I have written a script on my cancer experience: Anurag
Filmmaker and cancer survivor Anurag Basu says that he never wanted to “juice up” his own “tragedy” and that’s why he kept away from making a film on cancer. However, he is now ready with a script that he might release either in the form of a book or a film. “Yes I will,” Basu says, asked if he will make a film on the dreaded disease.
“Previously, I have always shied away from making a film on cancer, primarily because it would mean reliving the experience, and secondly I always felt guilty about juicing your own tragedy into a commercial film. This topic is very close to me. There’s a script that I have written on my cancer and hospital bit, and may be one day it will come out either as a book or as a film,” says Basu, 43.
In 2004, the director suffered from acute promyelocytic leukemia, a type of blood cancer, and doctors gave him just two months to live. But he overcame the disease.
“My priorities changed and so did my movies and the stories that I wrote. I became a more responsible son, husband and father after my fight with cancer,” says the filmmaker, about wife Tani Basu and their two daughters, Ishana and Ahana.
The maker of movies such as Murder, Gangster, Life in a... Metro, Kites, Barfi, and Jagga Jasoos says that as a filmmaker, it’s important to bring certain issues on the big screen in the form of films to create awareness. “It’s very important, but very difficult to make people aware with a dose of entertainment,” he says.
Basu has recently met 40 children who’re suffering from cancer. It was an emotional moment. “The fight they’re fighting right now reminds me of my old days,” he says, adding, “The first step to fight cancer is to be happy. I feel when it comes to fighting cancer, 50 per cent cure can be attributed to medication and the other 50 per cent to will power.”