New Delhi, July 6

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap says the film "Udaan", co-produced by him, has elements of his life and has also revealed the contents of a letter he had written to his parents before leaving home in 1993 to pursue his dreams.

In the seven-page letter, a scanned copy of which is with IANS, Kashyap explains why he was forced to leave home. He adds that he decided to bare the contents of the private letter to promote "Udaan", in which the child protagonist leaves his house to chart his own course.

"The theme of 'Udaan' is universal and everyone can relate to it almost immediately. It's a phase when all of us are out to rebel against our parents, our society. Even in my case, I was extremely hurt and had written a seven-page letter to mom and dad saying that I am leaving home to pursue my dreams," Kashyap says in a press release.

"I desired freedom from my parents, freedom to do what I wanted in my career. Since 'Udaan' is exactly similar in theme, I thought I could share my letter to promote the film," he adds.

Kashyap, who has made films like "Black Friday", "No Smoking" and "Dev D", plans to first release the letter on social networking site Facebook and then use it for other promotional purposes.

A close friend of the filmmaker revealed: "Anurag left his parents' house in Varanasi in 1993 and wrote a seven page letter in Hindi to his mother and father...

"He wanted to come to Mumbai and work in the television industry. He was upset that his family and relatives used to call him useless and wayward. They used to say that he would definitely go astray one day. That letter was earlier with his mother. Now, while promoting his film 'Udaan', Anurag found similarities between his life and the film, which deals with the subject of a teenage boy wanting to choose his career."

"Udaan", directed by debutant Vikramaditya Motwane, features young actor Rajat Barmecha and popular TV stars Ronit Roy and Ram Kapoor and is set to release July 16.

The film, which has been co-produced by Kashyap, Sanjay Singh and UTV, was screened at the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival this year.