How Anurag Kashyap killed Dobaaraa even before it released?

Some people in the entertainment industry should not be allowed to speak in public. There should be a standing gagging order for Anurag Kashyap . To his good fortune and ours, Kashyap did go into the mute mode for the past year after a lady came forward with a cringe-worthy video where she described all the unmentionable things that Kashyap had allegedly done to her when no one was looking. In Kashyap’s defence, it sounded completely manufactured for two reasons: one, Kashyap doesn’t need the casting couching and two, the video accusations sounded rehearsed. To his credit, Kashyap stopped speaking in public after the ugly allegations, and for that, we have this inventive lady to thank. But now after a hefty hiatus, Kashyap is back with a film Dobaaraa. So of course there had to be a media exposure for the filmmaker. Kashyap joined his leading lady Taapsee Pannu for a promotional binge. The minute I saw him in public I knew there was trouble ahead.

One day the internet was exploding with a picture of Kashyap sitting in Sunny Leone ’s lap. I was horrified. Was this the same guy who was caught in the MeToo trap just a year ago? When I asked someone close to Kashyap what this weird lap dance meant I was told it was an act of defiance. “Kashyap is actually being ironical: you wanted to kill my career with a false allegation, so here I am giving you a scoop.” Soon after Kashyap was seen making fun of the cancel culture: “I am amused because I feel these trolls want to boycott everything. There is a trend of boycott culture in this country. Itne saare log bol rahe hai boycott karo films ko, phir bhi log jaa rahe hai movies dekhne (so many people are asking for a boycott and yet people are going to films). I just thought we should also be in the trend. The boycott culture is a joke and I thought I also want to be a part of the joke and feel important just like others." Whatever it was, it backfired. The world and its favourite speculator wondered what Kashyap was up to. At time when the cancel culture had hit Hindi cinema hard, Kashyap was actually joking about it. Seriously? Before we could get over this gaffe, Kashyap was talking about his leading lady Taapsee Pannu being jealous of his “boobs” with Siddharth Kannan who looked visibly embarrassed. This was Anurag Kashyap promoting a film on time travel by going back in time to those halcyon days when men in the entertainment industry could joke about women’s anatomy and simply grab them for a bit of naughty fun: remember Mika’s coerced kiss with Rakhi Sawant? By all accounts the time-travel theme of Dobaaraa had hit Kashyap: he had regressed to the era before MeToo. But the piece de resistance, the last hammer on the coffin was yet to come. At a media event, Kashyap was asked about his two-bit on Rajamouli’s _RRR_ going to the Oscars. His answer should have been, “What Oscar? That’s six months away.” Instead, Kashyap enthusiastically rooted for RRR’s Oscar-worthiness. He should have stopped there. But no. He went on to say he hoped The Kashmir Files won’t go to the Oscars. Now, where did that come from? A thought that had not even occurred to the most rabid supporter of Vivek Agnihotri ’s films has now been planted in the nation’s collective brain. More immediately, there was a call for boycotting Kashyap’s Dobaaraa from Vivek’s massive band of supporters. Admittedly Dobaaraa is a doomed project and one that should not have made it into theatres in the first place. Now with Kashyap’s provocative public proclamations, Dobaaraa doesn’t stand a chance in hell. When I mentioned this to a Bihar exhibitor Suman Sinha, his reply was a classic. “Do you really think it stood any chance at all at any point of time?” RIP, Dobaaraa. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram