Anurag Kashyap on why the Gangs of Wasseypur climax did not satisfy him

One of the most critically acclaimed movies of the past decade is the two-part crime thriller Gangs of Wasseypur, which stars Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Huma Qureshi, Richa Chadha, and Tigmanshu Dhulia among others. Directed by Anurag Kashyap, it is the only Indian film to appear on “The Guardian's” list of the 100 Best Films of the 21st century.

The movie's climax, the director recently admitted in an interview with Galatta Plus, hasn't quite satisfied him. He chose three films—Ugly, Manmarziyaan, and Raman Raghav 2.0—as the ones that came closest to what he had originally imagined when the interviewer asked him to name one of his movies that did so.

Wasseypur, Anurag said, has one specific effect that has bothered him to this day. “I can't say I'm completely happy. If just one careless individual who was taking advantage had not vanished, the movie would have been wonderful.”

The two-part Gangs of Wasseypur series told the story of a coal mafia family in the Jharkhandi town of Wasseypur in the Dhanbad district. Both movies received praise for their cinematic aesthetics and were adored by the general public for their drama and authenticity.

The director admitted that the film's closing scene, in which Tigmanshu's Ramadhir Singh is shot to death by hundreds of bullets as played by Nawazuddin, still makes him feel uncomfortable. He claimed that no one had shown regret for that specific sequence, although he did not name the offender.

Anurag was quoted as saying: “Even the film's cinematographer, Rajeev Ravi, hasn't, in my opinion, offered him forgiveness. After that, he vanished because he knew no one would ever forgive him. The only reason the movie was delayed was due to that one man, who we had faith would execute the scene flawlessly. We wasted money building prostheses to accomplish our goals because we believed the wrong man. We created a prosthetic version of Tigmanshu and did everything we could to make sure that one man got everything right before he vanished and left India. I wouldn't have been embarrassed about that movie if I had gotten that correctly.”

At the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Gangs of Wasseypur, a single 321-minute film, was shown in the Director's Fortnight section.

Recalling the experience, Anurag, in an interview, said he remembered he was very nervous when the film was playing.

“I simply sat outdoors drinking for five hours. I didn't believe that this was the kind of film that was shown at festivals. Only once in my life did I make a movie with a festival in mind, and that movie was Yellow Boots, which helped me understand how selling and marketing operate. The welcome party was a hoot. Even though there was only a 10-minute gap between the films, everyone stayed. On the street, the actors were being stopped. We danced until far after midnight.”

Anurag Kashyap was excited about making what he thought would be a commercial hit. “I was honestly thinking nothing else at the time. I simply wanted to share a story with typical north Indian humour,” he added.