May 22, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): Anurag Basu, who started his career directing scores of episodes for Ekta Kapoor‘s long-running soap, Kasauti Zindagi Kay, has let his chequered life come a full circle. Anurag has gone back to his roots in more ways than one. Not only has he returned to television to host a celebrity chat -show, he’s also doing the show in his home town, Kolkata.
It’s not so much his return to his roots, but also the timing of it that is significant. Anurag has been frequenting Kolkata at a time when his biggest and most expensive film, Kites, is on release.
The truth is, the making of Kites has been stressful for Anurag.
Says a source,
“Anurag was brought into Rakesh Roshan’s production house by Hrithik Roshan with the express purpose of infusing new blood into the proceedings. But once Anurag started making the film there was no end to the differences with Rakesh Roshan. The two belonged to completely different schools of filmmaking. And they were both right . There were differences of opinion, heated arguments and overall creative differences all the time. And though the film has shaped up well, Anurag distanced himself from the project once it was handed over to Brett Ratner for editing.”
Rather than be around answering uncomfortable questions about his differences with his Kites producers, Anurag Basu chose to escape into his home- town Kolkata where he first played a role in Onir’s film and then agreed to host a celebrity chat-show for the channel Zee Bangla, which keeps Anurag out of Mumbai most of the time.
Anurag’s neighbour and close friend, Pritam Chakraborty, who was in Kolkata on Tuesday to be interviewed on Anurag’s show admits the director has been heading home quite often.
Says Pritam,
“Nowadays, Anurag looks for any excuse to be in Kolkata and to do things other than direct a film. He was here to play a role in Onir’s film. Now he’s recording a chat show. I guess you can’t keep a Bengali in Bollywood out of Kolkata.”
As Anurag Basu waits for his pal Imtiaz Ali to relieve Ranbir Kapoor from Rock Star and start Basu’s film, Basu will be frequently returning to Kolkata to research his Kishore Kumar bio-pic and also to look at the possibility of directing a Bengali film.
As for Kites, Anurag has let it go to see how high it flies.
— Subhash K Jha / Sampurn Wire
