Varun Dhawan recalls living in a one-bedroom flat in the ’90s, says ‘this wasn’t poverty’: ‘I was in a fairytale, would travel in autos’

Varun Dhawan, whose latest release Baby John is out in theatres, recently reflected on his humble beginnings as he claimed that he grew up in a one-bedroom flat. Varun shared that despite having a middle-class upbringing, his elder brother, Rohit Dhawan, and his parents— filmmaker David Dhawan and Karuna Dhawan—shielded him so well that he never felt the lack of anything. He also explained that although his father was a successful filmmaker in the 1990s, he didn’t earn massive amounts of money because salaries were relatively modest during that era.

Speaking to Shubhankar Mishra on his YouTube channel, Varun was asked if he ever faced poverty since he lived in a relatively smaller house and the actor said, “Voh gareebi nahi hoti hai (That is not poverty).” Varun shared, “My father has risen in life…he came from Kanpur to Mumbai. We used to live in one bedroom flat but that wasn’t poverty because the way my parents bought me up…I was in a fairytale. My elder brother protected me so much when I was a child I didn’t even understand things. I would go around in an auto and I would think of myself as a king. I have traveled in autos till the age of 15.”

Varun called his time living with his family in the one-bedroom flat the best period of his life. He said, “Me and my brother have shared one room for 7-8 years and it was the best time of my life. We used sleep on the same bed and I would told my brother’s hand and sleep.”

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When asked how his family could have lived a middle-class life despite David Dhawan delivering so many hit films during the 1990s, Varun explained, “A producer’s life is very different from a director’s life. My father was a director and during that time, when he was rising in his career in the 1990s, the salaries weren’t that high because he was providing a service. He wasn’t a producer. He never got into production because he found that very manipulative and stressful. When I was born in 1987, that was the first time my father bought a car.”

Varun’s latest film, Baby John, hit theatres on Wednesday. However, the film has received an underwhelming response from critics. It is a remake of Atlee’s Tamil film Theri.