Since Kashyap wanted to become a scientist, basically he went to Delhi for his higher studies and enrolled himself into a Zoology course at the Hansraj College (University of Delhi); he graduated in 1993. During his college days, he started watching films again, and also got involved with drugs and alcohol. He was confused and depressed, and had joined a street theater group, Jana Natya Manch; he ended up doing a lot of street plays. The same year, a couple of friends introduced him to world cinema; they "urged [him] to catch a de Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India. In ten days, he ended up seeing a total of 55 films at the festival and de Sica's Bicycle Thieves was the film that influenced him the most; watching it "was an epiphany. He is the member of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television.
Starting out as writer for television, in late 1990s, Anurag moved to cinema, with Ram Gopal Verma's acclaimed Satya (1998), followed it up with string of films for him, including Shool (1999), Kaun? (1999) and finally Yuva (2004), for which he wrote the dialogues. He made his debut with film Paanch, with Kay Kay Menon as the lead in 2000, the film ran into Censor Board troubles and didn't get released till 2003. He adapted Stephen King's 1978 short story Quitters, Inc. to No Smoking (2007), which despite being received well by critics, didn't do well at the box-office
In March 2009, while announcing steering away from screenwriting, after his current assignments to concentrate on direction, Anurag also announced two new film projects, Bombay Velvet, with John Abraham, a thriller based on real incidents in 1960s, to be followed by Doga, based Doga comics series.