‘The sky won’t fall if you don’t have a cellphone’

Around him, everybody was buying cellphones, but Kapoor found the device cumbersome, distracting and time-consuming. One of the powerful storytellers of the country — he has created plays such as Hamlet-The Clown Prince and Nothing Like Lear, written and directed the film Raghu Romeo (2004) and acted in Monsoon Wedding (2001) and Kapoor and Sons (2016), among others — Kapoor decided he did not need a cellphone.

After plays, he meets audience members who give him their reviews in person. “I am glad to be free of the need for a mobile phone,” he says. In a conversation over landline from his home in Delhi, Kapoor shares his ways of staying in touch without cellphones:

When was the last time somebody asked for your number?

Yesterday and the day before and almost every day before that. I gave them my email ID. That’s how it works for me. I give people my landline number. There is an answering machine where they can leave a message and the other option was emailing me. I have a laptop that I carry with me, not if I’m going to a cafe or a cinema but most places. I check my email in the morning and at night, at least twice a day, and reply to these diligently. People are more scared of what will happen if they are not constantly connected. Nothing will happen. The sky won’t fall down.

What puts you off the most about cellphones?

If one is engaged with anything, whether it is reading a book, walking on the beach or spending time with a partner, one must be present in the moment fully. With phones, one is always somewhere else. Your mind is, anyway, a devious instrument, a monkey, which will take you all over the place, but with the mobile phone, there is no chance of avoiding distractions.

Cellphones are also the means of staying updated on events around the world. Do you feel you miss out on the news?

A phone can be a great source of knowledge but, unfortunately, we don’t use it like that. I check the news on my laptop, while checking my mail. I still read newspapers. Twenty years ago, we did not know of an event immediately. I feel no compulsion to know what happened in a certain part of the world in the last five minutes. I do not feel the need to comment on everything either. Even 15 years ago, we didn’t come apart because we didn’t upload our opinions on everything.

Have you never felt the pressure to fit in?

The need for people’s approval is natural and starts when we are very young and seek our parent’s approval— a look from our father or your mother that says that we have done something right. We get wired for that and are always longing for it. Since I became conscious of this, I have been trying to fight it. There are some people who are important in my life, whose kind words I want for a film or some other work. I am aware of this need but, beyond that, I am not concerned about doing the conventional thing. I do something if it really compels me. Even the roles that I have taken up weren’t motivated by money or box office success. My theatre has been with clowns. I am motivated by ideas that drive me mad and I feel that it has to be said.

Do your children use cell phones? Are you worried about the younger generation’s addiction to cell phones?

My children have been using phones since they were 12. We don’t have rules but there was an understanding that it was good behaviour to not have phones when we are eating together at the table. I am not worried about the younger generation because they are smart and will soon realise that it is not we who are consuming data but it is data that is consuming us. If we are not on Instagram, we won’t care about reels or buy things we don’t need.

I don’t see children growing up to be like the senior actor I saw in 2005-06, who had a small role as a judge in a film I was doing. He stayed on the phone. When the director called action, he put his hand down with the phone still on, and did his lines. When the director said cut, the hand came back to his ear and he said, “Haan, toh main keh raha tha…”