Anurag Kashyap Had To Carry Dictionary To Explain Chu***a

Mumbai: Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has never had an easy run with India’s censor board. His very first film, Paanch (2003), faced CBFC objections over language, violence and drug use. While the film eventually received clearance, it never hit theatres due to reported financial constraints. His later films, including Black Friday and Bombay Velvet, also ran into similar troubles. Recently, Kashyap reacted to the controversy around Janaki vs State of Kerala, where the board demanded changes to the title and the character’s name due to its religious significance. Speaking to The Juggernaut, he said, “If, in your writing, your characters can’t be named after any of the characters that have been part of mythology… It’s very strange. You have to look for it. They can’t be named after living characters, too. What is left there? You should call your characters XYZ? 1234? ABC? You can’t have surnames, nor characters with greyness or negative shades and blackness in them. They will have to be white. Lots of films are not coming out when they address these issues." He argued that films designed to teach moral lessons don’t really change society. What matters more, according to him, is honest storytelling. “So that they can look at their own horrific ugliness, prejudices, biases, narrow-mindedness, et al. But you can’t hold a mirror like that anymore because people don’t want to look at it. Cinema and culture have to purify all things," he added. Kashyap also pointed to language barriers within the board. He claimed that many officials and even those who take offence don’t truly understand Hindi. Referring to a specific slang, he explained, “A very, very big example of this is, for example, from my very first film that I wrote, Satya, the word in contention is a word called ch***ya. The word, in dictionary, in language, if you Google it, it will say it means stupid and bewakoof. It doesn’t mean anything else. The problem is the censor board is in Maharashtra. It’s not the Hindi-speaking people who sit there. It’s the people who have made a meaning out of it, its pronunciation, of how it sounds, of it. They don’t understand the meaning of it, stupid and bewakoof, moorkh. I literally had to carry a Hindi shabdkosh (dictionary) with me. Now, they don’t even allow you to take your phone inside."