Anurag Basu is one of those filmmakers who have created magic through their films. He might not direct loads of movies, but he has given some masterpieces, like ‘Barfi’, ‘Life In Metro’, ‘Ludo’ etc. This talented filmmaker turns 54 today on May 8. He started along with Ekta Kapoor who handles the huge business of Balaji Motion Pictures. Ekta offered him his first movie, which led to a controversy and could be an end of his career. Let’s know about the entire controversy thread around Anurag Basu’s first film ‘Kucch Toh Hai’.
During the initial phase of his career, he worked for many TV series, like ‘Tara’, ‘Saturday Suspense’, ‘X Zone’, ‘Koshish Ek Aashaa’ and many other shows by Balaji. Anurag was closely associated with all the Balaji shows, but at the same time he was not more interested in television. He called those shows “repetitive and regressive.” He quipped saying, “Mujhe samaj mein nahi aa raha tha, itane bure hone ke bawjood ye shows itane popular kyu hain (I didn’t understand that why these shows are popular even though they are worse).” And when he approached Ekta to told her that he wanted to try for films and thus leaving the shows, Ekta offered him a movie ‘Kucch Toh Hai’. It was indeed a big budget film of Rs. 10–12 crore starring Tusshar Kapoor, Anita Hassanandani and Esha Deol.
Talking about the entire production process, Anurag said, “Cheeze mere control mein nahi thi. Jis tarah ka end product mein dekh raha tha, Ekta uss tarah ka end product nahi dekh rahi thi. Dheere dheere differences badhate gaye, hum mein kafi jhagade huye aur meri aur Ekta ki dosti mein khataiyaan aane shuru ho gayi (Things were not under my control. Ekta had a different end product in her mind than what I was expecting. Differences between us increased gradually. We had feuds and our friendship started to be ruined).” This situation led him to isolate himself from the movie. Gradually, he wasn’t a part of the film. He stated that it was the first time that he was not proud of his work. He finally made up his mind and left the film. It was a complicated decision. “Mujhe toh laga mera career khatam,” he added. Eventually, he got another film from Mahesh Bhatt, which was ‘Saaya’.
Kucch Toh Hai was later released in the year 2003 and Anurag did get the credit as a director with Anil Kumar, but it was a box office flop.
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