Abhinav Singh Kashyap, 39, is intelligent and emotional and considers himself a family man first, unlike his brother Anurag for whom films is the only priority. He is detached and has come to understand that in life you should only expect from yourself. Learning from Anurag’s struggle of making niche films, he chose to make ‘Dabangg’. Ahead of his second film ‘Besharam’, he talks to Bombay Times about his liberal father, the child in Rishi Kapoor and the bad habits of Anurag he has come to terms with. Excerpts:

How did you get into films?
I was born in Obra. My father was a government employee and had a transferable job, due to which both Anurag and I were sent to Scindia School to study. I then followed him to Hansraj College and then to Mumbai a year after he came in 1994. I came here thinking I would do an MBA, but landed up writing Hindi shows for TV. People learnt that I have writing skills and I got more and more work and I realised I could make more money of writing versus doing an MBA. There was a dearth of Hindi writing and so I got good success as a writer. Dabangg was the fifth script I wrote as all earlier ones were rejected. I had gone to pitch the script to Arbaaz Khan as an actor, but then, he decided to produce it.

You followed Anurag everywhere in your life. Did he influence you?
From a young age we have been there for each other and are more friends than brothers. Anurag was good but never studied. I did my homework and his. He is one of the sweetest and most encouraging people I know. Much before I knew I could write, he knew from the letters I used to write to him from Delhi at the time he had moved to Mumbai and he would always say, ‘You have a bright future here. Why don’t you move here?’ We also have our share of conflicts. While Anurag is work-obsessed and his priorities in life are work first and then nothing, for me, filmmaking is a priority after my family and other interests like adventure travelling. Also I have other professions from where I make my livelihood as I am interested in finance and I don’t depend on the film industry for my livelihood. I make films for happiness and now it gives me a lot of money too which is a bonus, but even if I don’t make more films, I won’t die. He is a good brother. He never puts me down and is caring. He also had his bad sides. For instance, he is always missing and you need to catch him and ask him what he wants. He is not sensitive to needs of people around him till he is told. He will not call and say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ even if six months pass. It’s his personality trait and we have accepted it. He is just thinking cinema all the time. There were expectations from him as an elder son, but I had to fill in as he was never there. So I took the burden on myself to look after my parents and my sister in terms of just being there.

While Anurag seems to have a lot of angst in him, you are calm. Why is that the case?
Everything you are stems from your experiences. Fortunately for me, Anurag went through a rough patch in his life and I witnessed his anger and did not want to go through it. So I took a wiser approach to my career and avoided all that by making Dabangg that rocket-launched me into the film industry, whereas Anurag made niche films that gave him a lot of difficulty. But my doing Dabangg came from his experience. And that has always been the case. He was my senior and he always made sure right from school that any bad experiences that happened to him did not happen to me. He always protected me and that has made me the way I am.

Anurag told me you make your money through shares. How did you get into it?
My wife Chatura was a journalist with one of the supplements of the Times of India. She was doing a feature on upcoming talent and how they survived and featured me in it. We fell in love and got married. Her father was the Chairman of General Insurance and gave her shares as inheritance. It involved a lot of paperwork in getting those transferred into our names and that was the start. I was always financially inclined and was a quick learner. My father-in-law guided me and it became a full-time interest. Money multiplies when it rotates faster. I am not attached to money at all. I have always been a mathematics scholar and numbers always fascinate me.