Pankaj Kapur Shares Never-Heard-Before Story Of 10-Year-Old Shah Rukh Khan
Pankaj Kapur shared a heart-warming anecdote related to Shah Rukh Khan.
If you do the hard yards and put in the grind, success will be yours sooner rather than later. No one symbolises this saying more than Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. The stalwart of Indian cinema, who started off as a theatre actor, is now one of the most-followed stars worldwide, and his global stardom is second to none. You would be shocked to know that SRK once distributed samosas during his theatre days. Yes, you read that right.
Veteran actor Pankaj Kapur, who is the father of Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor, recently took a trip down memory lane, sharing an anecdote involving a young Shah Rukh Khan. Recalling the Badshah of Bollywood's early days as a student at the National School of Drama (NSD), Pankaj shared that the Bollywood superstar was always considerate towards others, and he once played a memorable role in the lives of aspiring actors backstage.
Pankaj recently spoke about a reunion with his former classmates on Kindle Cast's YouTube channel. He shared that during the gathering, everyone recalled the memories from their student days, including stories from legendary theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi's productions staged at Purana Qila. He recalled that Alkazi was at that time simultaneously directing three major productions – Razia Sultan, Tughlaq and Andha Yug.
The actor then remembered a particular scene from Razia Sultan in which hungry citizens gathered before the ruler. The seasoned performer then spoke about how Alkazi didn't miss a beat, and how he noticed that some actors were altering the scene's staging and promptly reprimanded them.
It is worth noting that the scene required the soldiers to throw naans into the crowd. "We made a team with friends. They would throw the naans towards us, we would catch them, and during the interval we would buy samosas, take everything backstage and enjoy naan, samosa and tea together," said Pankaj Kapur.
It was then that the topic of SRK came up and Pankaj shared how the King was the one supplying samosas. "Those samosas were supplied to us by none other than Shah Rukh Khan. He was a 10-year-old boy at the time. His father used to run the canteen there."
Earlier, in a 2016 interview with the Times of India, Shah Rukh Khan had revealed that his father ran a canteen at NSD.
"I wasn't a part of the National School of Drama, but I used to work with a lot of actors who were from there. Manoj (Bajpayee) wasn't from there either, but he and I worked with actors like Raghuvir Yadav and others who were a part of NSD. They used to help with our syntax and enunciation when we were doing theatre in Delhi. I learnt a lot from them. My father used to run the canteen at NSD, which is how I got to know all the amazing actors from there," he said.
Speaking of SRK, he will next be seen in Siddharth Anand's 'King', also co-starring Suhana Khan and Abhishek Bachchan. The film is set to release in theatres on December 24, 2026.
