This month marked 12 years since the release of Gangs Of Wasseypur Parts 1 and 2, and Manoj Bajpayee spoke about the film’s original plan. “It was supposed to be one five-hour film. But no theatre would show such a long film. Gangs Of Wasseypur suddenly came along when I had finished Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti and a few other films. Rajneeti was a kind of resurrection for me, I would say, because for five, six years I was completely dejected when Rajneeti came along. A role I had given everything to. And then the choices increased, as happens in this industry. When you are doing well, you know, suddenly there are too many choices that you are spoilt for choice.”

Manoj also recalled how Anurag Kashyap approached him for the role. “One night I was, you know, about to go to sleep when Anurag Kashyap called me at 10 o’clock. He said, will you work with me? I said, are you mad or what? So I want to do a film with you. Where can I send the script? I said, where are you? He said, I’m in the office. I said, I’ll come and do the narration. I went to him and we did the narration. And that’s how this film came about. And it was, it was completely unconventional. The only thing he said that stuck with me was that I wanted to pay homage to commercial films. This is my, this is my ultimate mainstream Hindi commercial film. But at the same time, I want to turn everything upside down, all the templates. And that’s, you know, from that point on, that was my, my beginning. In terms of make-up, in terms of really working on the look with him. The shoot, the prep. I’m proud to say that, you know, I literally dragged him to Hansal Mehta, Bhat Saab (Mahesh) and Ramu (Varma), because I always thought that, you know, this guy is, yes, he’s a rebel, but he’s someone who has a lot of ideas. And that appealed to me, you know, that kind of revolutionary mind, that kind of rebellious mind. And the creativity that came out of that was something else. And that also showed in all the films that he did with me and without me. So we didn’t have any contact and I wanted to give him that respect. So he took the initiative to call me.

Many scenes were improvised. “Durga (Reema Sen) washing clothes. And that became such a historic scene for the audience. So many memes are created every day. Most of them were improvised when we were doing the workshop. And they stayed in the film because Anurag is that kind of director. If he sees something, he is ready to change the script. He is ready to rewrite the script if the actor gives him an experience that he had never thought of. He will go ahead and, you know, encourage the actor or the technicians to give their best. And he is ready to fully embrace it. Director Anurag, I was working with him for the first time. Scriptwriter Anurag, I have worked with him in three films, Satya, Shool and Kaun. But it was great to see him so confident and so deliberate before, you know, he sets up any shot. So for me, it was like getting to know Anurag all over again.”

Manoj made a lot of friends while shooting Gangs Of Wasseypur. “I made a lot of friends from Richa Chadha to Huma, Reema, Pankaj, Jaydeep, Rajkumar. So many great actors got to work with so many great assistant directors in Wasseypur who became so famous after that. Vicky Kaushal, I saw him running around and he was introduced to me as Sham Kaushal sir’s son. Because Vicky’s father is someone who was very, very close, close to me. Shamji and I worked in a few films and they were unforgettable films for us. Above all, the experience of the 1971 Bangladesh war film that we both shared was amazing.”

Manoj feels that Gangs of Wasseypur is Satya for this generation. “Because this generation was either just born when Satya came, so what Satya did to the entire mafia, to the gangster world, that’s what Gangs of Wasseypur did. To the entire Bahubali and the coal mafia world. And that really ignited the momentum of independent films. It gave so many, inspired so many independent film directors. It inspired a whole generation who came into films to become actors or directors or editors or cinematographers. So yes, the contribution of Gangs of Wasseypur is really, really huge. And I got to work with Nawaz. He played my son. We spent a lot of time together. I admire him. He’s someone of unmatched talent.”

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