December 24, 2025 • 60 mins
In this intimate conversation, Pooja Bhatt sits down with Kunal Kapoor to trace the living legacy of Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre—not as an institution, but as a home shaped by memory, ritual, and artistic discipline. What emerges is a portrait of a family for whom theatre was never merely performance, but a way of life.
Kapoor reflects on deeply personal traditions—from legendary Christmas lunches to memories of a Goa that existed before it became a destination—and on the quiet resilience behind Prithvi’s enduring ethos: the show must go on. That belief was tested most profoundly after the loss of his mother, Jennifer Kendal, yet it remains the moral spine of the theatre she helped build.
The conversation moves fluidly across questions that matter today: the fragility of true patronage in a culture increasingly governed by commerce, the challenge of funding theatre without hollowing its soul, and the responsibility of preserving memory in an age that forgets too easily. Anecdotes like the now-mythic “Chamcha Room” sit alongside reflections on books, paintings, and archival labour—acts of care that reveal Kapoor as both custodian and chronicler.
This episode is less an interview than a meditation—on legacy without nostalgia, on art sustained by discipline rather than spectacle, and on the quiet truth that legacy is not preserved here; it is practiced.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Mumbai, the entertainment capital of a relentless appetite. Ideas go in,
product comes out. That is the machine, and then there
is Prithvi. This place was not born of brick and mortar.
It was born of the human heart. Prithviraj Kapur understood
(00:34):
something the industry keeps forgetting. Acting is not performance, it
is presence. That understanding was not sealed in memory. It
was carried forward, given flesh and daily discipline, by Jennifer
Kendall and Shashi Kapur. They did not build a monument.
(00:57):
They built a furnace, a space where failure is permitted,
but dishonesty is not. Today that same flame is guarded quietly,
without slogans, by those who didn't inherit applause but responsibility.
(01:18):
Prithweed understands something the marketplace does not. You are not
the story. The story is larger than you, and you
must serve it or step aside. In a city addicted
to arrival, Prithwe honors becoming in an industry drunken applause.
(01:41):
It insists on listening. And the man who stewards this
space today does not stand above it, He stands inside it.
My guest today is Kunal Kapoor, and Christmas feels it's
like the right moment to talk to him. He carries
(02:04):
a rare confluence the discipline of Prithvi and the warmth
of home. Jennifer Kendall brought into the Kapoor family a
way of gathering, not his display, but as ritual, a
pause in a city that never pauses. The Kapoor's already
(02:25):
knew how to celebrate life. She gave that celebration a season.
Connal carries that forward quietly, no spectacle, just care and
in a city that consumes everything that matters. And that
(02:46):
is where this conversation begins. So welcome to the poor
job had show, mister Konal Kapur, and Merry Christmas. I
was very moved when I heard that when your mother
passed away, you Phiros from London and told him that
the show must go on.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was nineteen eighty four, seventh of September. It wasn't
a surprise. We knew she was going. She was very
ill for some time, but this was, you know, eighty
four September. It was before mobiles. So the first thought
was actually because I was shutley up and down to look
after the theater and film. Wallace would suffers in post
(03:28):
production of the time and Mamo while Mama was in hospital, England,
Dad is there, everybody was there. So from England, my
first thing was to go and find a phone booth
where I could call Pharohes who was helping me maintain
the theater before the news came out in Bombay and
they did something stupid. They called him and said listen,
(03:49):
one's gone, but don't shut the theater. The show has
to go on. You cannot close. So we've always had
that the show mu was gone. And the other thing
is that you know, the stage should never go into darkness.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Mean on a daily basis, after show goes into darkness,
you know, for a few hours and then come in.
But like during COVID when shows were absolutely not allowed,
so then we have what they call the ghost light.
So there was a twenty four hour light. We put
one of my grandfather's Jeffrey Kendall's chairs, fourign chairs, and
(04:25):
put that on stage and we designed two lights. We
put two lights that were lighting up the chair on
the stage and that was on.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Twenty four hours all through COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
All through both times. So the stage not go dark. Wow,
ac plants and electricals, you know, they need to run, Yeah,
otherwise they'll start to rot, and particularly where on the
you know, the sea coast. So every two days we
would turn the acs on for a while, the general
kind of maintenance, and we came to all our staff
(04:57):
on side, didn't let them go home, and we created
kitchens for them and you know, places for them to stay.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
But yeah, the show goes on amazing. That's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
The ghost light.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oh, that's just yeah, I got goose flesh. That says
so much.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Twenty years of tradition where you've hosted the legendary Kapur lunch.
This is the first year you're going to be in
London and the pudding is not going to be steeped
in brandy in Juhu.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
This year labor again, but in labor in London.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Tell us what it's like to be on that table.
Zahan coke, Shira cokes you coke.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's a lot of bloody hard work. It should be
done in the way we always did it. It's a
family affair. It's all kind of home staffed. My old
coke Jamal his father before a Mumir Zhan also loves
to cook, so we've always cooked our own turkeys. Sometimes
(05:59):
we do a glazed ham Xanders are very good. I
am with Crispin sickin on the top is very good.
And roast potatoes and broccoli and salad and ratta tuee
sometimes for the vegetars, lots of garlic bread loss and
lots of garlic bread. Of course, even before that, you
start with making the mince pies which you have for tea,
(06:22):
which I have now recently discovered taste exceptionally good at
three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
When you're binge watching some show.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I'm watching a film, watching something. And then the
Christmas pudding, which classically should be made almost a year
in advance. Wow, but that doesn't happen, So Gendy, we
kind of make it about three weeks a month before.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Christmas, loaded with brandy.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, it is loaded with brandy in the making of it,
and then there's also brandy butter, you know, which is divine.
And then of course you pour more brandy on top
of it and you light it, yeah, and you know
the flea and then you cut it and then that's
you know, that's the end of Christmas lunch. But you
said they used to be also callar flower cheese or
(07:07):
a bake because at home, none of us would bother
with that. But it's an arcade hangover. So our keade
always had this, well I thought was a horrible baked
dish on the table. There'll be some baked macaroni. That
was a mess. So what we do at home was
(07:30):
we would do a cauliflower cheese, which is also baked,
but it's not macaronious the color flower cheese, and that
would always be on the table. But last few years
we've not done it. We would do it for Barbie
because she really liked it. Then we don't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
But what was your earliest Christmas memory?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Getting up at four o'clock in the morning and attacking
the Christmas tree to tear open our breasences. It must
have been four or five. Is this blood? Because we
always celebrated Christmas, we took our house and go and
Barger nineteen seventy seventy one. Before that, Christmas lunch was
(08:13):
at home. Daboo was always a permanent fixture because he
was also very close to my father and the kids.
All us cousins would be called over and everyone had
little presents and you know, fun, very great time. But
when we moved to go then we were in go
every Christmas. So for the next almost twenty years we
(08:36):
were in go and Dad was also appeared. When Dad
became very busy, so he would actually fly down on
Christmas Eve with the turkey which Habuoma, my old coke
made in Bombay, and he would fly down on Christmas
Eve with the turkey and the Christmas pudding. Saint Anthony's
(08:59):
restaurant was minischool in those days. It was not what
it is today. And we would take the turkey over them.
Then he would warm it up and he would make
the roast potatoes and vegetables and broccoli that will go
with it, and we would have Christmas lunch at home.
And for us, Go was completely the opposite. So the
(09:20):
house in Goer initially had no electricity for a long time.
It had no water and had no sewage. You had
a well outside, you drew your water from the well,
you filled up buckets. You had a bucket bath and
the loo was an outhouse and the big Zuoyo sewage system.
So Christmas tree would be a piece of driftwood because
(09:47):
we're on the beach. The house is right on the
beach side by sand, and we lived in swimming costumes
in Lungis. You had no clothes, you didn't need any image,
just swimming costumes world you needed. So we'd find a
piece of drift, would and put it into a flower
part we stand and a little bit of decoration and
from Mapster Market we would get a few of those
(10:08):
paper hats as the photographs and one just as the
paper hats, and we will have lunch at home. My
grandparents were often there, my mother's parents and the three
of us kids and my father mother and that would
be Christmas. And then I think post my mother's death,
(10:30):
and it kind of changed, and then we started having
doing Christmas back in Bombay again. And then I was
an atlas in our old home. And then when I
shifted dad to jew which was like late nineties, early
two thousand, I can't remember exactly, but Do Woo was
always there. And then we said, now have to include
(10:52):
more of the family. Searchintoos start coming in. Then the
kids my cousins remembered Christmas when they were young, but
the next generation didn't. So now I had kids were
much kids were older, so we said call them in.
That's how their whole things started at Prithree.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
The gore that you described to me when you talk
about how your father would sit on the verandah and
they would be that bottle of his favorite tiple, and
how the villagers would pass by, pause, make themselves a
drink chadter bad and go on.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
They would talk to him in concerne die and understand
the word, and they would both not and smile at
each other, and nobody ever crossed the line. Yeah, that
gore doesn't exist anymore. That was pristine, and it was beautiful, pure,
The people were wonderful. But it's all gone.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
You said something interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You said that people have gone to Goa and created
their very own bandra, their own gurgau or their own deli,
and they haven't really integrated with the locals, not at all. No,
wonder then there is a feeling of the other and
they feel resentful. But you haven't really bothered getting to
know the locals. You just created your own little bubble
(12:04):
in that go out.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, absolutely, so, I mean that was not our story
when we were there, and that were particularly in the
seventies and Karen and I made friends with two fishermen
boys our age, and they were a kind of mirror
image of our family because they had a younger sister
who was Sanjana's age. And we would just spend the
(12:27):
entire day together. We would fish together, we would barbecue together.
We got it into cycles. We would cycle together. We
would cycle all over Go and then we got onto motorcycles.
We had a motorcycle all over Go. We went to
each other's parties and weddings and funerals. Santa Varo which
is the end of Bargo, So Kara good, you have
all these barrows. Santa Vado was where our house was,
(12:49):
and right on the beach there was smaller bus. It
was a larger boat, and the larger boat was shared
with by about ten families. We used to put the
net out into the sea and then pull it up
onto the thing, and we were very often involved in that.
We would fish that We would either be on the boat,
you know, throwing the net into the sea, and then
on shore helping pull the net up. And then when
(13:12):
they had a bumper catch and they couldn't pull the
net onto the beach because he was so full of fish,
and they would take smaller nets in the hand and
scoop out fish and then run food out of the
beach while they'll be singing him a la dumsa, And
we used to sing that. We used to love that. Wow.
(13:34):
So this family, their tradition was that in one of
the boat shacks on the beach, they would get together
and they would have a celebratory lunch on usday, which
we were invited, and with the only non fisherman all
that boat. And it was fascinating because they're they're not
(13:55):
well off, and you took your own boat, metal bow,
and you took your own power. And they had made
this incredible channel Dal kind of curry which is exceedingly
spicy but delicious, and I realized years later the reason
why it was exceedingly spicy was that you couldn't eat
(14:18):
too much, so it is enough to go around everyone.
And then they would always have this they're old local
Fanny and the Fenny bottles yeah and pouring each other.
Fanny and Dad said can I contribute, you know to
the Fanny and then they said no, you can bring beer,
because beer was the thing. And then the combination of
(14:39):
beer and Fanny and then they would all start singing,
and a couple of times Dad had to be kind
of lifted and brought home because they make sure that
he was blasted. But at the afternoon, great memories of
God that really was something special.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
You spoke about used to be honest cicles. And then
we were on a motorbike and that takes me back
to Massouri. I was all of ten years old and
I went on a school trip and we were taken
to the marketplace and we went into the theater and
guess what movie was playing, Ahista Aista, And I'll never
forget this shot of a young boy cycling into the sunset,
(15:23):
and then from that emerged this young.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Man on a bike and it was you. And then
there was this collective gasp.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
In the theater because we bought forty to fifty girls
from HOBBURBI petted girls high school. And then a few
months later, I was asleep at my residence in Bandra
Pali Hill and I heard my mother calling out to
me and saying, Pooha.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Get up, come out, come out, come out.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And I came out like with sleep in my eyes,
like my hair going in all different directions, and sitting
there in my living room was you. And I was
so mad with my mother. I said, how could you
call me out to see when I'm looking like this?
And of course she thought I was very silly. She
was like, you're this child. Do you think he would
even be remotely interested how you're looking? So you were
(16:07):
my first crush. Could not And then I worked with
you on the Bush television ad.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So I came to your ask twice. Okay, The first
time was exactly like you said, and that point was
just after Ice Eyes. Then I thought I wanted to
be an actor, so I actually came there to meet
your father to ask him for a job, right all right,
which obviously didn't happen. And then the second time I came,
and I actually came to ask him if I could
cast you in a commercial. Really, yeah, that's when we
(16:34):
did the Bush commercials.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So you asked him whether you could cast me. I
remember going to China Creek with you. It was night
and mister Shokmata was lighting up this exotic forest and
you put me in this white nightgown with this lace overcoat,
and then you put the rain machines on and you
made me run through that forest at China Creek barefoot
(16:56):
barefoot from I think about a thirty nine in the
evening to like five in the morning, and the last
shot I had to fall on this mattress and probably
two feet from my face was the cobra. Correct, And
then we packed up, and of course we had no
cars and all that, so we all said, can we
hit you right with you? And you said okay, grandered
by Gypsy and then I saw you, at the end
of his long night, pull out a bottle of rum
(17:19):
and struggled to open it, and I just said, pass.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
It to me, please, and you gave me this look
like and let's see what she'll do.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I cracked it open with my mouth and I'll
never forget your reaction.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
You're like, what kind of a girl are you?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You run through the forest and red fall in front
of a cobra and then crack over a bottle of
rum at like six in the morning.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So I think the cracking up in the bottle is
what I think. Finally, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You impressed finally with me. And then of course I
did Oxenbourg with you.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
You called us all and said there's no money, show up.
You'll get a rose and lunch and links and a
bottle of champagne. And then you took us to Links
and the napkins came out with Kapoor.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I was very impressed. And then of course the ordered
off the menu.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I've never ever looked at the menu at Lynx, so
I mean Lynx is again a big use tradition. Used
to go to Nanking before Lynx and when we were children,
and then Nanking eventually closed and Baba reopened with Lynx,
and so Nan King used to have these napkins. Their
regular customers had embroidered names, but they carried forward to Links,
(18:26):
so they don't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
But I'll never forget that. It was very postal.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's a good marketing thing. There are a lot of couples.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Who love to eat still exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So your obsession with food and your obsession with sound
and your obsession with cars. Denzil asked me to ask you,
this is it asking what is this obsession with sound?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Man?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Where does it come from?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I had a music system at home, all right, which
I think i'd managed to bully my mom and getting me.
I remember it was a small techniques am, all right,
and it was split as there was a preamp and
a power amp and I had little speakers, and my
brother was notoriously heavy handed. He would destroy anything you touch.
(19:12):
So if I left town on a school trip and
he was around, I would disconnect it and I would
lock it up so he couldn't he couldn't get his
hands on my music system. I think there's a level
beyond which you cannot hear. The difference in terms of equipment.
I mean, people go crazy. They spend lax and lacks
(19:34):
of rupees just on one cable. They don't listen to music,
they don't hear it. They listen to the price of
the equipment that they've put on. So I don't go
that route. So anyway, there has been that kind of
obsession with sound. I like good sound. It doesn't have
to be the most expensive. It just has to be practical.
The same thing with my cars. It has to be practical.
(19:56):
There's no point you having a Ferrari or a Lamborghini
the great car. But here in.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Bombay is why you're test driving a car on the
coastal road.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Every single I'm buying a new car, so the test
is from jew I drive to the ceiling and I
do that as a passenger, and I sit and I say,
go through Andra, go through there old the dug up roads,
and all the car does and everything, and then we
will get onto the coastal road and then I will drive,
(20:26):
and then I can fly, and then we can try
a little bit. I can feel the power of the car,
and then they can feel the unevenness of the tunnel.
Go to money, drive, turn around and come back. I
think that's a fair enough kind of a test to do.
And then it has to be coast power and handling,
and then practicality as well. And I've enjoyed driving. I
(20:47):
mean I've driven a lot, have done a lot of
road trips. So some Now, what is your third own food?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Food?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And our food has always been an obsession.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
When you mentioned the ratatui and you said vegetarian, there
was a certain degree of disdain in your words, because I.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Think vegetar is a racist.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
So I'm racist.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You are because you deny me being a nonveg.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Oh my god, on.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
My table, you will have vegetarian food. You will have
nonvege food. But when I go to a vegetarian house,
you will not give me nonveg. But in my house,
I will treat him. I will give m this vegetarian.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You were appalled that I was in Kashmir and eating
lotus stem.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Lotus stame is good. But the main thing is a
gustava and then hawk. There's vegetarian. I love hawk. So
I mean to me, heaven is rice with hark and
gustava pista or both. You know the tabakamas. I prefer
(21:50):
my grandmother's recipe, which is more of a I guess
a Peshawi recipe as to the Kashmiri because it's simpler.
It doesn't have any held and nostala. It's only salt
and black beast on the ribs that they're tabakmas. I
prefer that we do that at home. So that is great.
So yeah, my food is the range again is ecstatic.
(22:15):
It's not about again expense. I mean we'll we'll go
into small eating houses and eat good food and then
eat also fancy food, but it has to be good.
I don't want to be gone. I find a lot
of restaurants tend to just con you. I don't agree
with that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
But you spoke about the legendary cultures that used to
be made at every Kapoor party by this.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Lady who Yeah, so she was amazing. She became a
permanent fixture almost every film industry party. But apparently her
story was that she was a victim of the partition,
and my grandfather's out was like ostill. Anybody would come
and stay. Then. Even my time my father had a
(23:02):
room was the night of his wedding. My mother was horrified.
She woke up in the morning he had two strangers
sitting in the bedroom having coffee, having a chat. You're
kidding me, because the way the house was, they used
to sleep on the terrace, and the monsoon they would
sleep in the corridors. O krip Ramsing came for to
attend a wedding in the fifties. He never left. He
(23:24):
died after my grandparents died in the same house. Who
so tari Bay came to my grandfather and he said,
what can you do? She lost her husband, she lost
her family. She's second come. So she made her own
tandur and she cooked for the whole street. And I
think she was probably one of the early pioneers of
the portable than dur because she'd come to the house
(23:47):
with her tandur and make these most divine NaNs. They
were just the size of your palm and they melt
afka some mouth's watching. My brother and I and Jimpoo
would go and stand there wait for it to come out,
and on my hands bouncing in them.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
But talking about Christmas, according to me, it kind of
waves a magic wand over the world.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Everything is softer and more beautiful somehow.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That's only because you live in Bandra. If you lived
in Belaspo, you would not be saying the same time.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And one of the reasons I continue to live in
Bandra is because I think Bandra is one place where
the spirit of Christmas still exists and Calcutta, Calcutta just
comes alive during Christmas. And talking about Calcuta, interestingly, I
was doing some research about my grandmother whose Armenian, and
(24:45):
I discovered this hotel where they said there was a
permanent suite that your father had eventually.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Not initially. I think the chances are possibly that both
Karen and I were probably conceived in that house.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
In that hotel.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
I mean the first time my father went to as
my mother out, he was in Phalance, because that's where
they met. They met in Calcutta and my mother with
her parents and the shakespeare A company. They were staying
at Philans, and my dad went over to Phairlans to
(25:18):
ask her out for a date. And years went by, Dad,
they keep staying there. They got married. I'm sure I
was conceived there, So thirty six Charge Lane when that
was being shot, which I think was eighty one, the
entire unit. Everybody stayed at fair Lands, and every time
Dad went to cal even on his own, he would
(25:38):
only stayed fair On. He stayed the old broy which
is his next door. You know, he'd stayed there and
the old waiters would still call him Shashi Baba and
they would shout at him as if he's not at
the table in time, you know, and they would tell
him off because they still treated him like a seventeen
year old, which was nice. That was an amazing hotel.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
But do you think the spirit of Christmas is diminishing?
It's become more of a marketing event.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
The one that really gets me about marketing is Halloween
and Thanksgiving Day, which have no relationship with India. True
Christmas at least has a relationship with India because at
one hundred and fifty years of colonial rule, Calcutta, Mumbai, Pune,
in Bangalore, US sizable Christian population English influence, so the
(26:28):
churches would have Christmas Mass, so interesting. See like Gore,
it's the Portuguese Catholicism that is the influence there. So
they would do Christmas midnight Mass. But the lunch feast
was very different. Right, it's a holiday and they would
call it a feast, but it was their own cuisine
(26:50):
in Turkey and Goa, so that's an Anglicized colonial influence.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Well, my mother is Christian, so Christmas has always been
a very big deal for us. And for me, Christmas
is about the sound of bon bons. That's why I
keep referring to bon bons all the time. The smell
of windoloo cul culls guava cheese. I mean, you can't
get that guava cheese anymore. So when I do chance
(27:16):
upon it, it just transports me back to childhood. People
are just kinder on that day and then of course.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
The day after it's all forgotten.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But I went to see a play the other day
at Dinanath and I thought it's like a four o'clock show,
so I have to be there on time.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
It didn't start on the dot and apparently with me.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Is the only theater in Bombay where when you say
four pm or six pm, then the show starts at
six pm, and you have a rule where if you're late,
you stay out because you don't disturb the performance.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And I remember you telling me about a time when
your daughter, Shada was very young and you came in
from town and you're late five minutes later, and she
asked you, but why can't we go in because it's
our theater? And you said something that remained with me,
and that says so much about you as a human being.
You said, because it's a theater, we can't go in,
And that's quite stunning.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I think what I said was the rule is a rule,
and the rules apply to everyone, no matter who you are,
So there's no point you're having a rule if you
if you're going to make allowances.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I mean, look around at our own society. The problem
with half ninety percent of our rules and laws don't
apply to apply because there's always too many exceptions. Yeah, initially,
when I was when headphones came in with your mobile
and I had my headphone on Bluetooth job I think
they were called in those days, and stopped the traffic
(28:40):
light and a cop car came stopped by and tapped
me and said you have to remove it. It is not allowed.
I said, well, yeah, okay, and then I looked at him.
His number plate was missing, black doua coming out of
his vidicture. I said, well what about that? So again
the rules applied for me, but not for the cop
(29:01):
card was allowed to be polluting the environment, that's what
we are.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
But how difficult is it to get funding for the theater? Nightmare?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
What we really want is genuine patronage, not sponsorship. The
minute you get into sponsorship, particularly because then you involve
marketing guys who have no love for what they're sponsoring,
and they're only interested in trying to sell a product
and tick off the boxes in their own CV report card.
(29:32):
So we don't allow that. We don't allow any marketing
of products in the premises. You need patronage. And then
the only form of patronage that is common is when
then they want to call the venue by their own name.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Oh so it's so and So's P three festival or
even theater, which you will never permit.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Obviously. We were talking about this recently with one of
my cousins. Did we not name a street after Prithodotshkapur
or did we not, you know, name a road after
him or a park or something? And I said, well no,
because I remember this conversation with my father. And he said,
what's the point? He said, they'll change the name of
the road. They're going to name a road after my
(30:19):
his father, but prior to that, I had another name.
So they'll change it again. When does anyone pay attention
to it? And the statue and the statue? Does anyone
pay attention to the statues except for the pigeons who
come and shit on it? So he said, then I'd
rather do something that he believed in and what he aspired,
(30:40):
what he wanted to do, which was his dream to
have a theater, and theater at that time, professionally in
the theater particularly was at an all time low in Mumbai.
So that's where the idea came in. Is to build
a theater and to maintain the theater with the economics
in favor of the performer. So the entire ticket collection
(31:03):
goes to the performer, does not come to Princy Theater.
It goes directly from book my show which is all
digital now, it goes directly to them this has been
from day one, all right, day one. It used to
be a manual thing, you know, with a booking chart
in the seventies when I opened in seventy eight. Now
of course it's all digital with book my show, and
(31:23):
then in return they make a small contribution towards the
running costs of the theater, which don't really cover the costs.
And during the festival we have a cap limit of
two hundred to be a ticket aiming at students and
we actually have their spoke performing now for which the
contribution that the theater company should make to the theater
(31:45):
during the festival, I was renting rooms for some of
our out of station artists next door King's Hotel and
paying the hotel more for one room and two beds
with the one air conditioner than what they're paid for
the theater with fifty lights and thirty six tons of
recoonditioning and everything. And there's no regret and they don't
(32:09):
argue with me that you're being foolish. The ones who
are doing it appreciated and they grow. That's the why
the theater was built, you know, so to get that
kind of patronage from people who believe in it. It
is difficult.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I had the privilege of walking into your home which
is directly opposite with the theater, and walking in there
like walking into a museum and that legendary room which
I was fascinated by, the chum Jar room.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
When this was in our old home in town and Atlas,
they had a big terrace which was attached to my parents' bedroom,
and on the other side of the flat there was
another small terrace. We always had breakfast together as a family,
and when at one time Dad came home from work
three o'clock, two o'clock whatever, seven point thirty, we all
(32:58):
sat at the table together and we had breakfast. And
there's half the English influence where we had engst those
porridge conflicts, coffee, you know, tie whatever, but you had
a proper breakfast. At seven thirteen, eight fifteen, we wouldn't
leave for school, and eight thirty Dad would leave for
the studios, so we often producers and people would come
to meet him. A dining area, the dying table and
(33:22):
the living room are kind of won so where do
you put these people down. You put them in the
living room and you're here the dining table. You have
to invite them to the dying table. Yeah, so your
family time is gone.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So Mom then said not to help with this, and
then she enclosed that small little terrace. And the way
that our house was that you went to the front
door into a corridor and then you could turn right
and you can go in towards the living room through
a door, or you go down the corridor towards this
newly constructed room. And Mom said, sap kit jumps Vanda.
(34:02):
So that stuck and it became the jump Chure room.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
So now you have the chump Jar room in Jew.
So yeah, I accepted move forward.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So when we moved Jew, I basically I mean I
moved everything from Atlas. There's again a lot of history
that why this painting books, huge library of books. So
I moved everything there. So the jump Here room as well.
It's a little smaller, but a little bit of squeeze here.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
And then we managed to but it's fascinating. And I
remember I walked in.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Then there was this the Dada side Palke Award on
one wall, and then I saw this album and I
saw Bobby written on it, and I remember asking you,
with great reverence, kick, may I look at it and
you like yeah, sure, And I was turning the pages
and I felt like I was touching history. I remember
you looked at me and saying, I wish my family
(34:56):
was as enamored as you are. But what that's what
strikes me about you, and I think that's amazing, Kunal,
is how you are the memory keeper. You're somebody who archives,
who painstakingly, lovingly restores and just keeps everything and everyone
together in so many ways. Does the rest of your
(35:18):
family appreciate that?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, And though it's a different way of thinking, and
it's just a different sense of priorities. I wear, you know,
shallow archemies. You know, should I wear jeans and pants?
You wear jeans pants, But we're both wearing toes. It's
just a different way of looking at things. I don't
think one is superior to the other. I mean I
will turn around and mark the other and say that
(35:40):
you don't value what I'm doing in their turn and say,
but what value are you doing? You know, whereas the
commercial value or whatever? You know what I mean? So
then different levels of priorities.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I've seen awards, I've seen albums, I've seen photographs.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's gold what some of there was? I mean I
say this, but I mean the only awards there of
my parents which have kept. The other Sapalk Award and
the Padmavus and my mother's two awards that she got
for thirty six Chara and one was a Bafter nominal
for that and the other one was the Evening Standard Award.
(36:19):
These were the two biggest awards in England. The thirty
six had a theatrical release in England and she lost
out the Bafter and it went to Maggie Smith. So
my mum wasn't bothered. She said, that's okay, it's like
you know, I mean, being nominated and losing to Maggie
Smith's fine. But those I found and kept and they're
(36:40):
more recent. But the earlier other ones that you know,
my father he never bothered. I don't know where they are.
All the Filmfare Awards, I don't know where they.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Are, probably pretty somewhere.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Knowing they're gone. The Bafter is a different thing. I
think Baft and Oscar they are awards. We never treated them.
My parents never treated us. An award is more of
a recognition you can't win. We don't agree with that.
You can win and always an art you like it.
(37:12):
I don't and both are correct because it's an art voice,
not a race. We can argue about who broke the
tickeer tape, who crossed the line first, and use cameras
and equipment to decide who actually won, but not with
an art form. You don't win an award. You get awarded.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
You get awarded a difference.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Some man, my parents never put any value to it.
When I told him about the Padma Bution Award, for example,
I remember because they they also check with you that
you'd accept it because they don't want to be embarrassed.
So before they make a public announcer announcement, the you know,
the ministry will call me up. They called me up
(37:55):
and they said that we want to confer this award again.
Confur this award to you know Shiji, and I asked Dad.
I said, Dad, they want to give it to you,
and he just he laughed, you're rubbish, they want to
give it to you whatever. For years, FilmFair tried to
give him.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
A said no.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Then it was finally yes g who convinced him because
he had a relationship with yes Gen and Yes She
also was dying to get him to come and see
his studio he never never went, so this was one
way of getting him to the studio because the ceremony was.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
At so Dad agreed to.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
You don't come in and received that award. So I
think that's there. I think that is the one FilmFair
Lady that is hanging around of the house.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But I was obsessed with it was my favorite film.
I just loved that movie. It just filled me with
so much of joy. I think I've seen it about
eighty plus time. But the kind of work that your
father has done, commercial cinema being one thing, but constantly
pushing promoting cinema. Do you think he's been acknowledged enough
(39:11):
for that or he's largely gone unsung in terms of
his contribution as a producer, somebody who put his MC
behind stories.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Not just as a producer, he also kind of bankrolled
half of Merchant divaries films. That friendship with his smile
Merchant and James Ivories, you know, went on and on
and on forever. Now they started off there most of
us in our industry and room, but I don't even
know who Merchant Ivory is, and they don't how many
oscars they've got and how Jim Ivory got an Oscar
(39:41):
at the age of ninety again, but yeah, we don't
know who he is anyway, so that's one. And then
of course Zoya wanted to see New Daily Times, which
I've never seen, and I discovered that there was a
restored print with the archives, so we'd organized that A
nice woke to Sharma, who was the director, and he
(40:03):
told me that he met Dad in Delhi in a
coffee shop and he said, if this is the story
I want to do, I mean away, if it's time
about a journalist trying to stick to his ideals, and
eared him out a little bit. And then Dad just
turned around to him and said, you have a hundred
rupees in your pocket. He said, yes, said give me
an undred rupees. He took it, put on the table
(40:25):
on the napkin he wrote received undred rupees as fees
for the New Daily Times. That he gave it to him.
He said, I'm on, Oh my god, that was it.
So he would do things like that if he thought
they were good. So a shot methad talent cameramans, I mean,
he pulled our shot Matha out and gave him. There
is a Sharon Gilne to do when nobody would touch
him pretty theirter. It's amazing how many people of all
(40:51):
levels of success have walked that stage. Yes, some of
them have just walked a some of it have started
their careers. There one of them that comes to my mind, Eily,
two of them. I was an open care Yes, he started.
Then you know, dad took him into its up and
then your dad took him in and then that, and
then that became his stepping stone into stardom. Nina. But
(41:15):
I used to make a stand behind the counter because
she's attractive girl. Get people to come together.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I remember the Irish coffee. Yes, the legendary Irish coffee.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Is we do?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
We do? We just serving business that brandy. And because
I refused to have an alcohol license. Yeah, not because
of any moralistic point of view. I drink. I have
no problem with anyone else drinking. But we're in a
residential area and we 's an open cafe, and we're
not the most well behaved people when we so alcohol.
(41:51):
That true, So just out of consideration.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
To the neighbors, a lot of drama, I agree.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, And I just discovered that, you know, Irish coffee,
there is a bit of brandy in it, and it's
a pre made mixture that they keep the counter. There's
no bottle, but I've over heard a couple of times
where and customer would come and say Irish coffee. Coffee come, Irish,
the other coffee come.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I is that a good way to put it?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I said, Okay, now hello.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I want to ask you about a Juba and the
experience of shooting in Russia, because you've got some crazy
stories from that time. And your hotel room that you
describe is tiny.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I mean it's smaller than this booth. Hotel Ukraine. It
was called they call them the Seven Sisters. There's seven
buildings in Moscow built by Stalin and when we were
negotiating the contract we stayed there. Was it a really
interesting experience working with them. It's strange stayed in Hotel Ukraine.
(43:00):
Then we shot in the Altar Yaltas on the Crimea. Yeah,
all right, so that's where the war is going on
and which was became part of Ukraine, which Russia has
regained and taken back. But I think we enjoyed the
Altar shoot more than the Moscow shoot. And then we
also shot in in Fruense, which I think is on
(43:21):
the board of Kirgistan now Kazakistan. We shot the horse
battles there because of horses in the mountains. I negotiated
the contract and the deal with Froze Abaskhan and me.
We entered it together. And then I came back and
I was shooting commercials and I would go up and down.
When I went up, one of the shoots I carried
(43:42):
with me. I think it was something like six hundred
and fifty kilos of dahal.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Six hundred and fifty kilos of dahal.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, as weus to take our own food there. That
took everybody. So we had something like two hundred people
which we'd taken from here, and all the even all
the bit part character acts us all flu club class
and they stayed for the entire duration, even though at
two days work. They were there for eves. All right,
I mean, do you have any wonder why the film
(44:10):
and over budget? So yeah, but then you know, for
the Indian unit, food there is exceedingly bland and boring.
I didn't mind it. You have smoked fish and smoked
hams and things for nice soups, a nice so I
(44:32):
didn't have such a big problem. But I can I
may understand the Indian parent not used to that kind
of food. So yeah, we had took our own kitchen
with us. We took everything with us. And then in
the Alta everybody had a girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yes, I think the Indian unit got a lot of
female attention.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
They're not all had girlfriends. All had a lot of
hearts broken when they left. Not a drama happened the leap.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Tyhill told me about how he was selling his clothes
to people there.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
He would take all his old clothes in a suitcase
and sit there on the beach, open his suitcase like
a dukhan and sell his old tennis racket, his own clothes.
And of course you know vodka and cavia were dot cheap. Wow.
Because this was the end of communism. This is called
but jo Era, So communism is on his day out,
(45:25):
but the full capitalism hadn't come in yet. That's why
I learned about cavia.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And you haven't been back since.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
I haven't been back since. Now Moscow doesn't interest me
so much. But what does interest me, which I'd love
to go to, is the is the steps. He used
to go to Kazakistan, Kyrgistan, uz Pakistan, All these fans.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
All the Istan and also the road trip through Mongolia,
and that he's got a bucket list, right, I'd love
to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
And Japan.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
My fantasy is that I'm going to open a bar
in haw A Juku at some stage of my life
where I'm going to sit outside dressed in black with
my little cat. And then you promised that you would
be the barman if I ever do that. So I'm
going to hold you to that promise.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I'll cookman was my man as long as I can.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
I'll feed you in sea urchin exactly, and some steaks.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Perhaps I love Japanese food.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, so Japan is waiting for you, mister k Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
My nephews are dying to take me. They keep going
every month.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
You'll fit right in. I can just imagine.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
You in you you will fit right.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
We'll put you in a kimono there and you look
like you know one of the Yahoo.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
But you told me this story, but how your mother.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Was very upset when she found her a pistol that
you brought home.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
And you got a lot of trouble for that.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
She whipped me. She's waiting in the door.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Are ready to procure that man from a friend.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
My mother was a hard core pacifist. She saw a
chicken wing cut at the age of fifteen became a
vegetarian all her life. This happened in England, not here,
and her belief was that she did not need to
take life to live. And her belief in those days
was also is that India was one a place where
(47:22):
you could be very comfortable as a vegetarian, very difficult
in Europe in those days, in the fifties sixty fifties particularly.
And the second is that the leather trade during your
champeles was usually leather made out of carcasses, dead animals.
They weren't butchered for the leather, and that was the
(47:42):
tradition that were the chamas, you know, that's what would happen.
That's how they disposed of dead cattle. So you weren't
actually killing four the leather. Because I remember challenging and saying,
but you're wearing colap with chaples what she explained the
logic weather in practice it actually continued that another debate.
(48:02):
But yeah, and we grew up with pamphlets in the
house of you know what the cost of one Air
Force fighter jet? Could you know, run how many schools.
One tank would create how many hospital beds? All this
kind of endsing. So the thing was a guns to
(48:23):
her has only one purpose, and that was destruction. Correct
A knife? No, no, no, knife. You can carve, all right.
You can gunt your firewood to cocone, you can. It's
a multi purpose. But a gun has only one purpose.
So we didn't grow up with guns, you know, in
the house and toy guns. Even so, I borrowed somebody's
(48:46):
air pistol and I hid it in my cupboard behind
my clothes, and they came home from school. She was
waiting at the door. And we used to ride horses,
so we had also signing there with a horse. You
bring a piece of destruction into my house whips the day.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
But you started out wanting to be an actor and
then became a hugely successful ad filmmaker. To go into
the kind of work that you've done, you will be
here forever. And then we're drawn back into acting.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
You did the film with the where you shot in
and then you were in Puny Path and I remember somebody.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Came over to give you a narration for a role,
and Kurrent was in town and.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
I come over and we were asking you, so how
did it go?
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And you were like, yeah, the narration was good, but
they wanted to shoot here, so I told them shoot
there instead.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
And I'll never forget current's reaction.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
It's like Connal, when they've come to hire an electrician,
you don't tell them about the plumbing.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
They've come to you as an actor.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Why are you telling them how to shoot and where
to shoot?
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I found that hilarious.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
And also the time when you got a call from
some new casting director's assistant and they said, we want
you in this part in a film and you said,
Vishal know you've called me, and because he's a friend
of mine, and you figured out that they were calling
(50:18):
the wrong Kal Kapur.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Do you remember that story?
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yes, I do remember that. I mean this happened a
couple of times when they've cast engagements. I think, you
know there, they've got so many I want to be
actors working as casting assistants for the casting companies and
they just have a list of people and so they
just do a machine gun fire into the dark. They
(50:42):
have no idea who they're calling and who they're asking.
I was asked and they said briefly, and they said,
it's a film with John Abraham and it's a film
about the Naxallites. We want you to be an item song.
I said, oh really, I said yeah. They said yeah,
I say we want you to we want you to
play a tribal chief. And I said, me play a
(51:04):
tribal chief? I said, you have you seen me? Do
know what I look like? I don't look anything like
a tribal chief from Jarcun when I do, which is
what you want me to do? So, I mean I
had missions in my head of you know, nineteen seventies
songs films with going Who How, the junior artist dancers
(51:25):
and the city feather caps right. There was no no
deliberate move to go back to acting singers bling. I
was actually doing the line production in Romania. And then
you know, she just called me up and she said,
don't laugh, but I'm going to ask you something. He said, okay.
She said, I want you to act in the film,
(51:46):
play Amy's father. I laughed, you got a baby. So
she called her a figure. I said, don't miss stupid.
I won't do it for anybody, at least double. She said, okay, done.
So now I had to do it, but I called
it humiliation money.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Humiliation money, that's a good term.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I like that. I'm just so out of it. When
they called me up a pany perth, I said, okay,
do it. And then later on I met them and
I kept sure, and I was what you did, was
you paid for my back surgery? I was on painkillers? Right, Really?
I said, yeah, I had taken a nerve block in
my spine and I was on painkillers and throw out
(52:32):
the shoot. But that's what it did. Paid for my
came back and I went and I did my back.
So now I've got titanium plates and s cruis and
my spine.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
But your children are such special human.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Beings and they take after their father.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Watch y'all.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
It seems like they're the parents, Kiral. They parent you
more than you parent them.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
I don't know children do that. Well, may be it
comes a point where started.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Nobod Zah and the choices that he's made. He may
he's made some unusual choices with regards to his debut film,
the work that he continues.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
To do after.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Well, I think he's me he knows. I mean, they've
been brought up with the factor that nobody's going to
launch them. They're going to have to find their own route.
Very clear. First of all, I didn't think he was
going to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
You didn't know.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
I though. I saw him in a playing school and
I thought it was interesting because most actors don't listen.
They're only waiting for their queue to speak. They're not listening.
And I saw this nine year old boy, and I
could see him listening, you know, And I thought that's
interesting because that maturity in a nine year old and
(53:50):
his school productions. He's really taught him. But no, I
thought he's ski. He worked with me and then with
a couple of mine ex assistance as an ad. He
operated a camera for me on a man that a
shoot and hungary. So I thought he would be a
director and he would be a writer because I thought
(54:12):
he could write and he could direct. Some went on
the line. Suddenly he decided to go and watch Nasil
and rehearse for Arms of the Man. And he went
and he sat and he watched the rehearsals, and then
he came back he said, I want to act. I
want to be an actor. So then he took himself
and he did an immense amount of rehears, huge amount
(54:33):
of training, chose people to hang with, chose people to
speak to listen to. His diction is in the addiction.
He worked really hard on it. My father gave each
of his grandchildren a sizeable kind of present when he
sold the flat and stuck with that money, he took
himself off to England, went to drama school and joined
(54:54):
the National New Theater for a year. And there are
whole lot of other small courses at Pinewood Studio and Yea,
then here Pondicherry, adishat ten language. Like I said, listening
to people working reading, I mean he's read poets like
Harleb and Affairs and the openerss and and the Vedas
(55:18):
in the and Augly he's obsessive.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Will the obsessive gene runs through. I mean, you're obsessive
about things that you like.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, we do wrap basically get tunnel vision. We don't
know when to stop, like our eating.
Speaker 3 (55:34):
And Shida as a production designer, and she's very good.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
The same thing with her. She actually has got herself
on her own admission into Mastix University in Horland to
study business management or something which is completely unrelated. And
she was young and us, says, then take a gamp here,
get some experience travel if you want, or your mamo
(55:58):
is starting a film. She was always very good at
putting things together, not a fashion design and making clothes,
but putting things together, creating a room and creating things,
go work on a set, and that did it for her.
She found that is what I wanted, so she canceled
master it and now being very good and she at
(56:21):
it and then she blames me for making her muzzoo class.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
So you guys are off to London to spend time
with the other side of the family, and you're going
to be there through Christmas and New Years and eating
lots of turkey and goose and goose.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
And goose, so the meals are all planned.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
So goose is a much better meat than turkey, much
better meat. So yeah, we have roast goose, roast potatoes nor.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Wonderful while I've got to have the vegetarian food on Christmas.
Thank you so much for taking time out there.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
I know you're extremely elusive and the fact that you've
agreed to do this means a lot. But before I go,
what I must talk to you about is you proudly
say that you haven't even gone past the ten standard. No,
but your knowledge and your understanding of history or a
historian you can I'm not a historian, but you can
sit down and talk about.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Because again I think the environment starts off in the
environment that I grow and my mother was interested in,
and then particularly the late Mogul and early colonial period.
But it was the lifestyle and people. I still don't
know dates other than eighteen fifty seven. I don't know
what date Uhburg came in, or what date the barber
(57:46):
came in or whatever. When did Alexander come in? It
was about people and their their biographies. So the information
was related to you know, somebody's travel books, their biography,
their letters, that kind of information which we had a
(58:06):
lot of in the house, and my mother was interested
in that. And then Merchandivy they were then chambny girl,
you know, I mean also into that aspect of history.
It's just bill on you know, kind of the environment
that you grew up in and you learn that. So
I never learned, oh god, you know, the Muguls did
this or the Marathas did that, and then they burnt
(58:26):
this down, They burnt that smoonders loud do they live,
you know, what did they do? What was their life like?
You know, this English lady who married a civil servant
in the East India Company and then did a solo
version up the Ganges, all right. And then the difference
is of because she's a woman getting access into various zennas,
(58:50):
and the difference between the Marathas Andena and Matazas and
the mugals in her all right, and the women and
what they wore now they wrote alls and you know,
and their own internal politics and so a lot of
this interested me. So whenever we talk history, I mean,
my first question what was the cultural atmosphere around then?
(59:14):
What was happening then at that time? It's not just
that you know, the Britain, the Allies one World War two,
Wood War was actually happening in London. How did they
send all their children too foster homes away from their
parents in mass t train loads to get them away
(59:34):
from the bombing? You know, what happened in Germany? How
did they level Germany? And what was a life like
for the people who lived there. So these are the
stories that interested me, and from that you get an
idea of history.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, but that's what they say it's not how you
live with what you remember, how you remember.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
So I think you are the memory keeper and.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Merry Christmas again, and I look forward to you being
back and hearing all about your travels, all about the
food excursions, and sharing some more meals with you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
The Puja Show is produced by Mammoth Media Asia and
Epilogue Entertainment and distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
The executive producer is Jonathan Stricklett.
Mumbai, the entertainment capital of a relentless appetite. Ideas go in,
product comes out. That is the machine, and then there
is Prithvi. This place was not born of brick and mortar.
It was born of the human heart. Prithviraj Kapur understood
(00:34):
something the industry keeps forgetting. Acting is not performance, it
is presence. That understanding was not sealed in memory. It
was carried forward, given flesh and daily discipline, by Jennifer
Kendall and Shashi Kapur. They did not build a monument.
(00:57):
They built a furnace, a space where failure is permitted,
but dishonesty is not. Today that same flame is guarded quietly,
without slogans, by those who didn't inherit applause but responsibility.
(01:18):
Prithweed understands something the marketplace does not. You are not
the story. The story is larger than you, and you
must serve it or step aside. In a city addicted
to arrival, Prithwe honors becoming in an industry drunken applause.
(01:41):
It insists on listening. And the man who stewards this
space today does not stand above it, He stands inside it.
My guest today is Kunal Kapoor, and Christmas feels it's
like the right moment to talk to him. He carries
(02:04):
a rare confluence the discipline of Prithvi and the warmth
of home. Jennifer Kendall brought into the Kapoor family a
way of gathering, not his display, but as ritual, a
pause in a city that never pauses. The Kapoor's already
(02:25):
knew how to celebrate life. She gave that celebration a season.
Connal carries that forward quietly, no spectacle, just care and
in a city that consumes everything that matters. And that
(02:46):
is where this conversation begins. So welcome to the poor
job had show, mister Konal Kapur, and Merry Christmas. I
was very moved when I heard that when your mother
passed away, you Phiros from London and told him that
the show must go on.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was nineteen eighty four, seventh of September. It wasn't
a surprise. We knew she was going. She was very
ill for some time, but this was, you know, eighty
four September. It was before mobiles. So the first thought
was actually because I was shutley up and down to look
after the theater and film. Wallace would suffers in post
(03:28):
production of the time and Mamo while Mama was in hospital, England,
Dad is there, everybody was there. So from England, my
first thing was to go and find a phone booth
where I could call Pharohes who was helping me maintain
the theater before the news came out in Bombay and
they did something stupid. They called him and said listen,
(03:49):
one's gone, but don't shut the theater. The show has
to go on. You cannot close. So we've always had
that the show mu was gone. And the other thing
is that you know, the stage should never go into darkness.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Mean on a daily basis, after show goes into darkness,
you know, for a few hours and then come in.
But like during COVID when shows were absolutely not allowed,
so then we have what they call the ghost light.
So there was a twenty four hour light. We put
one of my grandfather's Jeffrey Kendall's chairs, fourign chairs, and
(04:25):
put that on stage and we designed two lights. We
put two lights that were lighting up the chair on
the stage and that was on.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Twenty four hours all through COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
All through both times. So the stage not go dark. Wow,
ac plants and electricals, you know, they need to run, Yeah,
otherwise they'll start to rot, and particularly where on the
you know, the sea coast. So every two days we
would turn the acs on for a while, the general
kind of maintenance, and we came to all our staff
(04:57):
on side, didn't let them go home, and we created
kitchens for them and you know, places for them to stay.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
But yeah, the show goes on amazing. That's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
The ghost light.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oh, that's just yeah, I got goose flesh. That says
so much.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Twenty years of tradition where you've hosted the legendary Kapur lunch.
This is the first year you're going to be in
London and the pudding is not going to be steeped
in brandy in Juhu.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
This year labor again, but in labor in London.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Tell us what it's like to be on that table.
Zahan coke, Shira cokes you coke.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's a lot of bloody hard work. It should be
done in the way we always did it. It's a
family affair. It's all kind of home staffed. My old
coke Jamal his father before a Mumir Zhan also loves
to cook, so we've always cooked our own turkeys. Sometimes
(05:59):
we do a glazed ham Xanders are very good. I
am with Crispin sickin on the top is very good.
And roast potatoes and broccoli and salad and ratta tuee
sometimes for the vegetars, lots of garlic bread loss and
lots of garlic bread. Of course, even before that, you
start with making the mince pies which you have for tea,
(06:22):
which I have now recently discovered taste exceptionally good at
three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
When you're binge watching some show.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I'm watching a film, watching something. And then the
Christmas pudding, which classically should be made almost a year
in advance. Wow, but that doesn't happen, So Gendy, we
kind of make it about three weeks a month before.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Christmas, loaded with brandy.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, it is loaded with brandy in the making of it,
and then there's also brandy butter, you know, which is divine.
And then of course you pour more brandy on top
of it and you light it, yeah, and you know
the flea and then you cut it and then that's
you know, that's the end of Christmas lunch. But you
said they used to be also callar flower cheese or
(07:07):
a bake because at home, none of us would bother
with that. But it's an arcade hangover. So our keade
always had this, well I thought was a horrible baked
dish on the table. There'll be some baked macaroni. That
was a mess. So what we do at home was
(07:30):
we would do a cauliflower cheese, which is also baked,
but it's not macaronious the color flower cheese, and that
would always be on the table. But last few years
we've not done it. We would do it for Barbie
because she really liked it. Then we don't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
But what was your earliest Christmas memory?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Getting up at four o'clock in the morning and attacking
the Christmas tree to tear open our breasences. It must
have been four or five. Is this blood? Because we
always celebrated Christmas, we took our house and go and
Barger nineteen seventy seventy one. Before that, Christmas lunch was
(08:13):
at home. Daboo was always a permanent fixture because he
was also very close to my father and the kids.
All us cousins would be called over and everyone had
little presents and you know, fun, very great time. But
when we moved to go then we were in go
every Christmas. So for the next almost twenty years we
(08:36):
were in go and Dad was also appeared. When Dad
became very busy, so he would actually fly down on
Christmas Eve with the turkey which Habuoma, my old coke
made in Bombay, and he would fly down on Christmas
Eve with the turkey and the Christmas pudding. Saint Anthony's
(08:59):
restaurant was minischool in those days. It was not what
it is today. And we would take the turkey over them.
Then he would warm it up and he would make
the roast potatoes and vegetables and broccoli that will go
with it, and we would have Christmas lunch at home.
And for us, Go was completely the opposite. So the
(09:20):
house in Goer initially had no electricity for a long time.
It had no water and had no sewage. You had
a well outside, you drew your water from the well,
you filled up buckets. You had a bucket bath and
the loo was an outhouse and the big Zuoyo sewage system.
So Christmas tree would be a piece of driftwood because
(09:47):
we're on the beach. The house is right on the
beach side by sand, and we lived in swimming costumes
in Lungis. You had no clothes, you didn't need any image,
just swimming costumes world you needed. So we'd find a
piece of drift, would and put it into a flower
part we stand and a little bit of decoration and
from Mapster Market we would get a few of those
(10:08):
paper hats as the photographs and one just as the
paper hats, and we will have lunch at home. My
grandparents were often there, my mother's parents and the three
of us kids and my father mother and that would
be Christmas. And then I think post my mother's death,
(10:30):
and it kind of changed, and then we started having
doing Christmas back in Bombay again. And then I was
an atlas in our old home. And then when I
shifted dad to jew which was like late nineties, early
two thousand, I can't remember exactly, but Do Woo was
always there. And then we said, now have to include
(10:52):
more of the family. Searchintoos start coming in. Then the
kids my cousins remembered Christmas when they were young, but
the next generation didn't. So now I had kids were
much kids were older, so we said call them in.
That's how their whole things started at Prithree.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
The gore that you described to me when you talk
about how your father would sit on the verandah and
they would be that bottle of his favorite tiple, and
how the villagers would pass by, pause, make themselves a
drink chadter bad and go on.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
They would talk to him in concerne die and understand
the word, and they would both not and smile at
each other, and nobody ever crossed the line. Yeah, that
gore doesn't exist anymore. That was pristine, and it was beautiful, pure,
The people were wonderful. But it's all gone.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
You said something interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You said that people have gone to Goa and created
their very own bandra, their own gurgau or their own deli,
and they haven't really integrated with the locals, not at all. No,
wonder then there is a feeling of the other and
they feel resentful. But you haven't really bothered getting to
know the locals. You just created your own little bubble
(12:04):
in that go out.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, absolutely, so, I mean that was not our story
when we were there, and that were particularly in the
seventies and Karen and I made friends with two fishermen
boys our age, and they were a kind of mirror
image of our family because they had a younger sister
who was Sanjana's age. And we would just spend the
(12:27):
entire day together. We would fish together, we would barbecue together.
We got it into cycles. We would cycle together. We
would cycle all over Go and then we got onto motorcycles.
We had a motorcycle all over Go. We went to
each other's parties and weddings and funerals. Santa Varo which
is the end of Bargo, So Kara good, you have
all these barrows. Santa Vado was where our house was,
(12:49):
and right on the beach there was smaller bus. It
was a larger boat, and the larger boat was shared
with by about ten families. We used to put the
net out into the sea and then pull it up
onto the thing, and we were very often involved in that.
We would fish that We would either be on the boat,
you know, throwing the net into the sea, and then
on shore helping pull the net up. And then when
(13:12):
they had a bumper catch and they couldn't pull the
net onto the beach because he was so full of fish,
and they would take smaller nets in the hand and
scoop out fish and then run food out of the
beach while they'll be singing him a la dumsa, And
we used to sing that. We used to love that. Wow.
(13:34):
So this family, their tradition was that in one of
the boat shacks on the beach, they would get together
and they would have a celebratory lunch on usday, which
we were invited, and with the only non fisherman all
that boat. And it was fascinating because they're they're not
(13:55):
well off, and you took your own boat, metal bow,
and you took your own power. And they had made
this incredible channel Dal kind of curry which is exceedingly
spicy but delicious, and I realized years later the reason
why it was exceedingly spicy was that you couldn't eat
(14:18):
too much, so it is enough to go around everyone.
And then they would always have this they're old local
Fanny and the Fenny bottles yeah and pouring each other.
Fanny and Dad said can I contribute, you know to
the Fanny and then they said no, you can bring beer,
because beer was the thing. And then the combination of
(14:39):
beer and Fanny and then they would all start singing,
and a couple of times Dad had to be kind
of lifted and brought home because they make sure that
he was blasted. But at the afternoon, great memories of
God that really was something special.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
You spoke about used to be honest cicles. And then
we were on a motorbike and that takes me back
to Massouri. I was all of ten years old and
I went on a school trip and we were taken
to the marketplace and we went into the theater and
guess what movie was playing, Ahista Aista, And I'll never
forget this shot of a young boy cycling into the sunset,
(15:23):
and then from that emerged this young.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Man on a bike and it was you. And then
there was this collective gasp.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
In the theater because we bought forty to fifty girls
from HOBBURBI petted girls high school. And then a few
months later, I was asleep at my residence in Bandra
Pali Hill and I heard my mother calling out to
me and saying, Pooha.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Get up, come out, come out, come out.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
And I came out like with sleep in my eyes,
like my hair going in all different directions, and sitting
there in my living room was you. And I was
so mad with my mother. I said, how could you
call me out to see when I'm looking like this?
And of course she thought I was very silly. She
was like, you're this child. Do you think he would
even be remotely interested how you're looking? So you were
(16:07):
my first crush. Could not And then I worked with
you on the Bush television ad.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So I came to your ask twice. Okay, The first
time was exactly like you said, and that point was
just after Ice Eyes. Then I thought I wanted to
be an actor, so I actually came there to meet
your father to ask him for a job, right all right,
which obviously didn't happen. And then the second time I came,
and I actually came to ask him if I could
cast you in a commercial. Really, yeah, that's when we
(16:34):
did the Bush commercials.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So you asked him whether you could cast me. I
remember going to China Creek with you. It was night
and mister Shokmata was lighting up this exotic forest and
you put me in this white nightgown with this lace overcoat,
and then you put the rain machines on and you
made me run through that forest at China Creek barefoot
(16:56):
barefoot from I think about a thirty nine in the
evening to like five in the morning, and the last
shot I had to fall on this mattress and probably
two feet from my face was the cobra. Correct, And
then we packed up, and of course we had no
cars and all that, so we all said, can we
hit you right with you? And you said okay, grandered
by Gypsy and then I saw you, at the end
of his long night, pull out a bottle of rum
(17:19):
and struggled to open it, and I just said, pass.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
It to me, please, and you gave me this look
like and let's see what she'll do.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I cracked it open with my mouth and I'll
never forget your reaction.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
You're like, what kind of a girl are you?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You run through the forest and red fall in front
of a cobra and then crack over a bottle of
rum at like six in the morning.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So I think the cracking up in the bottle is
what I think. Finally, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You impressed finally with me. And then of course I
did Oxenbourg with you.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
You called us all and said there's no money, show up.
You'll get a rose and lunch and links and a
bottle of champagne. And then you took us to Links
and the napkins came out with Kapoor.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I was very impressed. And then of course the ordered
off the menu.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I've never ever looked at the menu at Lynx, so
I mean Lynx is again a big use tradition. Used
to go to Nanking before Lynx and when we were children,
and then Nanking eventually closed and Baba reopened with Lynx,
and so Nan King used to have these napkins. Their
regular customers had embroidered names, but they carried forward to Links,
(18:26):
so they don't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
But I'll never forget that. It was very postal.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
It's a good marketing thing. There are a lot of couples.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Who love to eat still exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So your obsession with food and your obsession with sound
and your obsession with cars. Denzil asked me to ask you,
this is it asking what is this obsession with sound?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Man?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Where does it come from?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I had a music system at home, all right, which
I think i'd managed to bully my mom and getting me.
I remember it was a small techniques am, all right,
and it was split as there was a preamp and
a power amp and I had little speakers, and my
brother was notoriously heavy handed. He would destroy anything you touch.
(19:12):
So if I left town on a school trip and
he was around, I would disconnect it and I would
lock it up so he couldn't he couldn't get his
hands on my music system. I think there's a level
beyond which you cannot hear. The difference in terms of equipment.
I mean, people go crazy. They spend lax and lacks
(19:34):
of rupees just on one cable. They don't listen to music,
they don't hear it. They listen to the price of
the equipment that they've put on. So I don't go
that route. So anyway, there has been that kind of
obsession with sound. I like good sound. It doesn't have
to be the most expensive. It just has to be practical.
The same thing with my cars. It has to be practical.
(19:56):
There's no point you having a Ferrari or a Lamborghini
the great car. But here in.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Bombay is why you're test driving a car on the
coastal road.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Every single I'm buying a new car, so the test
is from jew I drive to the ceiling and I
do that as a passenger, and I sit and I say,
go through Andra, go through there old the dug up roads,
and all the car does and everything, and then we
will get onto the coastal road and then I will drive,
(20:26):
and then I can fly, and then we can try
a little bit. I can feel the power of the car,
and then they can feel the unevenness of the tunnel.
Go to money, drive, turn around and come back. I
think that's a fair enough kind of a test to do.
And then it has to be coast power and handling,
and then practicality as well. And I've enjoyed driving. I
(20:47):
mean I've driven a lot, have done a lot of
road trips. So some Now, what is your third own food?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Food?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
And our food has always been an obsession.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
When you mentioned the ratatui and you said vegetarian, there
was a certain degree of disdain in your words, because I.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Think vegetar is a racist.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
So I'm racist.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You are because you deny me being a nonveg.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Oh my god, on.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
My table, you will have vegetarian food. You will have
nonvege food. But when I go to a vegetarian house,
you will not give me nonveg. But in my house,
I will treat him. I will give m this vegetarian.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You were appalled that I was in Kashmir and eating
lotus stem.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Lotus stame is good. But the main thing is a
gustava and then hawk. There's vegetarian. I love hawk. So
I mean to me, heaven is rice with hark and
gustava pista or both. You know the tabakamas. I prefer
(21:50):
my grandmother's recipe, which is more of a I guess
a Peshawi recipe as to the Kashmiri because it's simpler.
It doesn't have any held and nostala. It's only salt
and black beast on the ribs that they're tabakmas. I
prefer that we do that at home. So that is great.
So yeah, my food is the range again is ecstatic.
(22:15):
It's not about again expense. I mean we'll we'll go
into small eating houses and eat good food and then
eat also fancy food, but it has to be good.
I don't want to be gone. I find a lot
of restaurants tend to just con you. I don't agree
with that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
But you spoke about the legendary cultures that used to
be made at every Kapoor party by this.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Lady who Yeah, so she was amazing. She became a
permanent fixture almost every film industry party. But apparently her
story was that she was a victim of the partition,
and my grandfather's out was like ostill. Anybody would come
and stay. Then. Even my time my father had a
(23:02):
room was the night of his wedding. My mother was horrified.
She woke up in the morning he had two strangers
sitting in the bedroom having coffee, having a chat. You're
kidding me, because the way the house was, they used
to sleep on the terrace, and the monsoon they would
sleep in the corridors. O krip Ramsing came for to
attend a wedding in the fifties. He never left. He
(23:24):
died after my grandparents died in the same house. Who
so tari Bay came to my grandfather and he said,
what can you do? She lost her husband, she lost
her family. She's second come. So she made her own
tandur and she cooked for the whole street. And I
think she was probably one of the early pioneers of
the portable than dur because she'd come to the house
(23:47):
with her tandur and make these most divine NaNs. They
were just the size of your palm and they melt
afka some mouth's watching. My brother and I and Jimpoo
would go and stand there wait for it to come out,
and on my hands bouncing in them.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
But talking about Christmas, according to me, it kind of
waves a magic wand over the world.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Everything is softer and more beautiful somehow.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That's only because you live in Bandra. If you lived
in Belaspo, you would not be saying the same time.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And one of the reasons I continue to live in
Bandra is because I think Bandra is one place where
the spirit of Christmas still exists and Calcutta, Calcutta just
comes alive during Christmas. And talking about Calcuta, interestingly, I
was doing some research about my grandmother whose Armenian, and
(24:45):
I discovered this hotel where they said there was a
permanent suite that your father had eventually.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Not initially. I think the chances are possibly that both
Karen and I were probably conceived in that house.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
In that hotel.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
I mean the first time my father went to as
my mother out, he was in Phalance, because that's where
they met. They met in Calcutta and my mother with
her parents and the shakespeare A company. They were staying
at Philans, and my dad went over to Phairlans to
(25:18):
ask her out for a date. And years went by, Dad,
they keep staying there. They got married. I'm sure I
was conceived there, So thirty six Charge Lane when that
was being shot, which I think was eighty one, the
entire unit. Everybody stayed at fair Lands, and every time
Dad went to cal even on his own, he would
(25:38):
only stayed fair On. He stayed the old broy which
is his next door. You know, he'd stayed there and
the old waiters would still call him Shashi Baba and
they would shout at him as if he's not at
the table in time, you know, and they would tell
him off because they still treated him like a seventeen
year old, which was nice. That was an amazing hotel.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
But do you think the spirit of Christmas is diminishing?
It's become more of a marketing event.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
The one that really gets me about marketing is Halloween
and Thanksgiving Day, which have no relationship with India. True
Christmas at least has a relationship with India because at
one hundred and fifty years of colonial rule, Calcutta, Mumbai, Pune,
in Bangalore, US sizable Christian population English influence, so the
(26:28):
churches would have Christmas Mass, so interesting. See like Gore,
it's the Portuguese Catholicism that is the influence there. So
they would do Christmas midnight Mass. But the lunch feast
was very different. Right, it's a holiday and they would
call it a feast, but it was their own cuisine
(26:50):
in Turkey and Goa, so that's an Anglicized colonial influence.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Well, my mother is Christian, so Christmas has always been
a very big deal for us. And for me, Christmas
is about the sound of bon bons. That's why I
keep referring to bon bons all the time. The smell
of windoloo cul culls guava cheese. I mean, you can't
get that guava cheese anymore. So when I do chance
(27:16):
upon it, it just transports me back to childhood. People
are just kinder on that day and then of course.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
The day after it's all forgotten.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But I went to see a play the other day
at Dinanath and I thought it's like a four o'clock show,
so I have to be there on time.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
It didn't start on the dot and apparently with me.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Is the only theater in Bombay where when you say
four pm or six pm, then the show starts at
six pm, and you have a rule where if you're late,
you stay out because you don't disturb the performance.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
And I remember you telling me about a time when
your daughter, Shada was very young and you came in
from town and you're late five minutes later, and she
asked you, but why can't we go in because it's
our theater? And you said something that remained with me,
and that says so much about you as a human being.
You said, because it's a theater, we can't go in,
And that's quite stunning.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I think what I said was the rule is a rule,
and the rules apply to everyone, no matter who you are,
So there's no point you're having a rule if you
if you're going to make allowances.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
I mean, look around at our own society. The problem
with half ninety percent of our rules and laws don't
apply to apply because there's always too many exceptions. Yeah, initially,
when I was when headphones came in with your mobile
and I had my headphone on Bluetooth job I think
they were called in those days, and stopped the traffic
(28:40):
light and a cop car came stopped by and tapped
me and said you have to remove it. It is not allowed.
I said, well, yeah, okay, and then I looked at him.
His number plate was missing, black doua coming out of
his vidicture. I said, well what about that? So again
the rules applied for me, but not for the cop
(29:01):
card was allowed to be polluting the environment, that's what
we are.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
But how difficult is it to get funding for the theater? Nightmare?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
What we really want is genuine patronage, not sponsorship. The
minute you get into sponsorship, particularly because then you involve
marketing guys who have no love for what they're sponsoring,
and they're only interested in trying to sell a product
and tick off the boxes in their own CV report card.
(29:32):
So we don't allow that. We don't allow any marketing
of products in the premises. You need patronage. And then
the only form of patronage that is common is when
then they want to call the venue by their own name.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Oh so it's so and So's P three festival or
even theater, which you will never permit.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Obviously. We were talking about this recently with one of
my cousins. Did we not name a street after Prithodotshkapur
or did we not, you know, name a road after
him or a park or something? And I said, well no,
because I remember this conversation with my father. And he said,
what's the point? He said, they'll change the name of
the road. They're going to name a road after my
(30:19):
his father, but prior to that, I had another name.
So they'll change it again. When does anyone pay attention
to it? And the statue and the statue? Does anyone
pay attention to the statues except for the pigeons who
come and shit on it? So he said, then I'd
rather do something that he believed in and what he aspired,
(30:40):
what he wanted to do, which was his dream to
have a theater, and theater at that time, professionally in
the theater particularly was at an all time low in Mumbai.
So that's where the idea came in. Is to build
a theater and to maintain the theater with the economics
in favor of the performer. So the entire ticket collection
(31:03):
goes to the performer, does not come to Princy Theater.
It goes directly from book my show which is all
digital now, it goes directly to them this has been
from day one, all right, day one. It used to
be a manual thing, you know, with a booking chart
in the seventies when I opened in seventy eight. Now
of course it's all digital with book my show, and
(31:23):
then in return they make a small contribution towards the
running costs of the theater, which don't really cover the costs.
And during the festival we have a cap limit of
two hundred to be a ticket aiming at students and
we actually have their spoke performing now for which the
contribution that the theater company should make to the theater
(31:45):
during the festival, I was renting rooms for some of
our out of station artists next door King's Hotel and
paying the hotel more for one room and two beds
with the one air conditioner than what they're paid for
the theater with fifty lights and thirty six tons of
recoonditioning and everything. And there's no regret and they don't
(32:09):
argue with me that you're being foolish. The ones who
are doing it appreciated and they grow. That's the why
the theater was built, you know, so to get that
kind of patronage from people who believe in it. It
is difficult.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I had the privilege of walking into your home which
is directly opposite with the theater, and walking in there
like walking into a museum and that legendary room which
I was fascinated by, the chum Jar room.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
When this was in our old home in town and Atlas,
they had a big terrace which was attached to my parents' bedroom,
and on the other side of the flat there was
another small terrace. We always had breakfast together as a family,
and when at one time Dad came home from work
three o'clock, two o'clock whatever, seven point thirty, we all
(32:58):
sat at the table together and we had breakfast. And
there's half the English influence where we had engst those
porridge conflicts, coffee, you know, tie whatever, but you had
a proper breakfast. At seven thirteen, eight fifteen, we wouldn't
leave for school, and eight thirty Dad would leave for
the studios, so we often producers and people would come
to meet him. A dining area, the dying table and
(33:22):
the living room are kind of won so where do
you put these people down. You put them in the
living room and you're here the dining table. You have
to invite them to the dying table. Yeah, so your
family time is gone.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So Mom then said not to help with this, and
then she enclosed that small little terrace. And the way
that our house was that you went to the front
door into a corridor and then you could turn right
and you can go in towards the living room through
a door, or you go down the corridor towards this
newly constructed room. And Mom said, sap kit jumps Vanda.
(34:02):
So that stuck and it became the jump Chure room.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
So now you have the chump Jar room in Jew.
So yeah, I accepted move forward.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So when we moved Jew, I basically I mean I
moved everything from Atlas. There's again a lot of history
that why this painting books, huge library of books. So
I moved everything there. So the jump Here room as well.
It's a little smaller, but a little bit of squeeze here.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
And then we managed to but it's fascinating. And I
remember I walked in.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Then there was this the Dada side Palke Award on
one wall, and then I saw this album and I
saw Bobby written on it, and I remember asking you,
with great reverence, kick, may I look at it and
you like yeah, sure, And I was turning the pages
and I felt like I was touching history. I remember
you looked at me and saying, I wish my family
(34:56):
was as enamored as you are. But what that's what
strikes me about you, and I think that's amazing, Kunal,
is how you are the memory keeper. You're somebody who archives,
who painstakingly, lovingly restores and just keeps everything and everyone
together in so many ways. Does the rest of your
(35:18):
family appreciate that?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, And though it's a different way of thinking, and
it's just a different sense of priorities. I wear, you know,
shallow archemies. You know, should I wear jeans and pants?
You wear jeans pants, But we're both wearing toes. It's
just a different way of looking at things. I don't
think one is superior to the other. I mean I
will turn around and mark the other and say that
(35:40):
you don't value what I'm doing in their turn and say,
but what value are you doing? You know, whereas the
commercial value or whatever? You know what I mean? So
then different levels of priorities.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I've seen awards, I've seen albums, I've seen photographs.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's gold what some of there was? I mean I
say this, but I mean the only awards there of
my parents which have kept. The other Sapalk Award and
the Padmavus and my mother's two awards that she got
for thirty six Chara and one was a Bafter nominal
for that and the other one was the Evening Standard Award.
(36:19):
These were the two biggest awards in England. The thirty
six had a theatrical release in England and she lost
out the Bafter and it went to Maggie Smith. So
my mum wasn't bothered. She said, that's okay, it's like
you know, I mean, being nominated and losing to Maggie
Smith's fine. But those I found and kept and they're
(36:40):
more recent. But the earlier other ones that you know,
my father he never bothered. I don't know where they are.
All the Filmfare Awards, I don't know where they.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Are, probably pretty somewhere.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Knowing they're gone. The Bafter is a different thing. I
think Baft and Oscar they are awards. We never treated them.
My parents never treated us. An award is more of
a recognition you can't win. We don't agree with that.
You can win and always an art you like it.
(37:12):
I don't and both are correct because it's an art voice,
not a race. We can argue about who broke the
tickeer tape, who crossed the line first, and use cameras
and equipment to decide who actually won, but not with
an art form. You don't win an award. You get awarded.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
You get awarded a difference.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Some man, my parents never put any value to it.
When I told him about the Padma Bution Award, for example,
I remember because they they also check with you that
you'd accept it because they don't want to be embarrassed.
So before they make a public announcer announcement, the you know,
the ministry will call me up. They called me up
(37:55):
and they said that we want to confer this award again.
Confur this award to you know Shiji, and I asked Dad.
I said, Dad, they want to give it to you,
and he just he laughed, you're rubbish, they want to
give it to you whatever. For years, FilmFair tried to
give him.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
A said no.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Then it was finally yes g who convinced him because
he had a relationship with yes Gen and Yes She
also was dying to get him to come and see
his studio he never never went, so this was one
way of getting him to the studio because the ceremony was.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
At so Dad agreed to.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
You don't come in and received that award. So I
think that's there. I think that is the one FilmFair
Lady that is hanging around of the house.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
But I was obsessed with it was my favorite film.
I just loved that movie. It just filled me with
so much of joy. I think I've seen it about
eighty plus time. But the kind of work that your
father has done, commercial cinema being one thing, but constantly
pushing promoting cinema. Do you think he's been acknowledged enough
(39:11):
for that or he's largely gone unsung in terms of
his contribution as a producer, somebody who put his MC
behind stories.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Not just as a producer, he also kind of bankrolled
half of Merchant divaries films. That friendship with his smile
Merchant and James Ivories, you know, went on and on
and on forever. Now they started off there most of
us in our industry and room, but I don't even
know who Merchant Ivory is, and they don't how many
oscars they've got and how Jim Ivory got an Oscar
(39:41):
at the age of ninety again, but yeah, we don't
know who he is anyway, so that's one. And then
of course Zoya wanted to see New Daily Times, which
I've never seen, and I discovered that there was a
restored print with the archives, so we'd organized that A
nice woke to Sharma, who was the director, and he
(40:03):
told me that he met Dad in Delhi in a
coffee shop and he said, if this is the story
I want to do, I mean away, if it's time
about a journalist trying to stick to his ideals, and
eared him out a little bit. And then Dad just
turned around to him and said, you have a hundred
rupees in your pocket. He said, yes, said give me
an undred rupees. He took it, put on the table
(40:25):
on the napkin he wrote received undred rupees as fees
for the New Daily Times. That he gave it to him.
He said, I'm on, Oh my god, that was it.
So he would do things like that if he thought
they were good. So a shot methad talent cameramans, I mean,
he pulled our shot Matha out and gave him. There
is a Sharon Gilne to do when nobody would touch
him pretty theirter. It's amazing how many people of all
(40:51):
levels of success have walked that stage. Yes, some of
them have just walked a some of it have started
their careers. There one of them that comes to my mind, Eily,
two of them. I was an open care Yes, he started.
Then you know, dad took him into its up and
then your dad took him in and then that, and
then that became his stepping stone into stardom. Nina. But
(41:15):
I used to make a stand behind the counter because
she's attractive girl. Get people to come together.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I remember the Irish coffee. Yes, the legendary Irish coffee.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Is we do?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
We do? We just serving business that brandy. And because
I refused to have an alcohol license. Yeah, not because
of any moralistic point of view. I drink. I have
no problem with anyone else drinking. But we're in a
residential area and we 's an open cafe, and we're
not the most well behaved people when we so alcohol.
(41:51):
That true, So just out of consideration.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
To the neighbors, a lot of drama, I agree.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, And I just discovered that, you know, Irish coffee,
there is a bit of brandy in it, and it's
a pre made mixture that they keep the counter. There's
no bottle, but I've over heard a couple of times
where and customer would come and say Irish coffee. Coffee come, Irish,
the other coffee come.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I is that a good way to put it?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I said, Okay, now hello.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I want to ask you about a Juba and the
experience of shooting in Russia, because you've got some crazy
stories from that time. And your hotel room that you
describe is tiny.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I mean it's smaller than this booth. Hotel Ukraine. It
was called they call them the Seven Sisters. There's seven
buildings in Moscow built by Stalin and when we were
negotiating the contract we stayed there. Was it a really
interesting experience working with them. It's strange stayed in Hotel Ukraine.
(43:00):
Then we shot in the Altar Yaltas on the Crimea. Yeah,
all right, so that's where the war is going on
and which was became part of Ukraine, which Russia has
regained and taken back. But I think we enjoyed the
Altar shoot more than the Moscow shoot. And then we
also shot in in Fruense, which I think is on
(43:21):
the board of Kirgistan now Kazakistan. We shot the horse
battles there because of horses in the mountains. I negotiated
the contract and the deal with Froze Abaskhan and me.
We entered it together. And then I came back and
I was shooting commercials and I would go up and down.
When I went up, one of the shoots I carried
(43:42):
with me. I think it was something like six hundred
and fifty kilos of dahal.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Six hundred and fifty kilos of dahal.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, as weus to take our own food there. That
took everybody. So we had something like two hundred people
which we'd taken from here, and all the even all
the bit part character acts us all flu club class
and they stayed for the entire duration, even though at
two days work. They were there for eves. All right,
I mean, do you have any wonder why the film
(44:10):
and over budget? So yeah, but then you know, for
the Indian unit, food there is exceedingly bland and boring.
I didn't mind it. You have smoked fish and smoked
hams and things for nice soups, a nice so I
(44:32):
didn't have such a big problem. But I can I
may understand the Indian parent not used to that kind
of food. So yeah, we had took our own kitchen
with us. We took everything with us. And then in
the Alta everybody had a girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yes, I think the Indian unit got a lot of
female attention.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
They're not all had girlfriends. All had a lot of
hearts broken when they left. Not a drama happened the leap.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Tyhill told me about how he was selling his clothes
to people there.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
He would take all his old clothes in a suitcase
and sit there on the beach, open his suitcase like
a dukhan and sell his old tennis racket, his own clothes.
And of course you know vodka and cavia were dot cheap. Wow.
Because this was the end of communism. This is called
but jo Era, So communism is on his day out,
(45:25):
but the full capitalism hadn't come in yet. That's why
I learned about cavia.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And you haven't been back since.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
I haven't been back since. Now Moscow doesn't interest me
so much. But what does interest me, which I'd love
to go to, is the is the steps. He used
to go to Kazakistan, Kyrgistan, uz Pakistan, All these fans.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
All the Istan and also the road trip through Mongolia,
and that he's got a bucket list, right, I'd love
to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
And Japan.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
My fantasy is that I'm going to open a bar
in haw A Juku at some stage of my life
where I'm going to sit outside dressed in black with
my little cat. And then you promised that you would
be the barman if I ever do that. So I'm
going to hold you to that promise.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
I'll cookman was my man as long as I can.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
I'll feed you in sea urchin exactly, and some steaks.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Perhaps I love Japanese food.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, so Japan is waiting for you, mister k Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
My nephews are dying to take me. They keep going
every month.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
You'll fit right in. I can just imagine.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
You in you you will fit right.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
We'll put you in a kimono there and you look
like you know one of the Yahoo.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
But you told me this story, but how your mother.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Was very upset when she found her a pistol that
you brought home.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
And you got a lot of trouble for that.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
She whipped me. She's waiting in the door.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Are ready to procure that man from a friend.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
My mother was a hard core pacifist. She saw a
chicken wing cut at the age of fifteen became a
vegetarian all her life. This happened in England, not here,
and her belief was that she did not need to
take life to live. And her belief in those days
was also is that India was one a place where
(47:22):
you could be very comfortable as a vegetarian, very difficult
in Europe in those days, in the fifties sixty fifties particularly.
And the second is that the leather trade during your
champeles was usually leather made out of carcasses, dead animals.
They weren't butchered for the leather, and that was the
(47:42):
tradition that were the chamas, you know, that's what would happen.
That's how they disposed of dead cattle. So you weren't
actually killing four the leather. Because I remember challenging and saying,
but you're wearing colap with chaples what she explained the
logic weather in practice it actually continued that another debate.
(48:02):
But yeah, and we grew up with pamphlets in the
house of you know what the cost of one Air
Force fighter jet? Could you know, run how many schools.
One tank would create how many hospital beds? All this
kind of endsing. So the thing was a guns to
(48:23):
her has only one purpose, and that was destruction. Correct
A knife? No, no, no, knife. You can carve, all right.
You can gunt your firewood to cocone, you can. It's
a multi purpose. But a gun has only one purpose.
So we didn't grow up with guns, you know, in
the house and toy guns. Even so, I borrowed somebody's
(48:46):
air pistol and I hid it in my cupboard behind
my clothes, and they came home from school. She was
waiting at the door. And we used to ride horses,
so we had also signing there with a horse. You
bring a piece of destruction into my house whips the day.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
But you started out wanting to be an actor and
then became a hugely successful ad filmmaker. To go into
the kind of work that you've done, you will be
here forever. And then we're drawn back into acting.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
You did the film with the where you shot in
and then you were in Puny Path and I remember somebody.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Came over to give you a narration for a role,
and Kurrent was in town and.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
I come over and we were asking you, so how
did it go?
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And you were like, yeah, the narration was good, but
they wanted to shoot here, so I told them shoot
there instead.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
And I'll never forget current's reaction.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
It's like Connal, when they've come to hire an electrician,
you don't tell them about the plumbing.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
They've come to you as an actor.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Why are you telling them how to shoot and where
to shoot?
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I found that hilarious.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
And also the time when you got a call from
some new casting director's assistant and they said, we want
you in this part in a film and you said,
Vishal know you've called me, and because he's a friend
of mine, and you figured out that they were calling
(50:18):
the wrong Kal Kapur.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Do you remember that story?
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yes, I do remember that. I mean this happened a
couple of times when they've cast engagements. I think, you
know there, they've got so many I want to be
actors working as casting assistants for the casting companies and
they just have a list of people and so they
just do a machine gun fire into the dark. They
(50:42):
have no idea who they're calling and who they're asking.
I was asked and they said briefly, and they said,
it's a film with John Abraham and it's a film
about the Naxallites. We want you to be an item song.
I said, oh really, I said yeah. They said yeah,
I say we want you to we want you to
play a tribal chief. And I said, me play a
(51:04):
tribal chief? I said, you have you seen me? Do
know what I look like? I don't look anything like
a tribal chief from Jarcun when I do, which is
what you want me to do? So, I mean I
had missions in my head of you know, nineteen seventies
songs films with going Who How, the junior artist dancers
(51:25):
and the city feather caps right. There was no no
deliberate move to go back to acting singers bling. I
was actually doing the line production in Romania. And then
you know, she just called me up and she said,
don't laugh, but I'm going to ask you something. He said, okay.
She said, I want you to act in the film,
(51:46):
play Amy's father. I laughed, you got a baby. So
she called her a figure. I said, don't miss stupid.
I won't do it for anybody, at least double. She said, okay, done.
So now I had to do it, but I called
it humiliation money.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Humiliation money, that's a good term.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I like that. I'm just so out of it. When
they called me up a pany perth, I said, okay,
do it. And then later on I met them and
I kept sure, and I was what you did, was
you paid for my back surgery? I was on painkillers? Right, Really?
I said, yeah, I had taken a nerve block in
my spine and I was on painkillers and throw out
(52:32):
the shoot. But that's what it did. Paid for my
came back and I went and I did my back.
So now I've got titanium plates and s cruis and
my spine.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
But your children are such special human.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Beings and they take after their father.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Watch y'all.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
It seems like they're the parents, Kiral. They parent you
more than you parent them.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
I don't know children do that. Well, may be it
comes a point where started.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Nobod Zah and the choices that he's made. He may
he's made some unusual choices with regards to his debut film,
the work that he continues.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
To do after.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Well, I think he's me he knows. I mean, they've
been brought up with the factor that nobody's going to
launch them. They're going to have to find their own route.
Very clear. First of all, I didn't think he was
going to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
You didn't know.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
I though. I saw him in a playing school and
I thought it was interesting because most actors don't listen.
They're only waiting for their queue to speak. They're not listening.
And I saw this nine year old boy, and I
could see him listening, you know, And I thought that's
interesting because that maturity in a nine year old and
(53:50):
his school productions. He's really taught him. But no, I
thought he's ski. He worked with me and then with
a couple of mine ex assistance as an ad. He
operated a camera for me on a man that a
shoot and hungary. So I thought he would be a
director and he would be a writer because I thought
(54:12):
he could write and he could direct. Some went on
the line. Suddenly he decided to go and watch Nasil
and rehearse for Arms of the Man. And he went
and he sat and he watched the rehearsals, and then
he came back he said, I want to act. I
want to be an actor. So then he took himself
and he did an immense amount of rehears, huge amount
(54:33):
of training, chose people to hang with, chose people to
speak to listen to. His diction is in the addiction.
He worked really hard on it. My father gave each
of his grandchildren a sizeable kind of present when he
sold the flat and stuck with that money, he took
himself off to England, went to drama school and joined
(54:54):
the National New Theater for a year. And there are
whole lot of other small courses at Pinewood Studio and Yea,
then here Pondicherry, adishat ten language. Like I said, listening
to people working reading, I mean he's read poets like
Harleb and Affairs and the openerss and and the Vedas
(55:18):
in the and Augly he's obsessive.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Will the obsessive gene runs through. I mean, you're obsessive
about things that you like.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, we do wrap basically get tunnel vision. We don't
know when to stop, like our eating.
Speaker 3 (55:34):
And Shida as a production designer, and she's very good.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
The same thing with her. She actually has got herself
on her own admission into Mastix University in Horland to
study business management or something which is completely unrelated. And
she was young and us, says, then take a gamp here,
get some experience travel if you want, or your mamo
(55:58):
is starting a film. She was always very good at
putting things together, not a fashion design and making clothes,
but putting things together, creating a room and creating things,
go work on a set, and that did it for her.
She found that is what I wanted, so she canceled
master it and now being very good and she at
(56:21):
it and then she blames me for making her muzzoo class.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
So you guys are off to London to spend time
with the other side of the family, and you're going
to be there through Christmas and New Years and eating
lots of turkey and goose and goose.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
And goose, so the meals are all planned.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
So goose is a much better meat than turkey, much
better meat. So yeah, we have roast goose, roast potatoes nor.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Wonderful while I've got to have the vegetarian food on Christmas.
Thank you so much for taking time out there.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
I know you're extremely elusive and the fact that you've
agreed to do this means a lot. But before I go,
what I must talk to you about is you proudly
say that you haven't even gone past the ten standard. No,
but your knowledge and your understanding of history or a
historian you can I'm not a historian, but you can
sit down and talk about.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Because again I think the environment starts off in the
environment that I grow and my mother was interested in,
and then particularly the late Mogul and early colonial period.
But it was the lifestyle and people. I still don't
know dates other than eighteen fifty seven. I don't know
what date Uhburg came in, or what date the barber
(57:46):
came in or whatever. When did Alexander come in? It
was about people and their their biographies. So the information
was related to you know, somebody's travel books, their biography,
their letters, that kind of information which we had a
(58:06):
lot of in the house, and my mother was interested
in that. And then Merchandivy they were then chambny girl,
you know, I mean also into that aspect of history.
It's just bill on you know, kind of the environment
that you grew up in and you learn that. So
I never learned, oh god, you know, the Muguls did
this or the Marathas did that, and then they burnt
(58:26):
this down, They burnt that smoonders loud do they live,
you know, what did they do? What was their life like?
You know, this English lady who married a civil servant
in the East India Company and then did a solo
version up the Ganges, all right. And then the difference
is of because she's a woman getting access into various zennas,
(58:50):
and the difference between the Marathas Andena and Matazas and
the mugals in her all right, and the women and
what they wore now they wrote alls and you know,
and their own internal politics and so a lot of
this interested me. So whenever we talk history, I mean,
my first question what was the cultural atmosphere around then?
(59:14):
What was happening then at that time? It's not just
that you know, the Britain, the Allies one World War two,
Wood War was actually happening in London. How did they
send all their children too foster homes away from their
parents in mass t train loads to get them away
(59:34):
from the bombing? You know, what happened in Germany? How
did they level Germany? And what was a life like
for the people who lived there. So these are the
stories that interested me, and from that you get an
idea of history.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Yeah, but that's what they say it's not how you
live with what you remember, how you remember.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
So I think you are the memory keeper and.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Merry Christmas again, and I look forward to you being
back and hearing all about your travels, all about the
food excursions, and sharing some more meals with you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
The Puja Show is produced by Mammoth Media Asia and
Epilogue Entertainment and distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
The executive producer is Jonathan Stricklett.
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