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From Wasseypur to world cinema

Last Updated 18 June 2012, 16:11 IST

It takes 20 years to become an overnight success,’ Eddie Cantor, the entertainer had noted wisely.

  But it took Zeishan Quadir, the brain and writer behind Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur just three years to make the journey from Wasseypur in Dhanbad town to Cannes. He has been his own hero for far longer, so much so that he ended up writing the film so that he could cast himself in a ‘Definite’ role. Of that, a little later.


“I was born and brought up in Wasseypur, did my schooling there, moved to Meerut for higher studies, worked in a call centre in Delhi before packing bags in March 2009 for Mumbai to try out my luck as a hero. Several auditions and rejections later, I heard that Anurag Kashyap was going to be watching a play at Prithvi Theatre.

I landed up there, met him and suggested an idea. He asked me, if I had something in writing. I said No, but I could have it by the next day. The next day I met him again with eight pages of what I had seen in Wasseypur in my growing years. He took one look at it and said, ‘Mein yeh film bana raha hoon.’” That was it.

With zero background in script writing and no formal training in cinema, Zeishan was sent off by Kashyap to Dhanbad to pen a proper researched saga of vengeance of the mafia that runs a parallel economy in coal and set it against the backdrop of the town’s mines. “I returned from Dhanbad with a story told over 140 pages.

Then  Anurag wrote the screenplay and handed it back to me for dialogues.” With so much hype about Gangs of Wasseypur already, most know that the film revolves around illegal mining and coal corruption at all levels. “It is a part of life in Wasseypur.

I have not been witness to actual killings but there were times when on way to school I saw a body on the road, the crowds and cops around it and knew how that murder took place.


 “That it happens is common knowledge. How it happens is what we have explored in Gangs.... The names have been changed because the cases against them are still pending and no courts have been able to prove that they are criminals. So, the story is fictional but the incid­e­nts are real,” expl­ains Zeishan.

Though the film is largely in Hindi, the dialogues are a mix of Maithili, Bhojpuri and Bihari. It was important to retain the local dialect to give it that raw earthiness. The earthiness extended to Anurag choosing his cast of 370 from largely unknown theatre actors, wh­om he prefers over stars.

He even allowed Zeishan to cast himself in the role of a character called ‘Definte’ who has a cam­eo in the first part of the film (releasing this Friday). “My character grows up in the second part – so there I am one of the main leads.

Anurag Sir is my FTII and NSD. He gave me DVDs of world cinema to watch, asked me to read certain books, sat and worked with actors all the time. He works with a bound script but is so spontaneous and improvises constantly on the sets. He has so much knowledge, it scares me.”

Surprisingly what doesn’t scare Zeishan is the fact that a goon from Dhanbad recently called and gave him a veiled threat. “Aapko aisi picture nahin banana chahiye thi. Wasseypur ke logon ko pasand nahi aayegi.

Aapke ke liye mujhe chinta ho rahi hai.’ I told him ‘aap meri chinta mat karo, aap apna kaam karo. Mein apna kaam kar raha hoon.” That is the way I am. I am from Wasseypur, why should I be scared of them? I have grown up there. I know the people and the places. How can I be afraid?”

You’re right. Afraid is the wrong word for one who has in his first outing come full cirle with Wasseypur.  

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(Published 18 June 2012, 16:11 IST)

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