In a landscape of Scottish highlands and jhatka-matka pros jinko kuch kuch hota hai, arrives an unknown entity with big hair who both edifies and blasts stereotypes and myths in urban, frenetic Mumbai. People sit up wide-eyed and exclaim, 'Whaaat the f... is this?' This is Kaizad Gustad. Master of hype? Hmmm. Superbrat? Naaah. We found Kaizad quite, uh, sane in the brain.

By Vatsala Kaul

Your book, Of No Fixed Address, and now the film, Bombay Boys are both largely confessional...

Father, forgive me, it has been two weeks since my last confession....(guffaws) No, most artistes tend to tap into their reservoirs because it's a reservoir they know... I don't think an artiste should be for hire. You can't go to a painter and say I saw a sunset, it was in purple, blue, mauve and green and I want a 20 by 10 feet painting from you. Both the book and the film are largely based on people, places, things, events that have happened to me, or not happened to me, with liberal doses of imagination thrown in. They are personal. The audience too has woken up to that. It's critical that you talk about what matters to you as an individual. Not autobiographical, but personally relevant films, personally relevant stories.

Bombay Boys was a long time in the making...

That's a strange perception people have. You know, the very first day of the shoot, we had like 10 TV cameras and 20 press people there without being invited. Three years ago, the concept of making an English film that could make money didn't exist. The only example is English August which was a good film but didn't make any money. People thought it's happening. But we had no money. I was actually raising money while making the film. Films do take a long time getting made, especially if they are labours of love. I'm not one of those assembly-line film-makers.

So how did you raise the money?

I begged, borrowed, stole, mortgaged, credit-carded myself upto the ears, in England, America, France, India... Here, everyone laughed. A big-budget English film? Crazy! Also, because it's an English film in Hindi, in many ways. It was made for a pittance compared to Hindi films. For the cost of one Hindi film song I made the whole feature film, including paying Naseeruddin Shah, Roshan Seth, Naveen Andrews, all of them star quality, really expensive people.

You've been accused of spoofing stereotypes, scoffing at Indians, making fun of our system...

It's a masala film. It has no pretensions about being anything else. It's not going to solve India's problems. The idea was masti, always, but there was no reason why as a genre, it couldn't exist. Earlier, everybody said, go to hell. Today it has changed so rapidly that they're willing to pump in any amount of money to make your kind of film, your film, an offbeat film.

What has changed?

Nobody perceived a market for this kind of film here. Then came 1998, a great year for film in India, in my opinion-all the big guys flopped miserably and all the small guys worked miracles. Hyderabad Blues, like it or not, has doubled its money. What if it's in two halls? The audience is there. The audience liked Satya.

What were you expecting with Bombay Boys?

We thought, hey, it's a small English film. I myself was sceptical. We opened at Eros, matinee, and a suburban Mumbai cinema, all shows. The response was amazing, beyond what I ever thought and more! In two days we sold out the week; opened a third, fourth, fifth, sixth print. For the first time, an English film made in India knocked out a big Hindi film at Eros; Wajood got the morning show and Bombay Boys-all shows!

Weeeeeow for you...

Yeah, that's very exciting for me and I think for a lot of people who are fed up of seeing the usual ch......panti. Besides, if it works on a broad scale like a Hindi film works, that's it, man! The gates are open for anyone who wants to make their own kind of film, not the usual ch......panti.

This isn't only a metro mood, is it?

We've opened Bangalore, Pune and cities in Gujarat to house-full. We've had to dub it in Hindi because the demand was so high, people said, boss, why not try B-centres, C-centres? At first, I was, like, why would anyone in Patna want to see it? It just comes from being an elitist bastard, as far as I am concerned. Really, why not? Why not?

For a debut, was it easy getting the biggies in?

Once I was happy with my script, I just sent it out to the people I thought would be right. When you're a first-time director you've nothing to lose. What will they say? At the most, no, f... off. So, big deal. Naveen Andrews came down-after Kamasutra, after The English Patient won nine Academy awards, after I said I don't have any money but, hey, we'll have fun. Everyone just responded to the freshness and the originality of the script.

Are you always going to direct only your scripts?

Hmm.... there's a word in Europe, 'auteur'. A very important word. An auteur, as opposed to an artiste, is someone who makes his or her own personal visions into art. You don't go to an auteur and say, here's my story, please make a film out of it. Woody Allen is an auteur, to give you a famous name. I couldn't make a film set in Vasant Vihar because I don't know Vasant Vihar and I shouldn't pretend I do. I could hash it, but if I don't know the story, the context, the content, then why even make an attempt? I will only make the kind of films that are relevant to who I am, people I know, places I have been to and the syntax I speak.

You concluded the film while the credits were on. Was it just style or were you making a point?

Here, unlike everywhere else in the world, five minutes before the film ends, everyone has got up to leave. It has always pissed me off. I put every spotboy who brought a cup of coffee on the credit list-and why the hell not? The fact that the guy brought my coffee on time was critical to the fact that Bombay Boys got made.

Directors are becoming just too egoistical-their name is bigger than the film's name-the font, size, everything. So it was a platform. The only way to force people to stay to see the end credits was to wrap up my story there as a montage. I don't like the 'let's pose for the family photograph' kind of idea, which is how all Hindi films end. In Bombay Boys, nothing really ends well-the ex-pats are kicked out, Dolly does not go to Australia...

What was censored in the film?

In the scene with "Sarkai lo khatiya..." (from Raja Babu) to show what Krishna, from an acting school in NY, would now have to do to emulate a Hindi film hero, I wanted a song that was the most hideous of the lot. See the hyprocrisy! The same damn song which the censors passed in a Hindi film seven years ago, they forced me to make cuts in! Why? They literally said-because you're mocking the system, telling the censor board they made a mistake. It was the most disgusting thing you've seen in Indian cinema-Karisma practically having sex with Govinda with clothes on. In our culture, that's okay, because they're not kissing, oh heaven forbid they do that. So what is your definition of what is okay and what's not?

What's with the not-so-Full Monty...

I had to strip for a living at one point when I was really broke, in Sydney-I used that in the film. Why not? In Mumbai there are a hundred thousand mujra places where guys spend lakhs of rupees to watch women, fully clothed, just dance. Now, you can rent out two or three male strip acts in Mumbai and this is post-Bombay Boys.

Your "Jadugar" video for Silk Route...

I've a black, warped, dark sensibility, I don't understand this nachne-gaanewala concept. Others get 15-20 lakhs (I'm the no-money expert!) and make pyrotechnically perfect videos with dancing women, sexy shit. I love the arbitrariness of "Jadugar", the fact that it's a music video with no glamour, no look. We shot it in six frames per second and processed each frame four times for that Mumbai disenfranchised feel. It was about star-crossed lovers who fall apart, had nothing to do with the song, there isn't one line lipsynched. Look, how many Daler Mehndi videos can you make? If you can experiment, why the hell do you want to do what Hindi films do-the same concept-beautiful people, skimpy clothes, women, dancing...

It seems like you came out of nowhere...

I was born and brought up in Mumbai, then my family moved to Wadi, a small village in Karnataka; we had cinema halls there. I had a few private tuitions, but I spent the whole day in my father's cinema hall watching 70s films. I love that genre. They were far more overt, sexuality was a given, not something you had to hide. Today there isn't one star who has any appeal; if you flutter your lashes, act like a bimbette, and have your bum tapped, there is nothing at all interesting about it. You've been mummified.

Did you ever go to school, then?

I was packed off to St Paul's, Darjeeling, when I was nine. (I think the family couldn't handle me!) It was great, makes a man out of you, makes you independent. At 16, I moved with my family to Sydney, Australia, finished school there. I knew I wanted to make films, so I became a professional traveller, working on film sets globally, serving chai, coffee, pan. A free spotboy, across Hong Kong, Asia, New York, Australia, India... I kept a journal which became my book, got locked up in jail in French Polynesia, I was constantly hunting adventure. Milan Kundera said that we are all hunters of unforgettable experiences. That's what it was about.

And then?

I got admission into NYU film school, got a full scholarship, did the whole four-year degree programme. I was the first Indian to do that. Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee-all the people in cinema that I adored, the independent guerilla-style film-makers breaking away from the LA culture-which is like Bollywood-they were professors there, they'd spend a week, take a class. You had Martin Scorcese take you frame by frame through Raging Bull-that's like dying and going to heaven. I did my thesis film, made two short films, went to international film festivals, won several awards, got grants, got a bit known in festivals-that's how it works.

How did you support yourself while travelling?

By my wits... lived out of a suitcase, in girlfriends' houses, I never had money, I used to work at bars, I had 64 jobs specifically that I can think of and did everything that I wanted to do. I think travel is the best teacher. A lot of young people come up to me and say 'I want to become a film-maker, what should I do? And I say 'Live!' I think that's something we tend to forget-that living is the greatest experience...

What about the illogical bits-like when Mastana gets all three ex-pats brought in when he only wants Ricardo?

You need suspension of logic. Creative licence! There are five trains going to the same destination at the same time. One or two get derailed, one or two you forget about. To integrate three stories and more sub-plots into one big climax, I thought it would be hilarious that the focal point of each person's story is Mastana, even though Ricardo is the person who he genuinely should have a quarrel with. When you're the don, the boss, and you look like this guy does in the film, you don't need logic. It's like I'm the boss, I'm the bhai, don't f... with me.

You insist the film doesn't have a message but it does... about family, sexual preferences...

It's just not my job to tell you the message. We have two kinds of cinema in India, right? One is complete fantasy which serves its purpose, I'm not going to knock it. The other one is art cinema which is purpose ridden to the point where you are on a soapbox with a loudspeaker. I wanted to get my point across without knocking the person over the head with it, to slip it under the door in the middle of the night. It is all subtext.

It's effective, though, like when Ricardo comes for Dolly, the goons keep hitting him and he keeps coming back...

I liked the idea that in the face of so much resilience even the toughest nut has to crack. At film school, I learnt and I believe that you have to meet your audience halfway; no more than that. I am the projection, the audience is the screen. In Indian cinema we not only meet them, we say open your mouth, here's the tonic, spoonfeed them, then say 'are you happy?' If there is conflict, the soundtrack goes tun-tana-tun-tana. In case you didn't understand, boss, there is tension happening here, the music is trying to further explain it to you. Everything is further explained, like you're a child. All you're doing is insulting the audience.

In your book, and with Dolly, it seems you want to say something for women...

It's not so much that, but I do think that as far as cinema in India goes, they're just cardboard characters-for entertainment, to fill in the gaps, purely for visual pleasure. I am not here to preach moral values. Nor do I say I must be liberated or emancipated or not be an MCP. In Dolly, I wanted to create a woman I've come across in my life, someone I'd bump into on the street, in a pub, club, cafe, someone who is real. A woman who does smoke, does drink, a woman who has a bath naked, because most people do!

Why do I have to put her under a waterfall?

Never ever buy a travel book or a guide-book or a map. It defeats the purpose. The point of travelling is not to arrive somewhere, it is in getting there, and it doesn't matter how you get there. Get lost, get waylaid, do whatever it takes. Never go with the plan. I've never arrived in a city knowing anything about it.

Go to places you can't even pronounce. Go to Djibouti, because it sounds nice. Places I'm still dying to go to are Casa Blanca and Havana... because I like the way it rolls out of my mouth.

Pack very lightly, don't take anything of practical value, other than your passport.

Take a journal to write in.

Don't carry any shampoo, it takes up too much space. Don't cut your hair.

A place isn't about buildings. A lot of travellers go, stand in front of the Eiffel Tower, take a picture, go back and say, "Ah, look, I went to Paris."

Never ever do one of these 20-cities-in-30-days tours. Don't ever go on any organized thing. Just take a train, get off at the station, and ask any person with a backpack, "Where's a place I can stay which will cost me nothing?'' That's all!