2024-06-01 12:41:13
Manoj Bajpayee is a highly respected actor in Indian movies, known for his powerful performances. He was born in a small village in Bihar, India, and started his journey with a strong dream. Even though he faced rejection from drama schools at first, he kept working on his skills and got his first role in 1994. Since then, he has become famous for playing a wide range of characters, from criminals and police officers to reporters and politicians.He has won many awards, including three National Film Awards and several others, for his outstanding work. Manoj Bajpayee isn’t just an actor; he’s an artist who brings characters to life, leaving a lasting impact on audiences and establishing himself as one of India’s top actors.
Manoj Bajpayee, considered one of the best Indian actors of his generation, remembered the difficulties he faced when he moved from Bihar to New Delhi with only Rs 120. He worked 18 hours a day. In a recent interview, he shared that his biggest challenge was the language barrier. Speaking 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.”
He added,“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,” Manoj, who comes from the village of Bettiah in Bihar, shared that he traveled for over two days to reach Patna and then continued his journey 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,” he mentioned.
He further added, “It was also important to learn English, not as a language but skill.”
Manoj recalled the time when, after buying a bus pass, he had no money left, “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 for 18 hours each day and walked miles to reach his acting school when he couldn’t afford bus fare. These challenges weighed heavily on the actor, leading him into depression and even fleeting thoughts of suicide after being rejected admission from the National School of Drama three times.
In an interview with 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 eventually joined a theater group in Mandi House. He applied to the NSD for the fourth time, and this time they accepted him, but as a teacher.