Actor Manoj Bajpayee said that he wanted to ‘transform’ himself into a whole new person after enrolling at Delhi University. He said that he’d never experienced anything like it, coming from a small town in Bihar. Manoj credited DU as being an ‘instigator’ in his life, and said that during his time at the university, he discovered ‘urban behaviour patterns, education, knowledge, diction…’ Chatting with his Killer Soup co-star Konkona Sensharma for Indian Express, Manoj said that he wasn’t fluent in English when he first arrived in Delhi, and that this was a source of great amusement for his fellow students.
But, he said, he had a self-deprecating streak, and would often allow himself to be mocked for his poor English-speaking skills. Many years later, he revealed, one of his old college roommates got in touch with him and said that he felt terrible for what happened. “I’m from Bihar, so our pronunciation was all haywire. DU has played a major part in shaping me,” he said. “I always had this feeling that I’m lacking a lot, coming from a place that isn’t exposed to this world. That sense of urgency was there in my mind that I had to reshape myself very fast, I have to adjust into this society very fast, I have to understand its ways very fast…”
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He continued, “All my roommates would fun of me whenever I used to try and speak in English. So, I started entertaining them with my bad spoken English. I said, ‘If I don’t speak, I’ll never learn. So, let me entertain them’. They used to fall down laughing.” Manoj said that he became friends with an Indian from Nigeria, who didn’t know Hindi, but spoke English. He didn’t judge Manoj’s ‘bad English’, and Manoj was left with no choice but to communicate with him in English. “That suited me,” he said, “That guy really, really helped me.”
Watch Manoj Bajpayee and Konkona Sensharma’s episode of Creator x Creator here
Recalling a phone call he got from an old roommate, Manoj said, “There was this guy whose father worked at the World Bank, in a very high position. He was also my roommate for two years. He used to laugh at my English the most. He used to say, ‘Hey Manoj, come here, let’s talk in English, make me laugh’. He was completely unaware of the film and theatre world.” Manoj said that this old acquaintance got in touch with him a decade and a half after DU, and told him that he was shocked to see that he’d become fluent in English. “I’m feeling like an a**. Your English…” he said.
Manoj said that it took several years to get to where he wanted to be. Manoj and Konkona will soon be seen in the dark comedy thriller series Killer Soup, directed by Abhishek Chaubey. The show will be released on Netflix on January 11. Manoj was last seen in the acclaimed film Joram.
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