Pankaj Kapur: Children should be kept as normal as possible

Actor Pankaj Kapur is a three-time National Award-winner and also a popular theatre personality. Recently the actor had left the audience in a spell with his play, ‘Dopehri’ that took place in the Capital and Gurgaon. The play is a dramatic retelling of a novella the actor — known for his performances in films such as ‘Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho!’ (1984), ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’ (1990), and more recently, ‘Maqbool’ (2003) wrote 20 years ago.

The actor said, “I was 19 years old when I joined NSD. The city (Delhi), Ebrahim Alkazi — the director of the institute, and the staff at that time had a lot of contribution in shaping me as an actor. Those three years of my life, I was at my most impressionable because I was exposed to the right stuff, and it helped me create a base.”

The actor added, “I believe that the number of people going to watch plays has increased in all these years. But we haven’t had a historical continuation of theatre in the sense of a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. We don’t have that kind of a tradition. But we can reach up to that mark. I have seen an improvement. There should be more institutes and people, and we have to be more conducive to theatre conditions.”

The actor concluded by saying, “Children should be kept as normal as possible. At a very young age, they are not even aware of the happenings around them. You need to do whatever you can to grow them normally. But it depends on an individual’s choice. Different parents have different approach towards it.”