Manoj Bajpayee and Shah Rukh Khan started their acting journey together when they were in the same theatre group in Delhi. At the time, both Manoj and Shah Rukh were struggling to make it as actors and were not very comfortable with their finances. In a recent interview, Manoj was asked to recall the time when he and Shah Rukh would share cigarettes during their theatre days.
Recalling the time, Manoj said that not just Shah Rukh, but all the actors would share their cigarettes. He shared with Galatta India, “When you are in a theatre group, and someone is smoking, they would never smoke alone. No one would smoke one cigarette all by themselves because no one could afford it. So if anyone had one cigarette, they had to share it with four people.”
He added, “Even if he had the money to buy a pack of cigarette, or buy one cigarette, he could not afford to have it alone because others have shared it with him in the past and now it is his turn to share it.” Manoj said that while he stayed in Barry John’s theatre group for a few years, Shah Rukh stayed in it for a short while before moving to Mumbai and starting his Bollywood career. Manoj shared that he moved to the city of dreams only after he worked in Shekhar’s Kapur’s Bandit Queen.
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In an earlier interview with Galatta Plus, Manoj Bajpayee had said that his first visit to a nightclub in Delhi was with Shah Rukh Khan. He said, “Shah Rukh was with Barry, I was with Barry, at the same time. So many friends who were there that night, I am still in touch with them, still very good friends. Shah Rukh’s life has become different from us. I still remember looking for shoes to get into the discotheque, because I was in chappals.” Manoj described the club as “dark and dingy” and added, “It was in Delhi, Maurya. Ghungroo was the name of the discotheque, if I remember correctly. Yes, Shah Rukh and Benny and Rama, these were the people who took me. That was the first time I experienced a discotheque.”
Many years later, Manoj appeared in a cameo in Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Veer Zaara.
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