Subhash K Jha takes a look back at Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal in a new edition of his feature series This Day That Year.
Raj Singh Chaudhary was not only the lead actor in Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal, which clocks 17 years on March 13, but also co-wrote this fascinating but flawed film on student unrest.
Says Raj, “I am immensely proud of Gulaal because even after seventeen years, the film is still very relevant, still talked about, and has achieved the status of being a cult film. Wherever I go, people first talk to me about Gulaal.”
Raj especially singles out Piyush Mishra’s music in Gulaal. “Aarambh Hai Prachand has become a sort of anthem at so many places, whether at political stages or at colleges. A lot of reels on social media use the song. It makes me proud cause I was just not an actor on it but also co wrote it along with helping to put the production together. I constantly receive a lot of messages for Gulaal.”
Raj wants Gulaal back into movie theatres. “In the era of re-releases, I feel if the film is released again in theatres it will do very well.”
Speaking on the genesis of the project, the actor-writer explains. “I wrote the initial story and took it to Anurag Kashyap, who really liked it. We decided to set it in Rajasthan and travelled there for research. During our meetings with people there, the whole idea of Dukey Baana’s character, played by K M Menon, and the Rajputana angle materialised. We came back, and Anurag wrote the screenplay once again. We read it and discussed it and wrote subsequent drafts.”
Then came the funds, or the lack of them. “It took us a while to get the film going cause funds were not coming in. Many starts and stops. But between the first day of shoot and the final day, it took us 7 years. Collaborating with Kashyap at that time was a huge learning curve for me personally. His skill is not just as a screenplay or dialogue writer but also as a thinker. And his mind. It was a genius at work. I came of age during the writing and making of Gulaal.”
Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal, released in 2009 on March 13, made on a shoestring budget, was one of his earliest films and, like most, if not all, of the auteur’s work, a failure at the box office.
Interestingly, all the cast and crew of Gulaal worked free of cost for the film, bringing down the budget by leaps and bounds. And yet this violent, blood-soaked saga of youth and crime made no profits.
Kashyap says he is very proud of Gulaal. He places it on par with his other films, Ugly, Raman Raghav, Gulaal, Mukkabaaz, and Manmarziyaan. “Black Friday will always be the top, but that was made by a filmmaker still finding his voice; that’s why I can never reach that honesty ever again. Gulaal also belongs there with Black Friday.”
Shakespeare meets Quentin Tarantino in Gulaal. With Dev D and Gulaal, Kashyap proved himself a master of basic storytelling. He pulls the plug on cinematic pleasantries and takes us straight to the core of the characters, who are often rotting and evil.
Ayesha Mohan got the heroine’s role by default. She was assisting Kashyap. When he asked her to do the role, Ayesha was zapped. “But I was game for it. I had no idea how complex the character was. I went blindly by Anurag’s interpretation.”
When Kashyap first started making Gulaal about six years earlier to its release, Antara Mali was supposed to do the role. But she apparently lost interest in the movie. Konkona Sen Sharma was then approached for the layered part of a scheming small-timer who’s part Lolita, part-Lady Macbeth. But then Konkona too showed no interest and Kashyap is said to have signed on his assistant in an impulse.
Not only was Ayesha roped in without any acting experience, the song she always sings also found place in Gulaal.
“The character plays the guitar and sings because I do,” laughed Ayesha. “I go everywhere with my guitar. So when Anurag heard me, he said, ‘What’s that song you keep singing and playing?” I said it’s I’m a Big Big Girl. Anurag immediately incorporated the song and guitar into the character.”
More than essaying the nuanced character of Kiran, looking up at the lead actor was a problem for Ayesha.”My leading man, Raj Singh Chaudhary, is so tall, I got a sprain in my neck gazing into his eyes,” she said.
