'If You Want Me To Attend Rave Parties, Do Drugs...'

'...I am not part of it. If you want to boycott me because of this, and there have been obvious instances where people didn't want to review my films because I am not important.'

What does it really take for an Indian film to win an Oscar? And why haven't we still cracked it yet?

"A Satyajit Ray film has not been nominated from India for the Oscars neither has a Mrinal Sen or a Shaji Karun film," observes Anant Mahadevan, who served on the committee selecting Indian films for the Oscars, referring to the poor choices of Indian films being made and sent to the Oscars every year.

Despite working with superstars Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Kamal Haasan and Akshay Kumar and legendary directors like Sai Paranjpye, who discovered and launched him in Ados Pados, the stalwart admits that he has "no 3 am friends in the industry".

Anant also defends nepotism within the industry.

"I don't find anything wrong in nepotism. Why would a star's son not become an actor?" asks the Thrissur-born, Mumbai-based actor director and author, who has completed four decades in Indian cinema working in Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Tamil language films.

"Someone once told me you're not part of the 'fraternity'. If you want me to attend rave parties, do drugs, I am not part of it. If you want to boycott me because of this, and there have been obvious instances where people didn't want to review my films because I am not important. This is another type of casteism I have faced in the industry," says the director whose latest Marathi film Aata Vel Zhali discusses active euthanasia.

In this power-packed episode of The Rediff Podcast with Divya Nair, Anant Mahadevan traces his journey from Doordarshan to National Award-winning cinema, how Kiran Rao's Laapataa Ladies is similar to his 1999 film Ghungat Ke Pat Khol and what young filmmakers can do to compete globally.