the air. The song in Almost Pyaar… “Mohabbat se hi to kranti aayegi” is resonating even more.
People are tired of hatred. Boycott Bollywood, anti-Muslim narrative, whatever you may call it, is just tiring. I think people are drained of energy. So, right now Pathaan is not just a movie. It’s a festival, a celebration. My joy is not fake or make-believe. Across the country people are happy. SRK has given people the opportunity to come back and say “enough”. That’s why everyone is dancing at the screenings.
Why *almost* pyaar?
It’s about the need for love in this world, the one thing everybody runs away from, the one thing everybody is confused about. The definition of love keeps changing with generations, with individuals.
It’s also about how parents jump in and ruin things for the kids. Both the love stories in the film get ruined by the parents who are hardly there. We don’t have the conditioning, we don’t understand the younger generation, and we judge immediately.
So, it’s a Gen X filmmaker making a film for the millennials and Gen Y? Did your daughter Aaliyah inspire you?
I totally stole from the kids. Words, situations everything. Imagine the scenario from the times when we were young. When a boy and girl would travel together and get locked in a room, there would always be this sexual tension that came from repression. That is absent today. They lie next to each other like friends. They trust. They have much more clarity. They have no qualms in saying ‘let’s just hook up’. We were ashamed of even saying ‘I love you’.
There’s something about Alaya F [the lead in his film]...
Khatarnaak hai. She already had it when I saw her 18-minute showreel. The world has seen her in Jawaani Jaaneman and Freddy. Karan [Mehta] also had it in him but it needed to be honed. I put him through training. Alaya being from the industry had a sense of direction. She knew where to go. She came prepared. She is very natural and extremely focused. You should see her yoga videos on Instagram. The Bhopali accent video she does in the film, that’s not her language. For her to master that, do it with conviction and in only one take!
So, does being a relatively cool dad help in making a film like Almost Pyaar…?
It’s my daughter who helped me make the film. It’s she and other people in my life who have made me appear like a relatively cool person. People tell me that it’s amazing how you have brought up your daughter. I tell them not to discount the contribution of Aarti [editor and Kashyap’s ex-wife Aarti Bajaj]. It’s she who has done the hard work. And Aaliyah has worked hard on herself. Aaliyah has worked very hard on me, making me understand things and making me see things in a way I never saw before. She is a very mature person. She talks about mental health. She talks about things that we didn’t dare to talk about. And her following is so huge. Parents, and people who work in the mental health field come and tell me how amazing my daughter is.
Has she approved the film? Did she like it?
Yeah, yeah, she did. She would bring her friends to watch the film. I have gone ahead with it based on the confidence of that generation. Yesterday, also we pretty much had Alaya, Aaliyah and Karan bring the younger people in. The show was full of young kids. They loved the film; the film spoke to them.
You very rightly pointed out how sorted the young are. But, in the times of social media, YouTube, podcasts etc, how much tougher or easier is it for them to negotiate love?
If left alone, they will find their way. We forget it when it comes to ourselves, but we found our way, right? My daughter once told me a very nice thing. She said that she had heard many stories from me, about my dad, and his struggles. Half of it has become mythology. She said that my guilt was that my father spent so much money on my education, but I wanted to be a filmmaker at a time when filmmaking was looked down upon.
She tells me that my struggle was my choice, my parents let me be. She dropped out of college and is on YouTube and it is her choice. She will navigate. She tells me that when I made a mistake, I dealt with it myself. So, she will also deal with it herself. Parents think that they can help their kids with their experience. We think we know how to find solutions for everything. But we mess it up for them.
Our solutions are based on understanding, and we want to secure things for them. We must allow them to navigate on their own. We only need to have their back. Be there when they need us and when they call us. That’s how I’d look at it. When my daughter calls me for anything, I’ll just be there, but I won’t tell her how to live her life.