Kamal Ghorui
Anurag Kashyap has spoken about one of the most difficult periods in his professional life, the cancellation of his ambitious streaming series Maximum City. Now the ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur’ director has revealed that he suffered a heart attack and had to go to rehab when a streaming platform decided to not go ahead with his show. This series was intended to be an adaptation of Suketu Mehta’s celebrated book ‘Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found’. Kashyap had been developing the project as a large-scale show for Netflix, which initially approved the idea before ultimately deciding not to proceed with it.Lashyap said the way the project was handled left him deeply shaken. He said in an interview with Mid-day, “During the lockdown, I was writing Maximum City. They had already decided after reading part one that this cannot be made; it would be very difficult. But nobody had the courage to come and tell me. I kept writing and spent so much time on it. My team knew, they had been informed, but they didn’t tell me. So imagine giving two years to something and getting emotionally attached to it. I had a massive implosion.”The filmmaker explained that he had started working on the series only after receiving a green signal from the platform, but later discovered that the executives who approved the project had not actually read the book.“I started working on Maximum City only after it was greenlit. My first question to everybody at Netflix was: have you read the book? They all said yes. Nobody had read the book. It started with a lie. You have greenlit it, you have given basic money for preparation, and then after reading the script you tell me, ‘This cannot be done,’ when my script was very authentic to the book. At that time, I used to think of Netflix as my home. For me, if they had greenlit something, it meant they were going to make it. The way they handled it caused a massive implosion inside me.”Kashyap said the emotional distress soon manifested in serious health problems. He revealed, “The first thing I got was a heart attack. I got a stent and was put on blood thinners. I couldn’t deal with it, and I reacted badly to vaccines, I developed severe asthma. I was put on steroids, and steroids keep you awake and restless, so I started drinking. It was a combination of many things. My daughter had a breakdown looking at me and asked me to go to rehab, so I went.”However, even his time in rehabilitation proved challenging. Kashyap revealed that he suffered a serious ligament injury during his stay. He said, “In rehab, I got a ligament tear in my right leg, which got worse because neither I nor the rehab staff realised it in time. It kept getting worse and I was in so much pain. I left the rehab and went to a doctor, who told me I had ruined it. I could barely walk. Surgery was not possible because of the blood thinners. I was lying in bed with my legs up — dealing with asthma, steroids, blood thinners.”Despite the painful chapter, Kashyap said he has now moved on and chosen not to hold grudges over what happened. “I am very happy now. I have in my mind forgiven everyone. To each his own, everyone has consequences. I am very happy since I left Mumbai,” said the filmmaker. Kashyap currently resides in Bengaluru. During the same conversation, he also reflected on how the streaming landscape in India has evolved since global platforms first entered the market. According to him, the early days of streaming services were more supportive of experimental and independent storytelling, but the priorities of platforms have shifted over time.“Somebody very senior from Silicon Valley said that India is just a dumping ground. What he meant was that all they want is more subscribers. They only want subscribers, they want to maximise them. They don’t want quality. In the beginning, it wasn’t like this because they were trying to break into the market. I was told to my face: we want subscribers, we don’t want you to be complex and intelligent.”
