No Smoking

A film by Anurag Kashyap that sits in an unusual place within Indian cinema. K cannot give up smoking. He is pleased with himself, listens to nobody, and his wife says she will leave if he does not stop. Eventually he goes to a centre. The centre is beneath the city, inside a labyrinth of shanties, and a man called Baba runs it. The method is simple: if you smoke, the people you love are punished. From there the narrative comes loose from reality. Time and place do not proceed consistently, the same people appear in different locations, and K's confidence in his own identity disappears. The idea starts from Stephen King's story Quitters, Inc., but the film travels a long way from it. On release it was rejected by audiences and critics alike; at the box office it was an open failure. Kashyap has spoken many times since about the film not being understood. Over the years it acquired a cult standing and is now cited as one of the works that pushed the limits of experimental narrative in Indian cinema. John Abraham plays K and Paresh Rawal plays Baba. An interesting work for anyone who likes experimental narrative and the hard end of Kashyap. For a viewer expecting an explanation, the film resolves nothing at the close, and that is deliberate.