After having done fiery street theatre with the Jan Natya Manch in Delhi, Anurag Kashyap went off to make movies in Mumbai. He lived on the streets, picked up the lingo, and landed the screenplay and dialogues of Ram Gopal Varma’s mob classic Satya — the iconic Bhiku Mhatre, played by Manoj Bajpai, is as much Anurag’s creation as it is Varma’s. After years of writing, and doing what he calls “additional dialogues” for other directors, Kashyap made his first film, Paanch, which ran smack into censor trouble for being “too violent”. His second, Black Friday, a stark, uncompromising docu-drama on how the Mumbai blasts were planned, has taken over two years to release.

Rahul Dholakia’s first movie, a forgettable romantic comedy, bombed, but that did not deter him from a second coming. He was in the US when the Gujarat riots happened, and the images which leapt off the TV screens post-Godhra, shook him. So did the news that the young son of his friends, the Modys in Ahmedabad, had gone missing. The tragedy of those days is brought alive in his searing Parzania, which released after a relentless struggle over one and a half years to get it to theatres. It is still not playing in Gujarat, where it all happened.

Two very different filmmakers, united in the courage of their conviction. And in telling stories which need to be told. Both met the Express team over lunch this week. Some excerpts from the conversation.

... contd.