Pic by Subhabrata Das

The phones haven’t stopped ringing for debutant director Abhinav Kashyap ever since his super-hit movie Dabangg set the box office on fire. With Salman Khan as the corrupt but fearless cop Chulbul ‘Robinhood’ Pandey bringing the audience to their feet — they’re hooting and dancing down the aisles in theatres across the country — the film’s revived memories of the masala blockbusters of the 1970s.

So production houses are queuing up to sign Abhinav and his Facebook page has messages from fans who’ve watched Dabangg several times. “We knew it would be a biggie but we didn’t think it would be this big,” says the writer-director, relishing his hard-won success — including the fact that he’s squashed all comparisons with his older brother Anurag Kashyap and his brand of dark cinema.

According to industry tracker, BollyBusiness, Dabangg grossed Rs 80.5 crore in the first week, surpassing 3 Idiots’ first-week gross collections of Rs 79 crore. And 13.6 million people saw it against 3 Idiot’s first-week footfalls of 9.9 million.

(Left to right) Producer Arbaaz Khan with his brothers Salman and Sohail, and actor Sonu Sood at a promotional event for Dabangg

There has been criticism of its occasionally incoherent storyline but the over-the-top comic action flick has cut across all barriers of ‘class’ and ‘mass’ audiences. It’s an out-and-out Salman vehicle with foot-stompers and Rajnikanth-style fight sequences including a scene in which Salman’s shirt flies off as he flexes his muscles. It’s also the superstar’s biggest hit, according to his brother and the film’s producer Arbaaz Khan. And everyone’s talking of the panache with which a moustachioed Salman has played Chulbul Pandey.

Abhinav believes Dabangg’s “simplicity” worked with audiences. “I’ve always believed that simple films have a larger mass appeal. There are two ways of looking at the man-on-the-street. One is the elitist way of saying I don’t care whether he likes my film or not. The way I look at it is that it’s not his fault he was born poor. I’d like to entertain him also. So I feel happy when street folk enjoy my film,” he says.

That’s how he felt when he heard some beggars hum the hit song Munni Badnam Hui, from the film. “It’s a cheap thrill but it’s a great one to eavesdrop on people secretly admiring your work,” he says. Yet, while he’s enjoying the recognition within the industry, he’s clinging to his anonymity on the street, even denying he was Dabangg’s director when a fan accosted him recently.

Salman Khan’s Chulbul Pandey act — he’s seen here with debutante Sonakshi Sinha — has won over audiences across the country

Dabangg actually happened by “fluke” for Abhinav. He’d approached Arbaaz to act in the film but Arbaaz liked the script so much that he decided to produce it. “It was just gut. I come from a film family. So when I meet someone, I can sense if he understands his character and story,” says Arbaaz. And he was hooked by Abhinav’s “interesting” script. “I just made a commitment out of nowhere. And Abhinav had no idea what I’d do with it,” recounts Arbaaz.

Arbaaz then got Salman on board. Immediately, the film acquired scale and Abhinav re-fashioned it to incorporate Salman’s personality. In fact, he wrote 13 drafts. “Every time someone had a new idea, I wanted to borrow it,” he says.

Incidentally, his original script was strong on drama. Anurag, who feels the original was “the best script ever”, says “the powerful drama between two brothers” reminded him of Mother India. Chulbul Pandey has to deal with his difficult relationship with his stepfather and stepbrother in Dabangg. But Abhinav says they decided to keep the film short: “So we thought we won’t give the audience time to think, let’s make it a roller-coaster ride. A lot of things got sacrificed because of that.”

Anurag says: “It’s a very good film but I prefer the original script, which was a serious drama with a lot of irony. In the film, there’s a lot of humour. But the things that have been taken away have made it a blockbuster.”

True, Salman has stolen the show as Chulbul Pandey. Says Abhinav: “I think Salman’s a very underrated actor. He understood the character very well and just kept bringing on more and more.” It helped that the director allowed for spontaneity. “I like to improvise with actors. I think that worked,” he says. So many of the hit dialogues came after Abhinav and his cast jammed on the sets.

Arbaaz, who believes that Abhinav will keep improving as a director, says however, that he’s “a superior writer than director” for now. Yet, he says: “He’s very flexible. If I feel a scene isn’t going well and ask for something more exciting, he’ll give several options. Only somebody who’s talented can do that.”

While waiting for a break as a director, Abhinav wrote the dialogues for films like Manorama Six Feet Under and (above) 13B

As for the comic element, says Abhinav: “I like people who don’t take themselves seriously, which is why I create characters who’re like that. So even Sonu [Sood, who plays the villain Cheddi Singh] and Arbaaz [who plays Chulbul’s brother Makhanchand] make bombastic statements which hold no meaning. I’m glad people enjoyed it. I’ll do more of this.”

For Abhinav, making a masala film came naturally. “I grew up on masala films. I’m a very happy person. And I think films should try and spread happiness,” he says. Actually, he saw a lot of poverty and suffering growing up in his village, Kadirabad, and then in Varanasi . But he wanted no part of it. “I don’t take pride in describing the poor. Garib aadmi garib hai, usko yaad dilake kya fayda?” he says.

Anurag feels Abhinav’s “sensibilities have always been mainstream”. “He’s a strong storyteller. At the same time, he’s very market-friendly. He’s always maintained that he won’t make films that deal with sexuality, disease and death,” he says. And he’s always been the smarter of the two brothers according to Anurag: “He used to buy these Rs 2 key chains in the holidays and then go back to school and sell them. He’s good with money.”

As for Abhinav, he only wanted to emulate his brother and “guru”. So when Anurag went to Scindia School, Abhinav followed two years later. “Anurag would tell me they give you a packet of toffee every Sunday. So I went to Scindia to get my toffee — and I got a lot more,” he laughs.

Unlike Anurag, who got bullied, Abhinav had more fun at Scindia, thanks to a protective brother. “I was very sporty and good at studies too. And I enjoyed the good life. I wanted everything. I’m very greedy. It’s only one life I’ve got and I want to enjoy it as best as I can. That has been my attitude from childhood, and it’s still the same,” he states.

So he followed Anurag to Hansraj College, Delhi, giving up a maths course in St Stephen’s for English Literature because it got him into the hostel — and because that’s where the girls were. “At that age, you only want attention from girls. Anurag would write letters about his girlfriends. So that’s where I knew there’d be girls and where my brother got attention, and so would I,” he laughs.

After graduating, Abhinav came to Mumbai to prepare for an MBA. Anurag was acting in theatre then. “We were both struggling. By chance, I got a part-time writing job in television. And I found I had a flair for writing,” he says. That was in 1995 when Anurag and he co-wrote the dialogues for the serial Trikaal. The money was tempting too — while his peers were earning barely Rs 8,000-odd. Abhinav, still short of 21, was making Rs 50,000 working six hours from home. “I enjoyed the money and I enjoyed the fact that you got credit for what you did,” he says.

He kept writing till he decided to turn television director in 1998. A tough year-and-a-half followed before he got a break. Then, in 2003, Abhinav decided to direct films. But it was five years before Arbaaz signed him on. In the interim, he pitched scripts, assisted Mani Ratnam on Yuva, and wrote dialogues for films like Manorama Six Feet Under and 13B. Yet, through it all he was well off financially. “I always found work very easily. I’d do TV in short bursts, and then keep struggling,” he recalls. And Anurag says he also raked in cash from the stock market.

Indeed, Anurag says he could follow his own path as director because Abhinav was being the responsible one. “His first priority was to see to the family. Abhinav was my connection with my parents and sister,” he says.

Did Anurag’s struggle deter Abhinav? “It deterred me from making that kind of film,” he says. But he set his own rules. “I have my own parameters of entertainment. If I want to do something, I’ll do it,” he says.

Now, Abhinav’s eager to move on and start developing his next script. There’s serious talk of Dabangg 2 too. “We’d like to do something more with Chulbul Pandey. But we’re still debating what that should be,” he says.

Meanwhile, he’s teamed up with his friend and former assistant director Himanshu Mehra, who’s turned producer. Anurag believes that Abhinav’s “a producer at heart” as he’s objective and understands that “it’s important to recover money”. For now, like Chulbul Pandey, Abhinav’s fearless about living up to the expectations raised by Dabangg.