Anurag Kashyap moves away from comfort zone for ‘Choked’
MUMBAI: Anurag Kashyap is taking it easy even as a new film of his opens for public viewing. ‘Choked – Paisa Bolta Hai’ is the first narrative feature that the director has made for a streaming platform. The hurly-burly associated with a theatrical release and the tensions that go with it are missing.
“For the first time, I am comfortable and relaxed as I am not dealing with the anxiety of how many shows there will be, or whether if the film does not open well it will be withdrawn…,” he says. “I know ‘Choked’ is there forever and it will reach the people that it is meant to reach.”
‘Choked – Paisa Bolta Hai’, a Netflix original, allows Kashyap to move away from his comfort zone as it tackles a theme of contemporary import. It moves a fair distance from the darkness of his films. “I am exhausted with the
Bollywood film director Anurag Kashyap expectations that people have from me. That is why I started collaborating with different writers and on their ideas,” he says. “That is why I did ‘Manmarziyaan’, then ‘Mukkabaaz’, and now ‘Choked.’”
The low-key, mellow thriller examines the repercussions of demonetisation, a measure that was foisted upon the people of India without warning on November 8, 2016, as reflected in the actions and reactions of a Mumbai couple and their neighbours in a nondescript locality. There is politics in it as well as a strong social critique. The film probes what happens when the line dividing need and greed is breached.
“As a filmmaker,” says Kashyap, “it is important to chronicle the times. If people see the film 20 years from now, they’ll know that it is about this particular time.” Choked is indeed the first Hindi film that addresses the ramifications of demonetisation as its central concern.
‘Choked – Paisa Bolta’ has stars Saiyami Kher and Malayalam actor Roshan Mathew (in his first Hindi-language film), with Amruta Subhash, Rajshri Deshpande, Upendra Limaye and Uday Nene playing the other key characters.
The sheer absurdity of demonetisation and the nationwide bedlam it sparked are woven into the relationship drama about a bank employee (Kher) and her jobless musician-husband (Mathew) who are facing issues in their marriage on account of continuing financial strain. “It is,” Kashyap says, “an interesting story about the power dynamics in a marriage. It is a marriage story that revolves around demonetisation.”
As Kashyap began working with screenwriter Nihit Bhave, the initial temptation, he admits, was “to write my politics into the characters”. He adds: “But that never seemed natural… It had to be very authentic to the people in the story. We had to see everything through the perspective of the female protagonist.”
This film, he asserts, had to be squarely about the characters that people it. “Their politics is about survival, their environment and their everyday experiences. My politics cannot be their politics. I could not have thrust my opinions on them. I had to be objective,” the director says.
Says Kashyap: “It was pretty much Nihit Bhave’s world that I entered with my sensibilities. We used to say, let us make the film the way that Sai Paranjpye would have made had she chosen to create a thriller.” ‘Choked’ is set in a Marathi middle-class milieu where money does not buy everything but it does facilitate a great deal.
In a way, ‘Choked’ is an unclassifiable film, especially if it is seen in the context of Kashyap’s previous movies. It blends genres seamlessly and its thrills are limited to money being physically transferred or found in mysterious ways and a pre-climactic bank robbery. Otherwise it is primarily about a bickering couple and a single mother (Amruta Subhash) preparing for her only daughter’s wedding and the impact that the ‘ flow’ of money and the sudden turning off of the tap have on them.
“The script was written in 2013, well before demonetisation,” he explains. “It was about marriage, about a politician who lived upstairs, about black money. We were struggling with the script and I was busy. Post-demonetisation, all of it suddenly became very relevant.”
Kashyap says he got a perspective about demonetisation while he was shooting ‘Mukkabaaz’ in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. “It was there that I saw the impact of it. That is when I called Nihit and said that we should bring demonetisation into the film. It then all fell into place. The whole idea of money travelling through the drain came in and the characters of some of the neighbours were added to the story.”
In one scene, the struggling musician exults when he learns of the announcement of demonisation while his wife and the lady whose daughter is about to be married seem not just far less enthusiastic about the move but distinctly alarmed. “The women who deal with money see it in one way while the unemployed person who is resentful of those that are more privileged instantly turns into a votary of demonetisation,” says Kashyap.
“Let people discuss the pros and cons,” Kashyap says. “Somebody who has really suffered will say you are biased, that you haven’t shown the real extent of the tragedy. On the other hand, somebody who has not suffered will say what is this that you are showing, it is all hogwash, nothing of this sort happened.”