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Manoj Bajpayee, who is often regarded as among the finest Indian actors of his generation, recalled the hardships that he experienced when he moved from Bihar to New Delhi. with just Rs 120 in his pocket and worked for 18 hours a day. The Gangs Of Wasseypur star, in a recent interview, shared how coming from Bihar, language was his biggest challenge. Talking to Sushant Sinha on YouTube, Manoj said, “When I was in Delhi, every day used to be a new challenge. It varied from rent, monthly expenses, bus fare, food and to make sure to attend theatre every day and learn the craft. This was my life for 10 years.”
“I travelled from Bihar to Delhi by train, and my father had handed me Rs 120. That’s all I had. I had a friend, whose brother was studying in Hansraj college. I came to Delhi with him,” he said. Manoj hails from the village of Bettiah in Bihar, and he said that he travelled for over two days just to reach Patna, and then travelled to Delhi from there.
“We were young, so we had the ability to bear the physical exhaustion, but there wasn’t enough maturity. It was very hard to keep up mental sanity with the kind of challenges we went through every day. I had to learn Hindi, English. There was this professor in drama school, she came and said, ‘First fix his language and then we will do the rehearsals’, that came as a shock to me,” said The Family Man actor.
“It was also important to learn English, not as a language but skill,” he added. Manoj, recalled the time when he used to have no money after buying a bus pass. “I survived with the help of my friends, they bought me food. Back in the room, we were five of us, so they used to cook food, some or the other person used to cover for me. I just had a kurta, leather slippers, and a pair of jeans. This was all I had. I kept all of this in a tin box, which I still have with me. Everything I had used to fit in that tin box.”
Manoj worked 18 hours a day and used to walk miles to reach his acting school when had no money for bus fare. All these struggles took a toll on the actor, pushing him into depression and even having fleeting suicidal thoughts after he was rejected admission from the National School of Drama thrice.
Talking to ANI, he said, “I went into such a depression where I didn’t know how to face the near and dear ones. And when you only have one plan you feel as if all doors have been closed. It was during this time that I had a passing suicidal thought that people made headlines out of but that wasn’t the case, it was just a passing that people experience while depressed.”
The actor ultimately joined a theatre group in Mandi house. He applied to the NSD for the fourth time; this time they accepted him but as a teacher.
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