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I was told I was different. I walked differently. I ran differently. I spoke differently.
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I was told I wasn't able to be an achieving man.
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>> Karant Johar is an Indian filmmaker, producer and television personality.
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>> He's launched the careers of several successful actors and filmmakers under his company Dharma Productions.
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When Karanor was a young man, what did he dream to be? I wanted to belong.
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I wanted to be part of the football team.
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I wanted to play cricket with the boys.
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But nobody chose me because I wasn't good enough. Not man enough.
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>> How has your feeling around the word man and masculinity changed from those early days of being told you were not man enough?
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>> Today I walk this way and they're like walk like a man. I'm like no.
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I'm walking like myself and I love myself.
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I've never ever pretended to be somebody I wasn't.
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>> This moment that you have where you start to feel some confidence or I want to be a public figure. How do you pursue that?
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Charuk took me aside and said, "I want you to direct a film and I'll do it."
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Then he called my dad and he was like, "Look, we should make a movie together and your son will direct a film.
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I'm telling you, he'll make a really good filmmaker."
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>> There was a destiny that was calling you that way.
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What was the hardest moment up until then?
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>> The toughest moment at that time was just me watching my father fail.
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The number one health and wellness podcast, J Shetty.
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>> J Shetty, the one, the only J Shetty.
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Karan Joho, welcome to OnPurpose India.
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Our first ever recording in India is with someone that had such a big impact on my life even since before I met you through your work, your films, your storytelling.
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And I'm so grateful to call you a friend.
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So grateful that you've taken time out today.
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And I've loved every minute we've spent offline and I'm so glad we get to record online today.
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So thank you so much for doing this. >> Thank you, Jay.
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Thank you for inviting me. This is truly wonderful. >> Yeah.
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So, so happy to have you here.
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And I remember the first time we connected, I think I got a DM message from you. >> Yeah.
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>> Where you'd just ordered my book, Think Like a Monk. >> Yes.
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>> And I was so grateful and surprised and shocked because, as I said, I'd been watching your films ever since I was a young boy.
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>> And I thought, wow, I can't believe that Karen Jorah is buying my book.
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It was really one of those like star struck moments.
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And I wanted to start off by asking you when Karanjor was a young man, even younger than a young man, a little boy, what did he dream to be? Who did he want to be?
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>> When I go back to my my childhood, what did I dream of being or what did I want to be?
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The first thing I wanted to is just be. I wanted to belong.
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That's the first thing I want to do.
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I just felt very different from all the other boys my age, all the other kids my age.
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I think I was just in those days back in the 80s I didn't know how to describe my headsp space because I didn't understand what I was. I felt I was different.
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I felt I was different from the others and I wasn't able to kind of articulate it to myself and those were not days that you know we could get any kind of counseling any kind of you know visit to somebody who could guide you help you nurture you in that way.
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Uh even your parents were giving you all the love like I was the only child so I got a lot of love but I knew I was very different.
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I was told I was you know more effeminite that I should be. I walked differently. I ran differently. I spoke differently.
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My choices in life, my hobbies in life were different.
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I like to like watch like a lot of Hindi movies and consume that.
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A lot of kids in my my neighborhood.
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I we grew up in a in an elite neighborhood called Malaba.
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And like nobody really watched Hindi cinema at that time, Indian cinema.
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I was watching like all those movies and dancing to those songs in my room.
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And boys and girls my age were like listening to their parents' favorites like Abba or they were getting to like Wham, George Michael Madonna.
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It was a breakthrough of like you know western pop artists and you know I was not really getting into I was listening to Lat Mangeshkar and Keshwar Kumar and Asha Bosley and Mohamad Rafi and everything about me was different.
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So whenever I went down you know we lived in like apartment blocks and when you went down it was the thing that all the kids the apartment block would come down and play in the evenings and I wanted to belong.
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I wanted to be part of the football team.
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I wanted to play cricket with the boys.
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But nobody chose me because I wasn't good enough.
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You know, I wasn't sporty enough.
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I was not boy enough or man enough.
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So when you ask me what I wanted to be, the first thing at that age is I wanted to belong.
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My dreams Jay came much later.
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>> You know, they came much much later.
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The very first part of my formative years, my teenage years was just to belong.
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And no one told me then that you don't have to.
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You can be your own person.
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that guidance, that nurturing, that philosophy of life wasn't given to me at that point of time.
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Like my own kids, for example, I I visit my school counselors and they're really helping me, you know, because we are a modern family. I'm a single parent.
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I have to guide them, make them understand our situation is very different from the other families.
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But I have that guidance at that point of time in life. I didn't have.
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So my dreams came much later.
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And I I remember the particular moment when my mother sat me down and I was 12 because I was going through a really rough time.
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I wanted to change schools.
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I wanted to because I I felt I was being ragged in and around.
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And I still went back to the same school. I didn't change school.
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And she told me, she says, "Look, I want you to be an achiever no matter what you do.
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I want you to be good at something.
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Just hold on to what you think you're good at because I feel like you're not really really nurturing, you know, what you're good at."
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you know, what you're good at." And I was good at like elecution and debate and drama and uh that's the first time I I took my mom's advice and I walked into the interact club and I got very first year you know I started representing my school at debates and executions and there the confidence started building so
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it was something that happened organically you know I think my chat with my mother was very defining and I don't think she realizes how defining that chat was to me it made such a big impact and then there was that moment Jay when I was on stage and it was my last year at school we had those is we
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had houses right you were red house yellow house blue or green I was red house and I was so popular because of my I was very good at English and Hindi and debate and drama eleution and I gave my last speech so to say you know and everybody knew I was up for the gold medal and you know and at that point of
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time I looked at like the 200 students staring at me and I was like I think I'm going to be famous I just had that thought in my head uh it's not something that I can explain why I had it I just felt it so at that point of time I was like okay I think I want to be a public figure I don't know thought capacity. I
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I didn't know I was going to land up making movies.
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I just felt the aura and energy of that room.
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And and it for me it was a big deal because I never thought I would ever ever be anyone because I was told I was different and I wasn't able to be an achieving man.
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wasn't able to be an achieving man. I was told that several times like look do I I was even told at times like are your parents proud of you because look at how you are like there were things like that said to you and you have to find your own journey your own path in life and at
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that point of time as I said that I didn't have the help I had to do it on my own >> thank you so much for sharing that because I think a lot of people listening right now they they know the current joy of today but many may not know that time and I think you spoke about this really important difference between fitting in and belonging Yeah. >> And I think a lot of us when we're
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>> And I think a lot of us when we're young, we think we have to fit in. >> Yeah.
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>> And then when you grow older, you realize you just have to be and belong and first belong to yourself.
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But like you said that as a kid, you don't have the skills, you don't have the tools, you don't have the language, you don't have the vocabulary.
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When you're going through that before you have this defining conversation with your mother, what would you turn to?
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Did you find yourself did you process through crying?
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Did you process through talking to someone else?
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How would you even deal with those emotions?
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I I lived vicariously through cinema, through Hindi movies, through vintage Raj Kapoor, through Yash Chopra, through Gurudat.
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I was maybe an old soul because I was so attracted to the most soulful cinema of that time.
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It was all Hindi cinema at that time.
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So I was watching Pafa and Kagur. I was watching Bimalroy.
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I was watching like literally Gurudat and enjoying like that level of cinema at a very young age.
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And I feel like cinema was my like release, my in some way my safe space.
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I felt every time I watched movies, it made me go into that world and I was so absorbed by that world that I didn't need to look inward cuz I was already in another world.
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>> Um, and it really gave me wings to fly.
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I never resorted to self-pity or crying or sulking or weeping and feeling terrible for myself. I didn't do any of that.
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I just was so absorbed with cinema and cinema music.
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I remember there was a film called Sumam that released when I was 8 years old.
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Um there was a song Duffly Val and I was obsessed with that song.
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It had a veteran actors in it Rishi Kapoor and Jay Praha and it was directed by a veteran caves panat and I had seen that movie and I'd gone crazy and I went to see that film multiple times.
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Um and nobody in the neighborhood came with me.
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came with me. So I would take like our house help with us to go and you know see the movie because even my parents said like we can't keep watching the same film because I would watch that film and then I would come back and I would play those songs on my audio cassette you know we used to have like cassettes in those days you know and I
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would dance I would dance on my own and somehow my parents thought that was absolutely okay like my dad would encourage me to dance not realizing that actually I'm doing something unusual for a boy dancing to all the female steps you know I was doing something unusual, but he would encourage me and he didn't realize then, but he was a liberal father. He was a progressive father. He
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He was a progressive father.
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He never said like, "Walk like a man, speak like a man."
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He never said any of that to me.
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He loved me like unabashedly.
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And like he thought I was great even when I was like large and beyond plus-size.
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He said, "You have some puppy fat.
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You lose it and you're like the most handsome boy in the world."
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Like he made me feel so special.
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As I said, going back to your question that I resorted to Hindi cinema for for my to self-protect.
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>> I can vouch for your love for classical music and movies because when I came to your home, you bought my wife and I the caravan uh music thing that my mom has now stolen because she it's Yeah, she loves it. I'm happy.
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She absolutely loves I have one in the car right now.
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Like I listen to it every day.
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It's my soothing like Hindi cinema music of that of the Y is like really my like go-to at any point of any juncture in my life. >> No, it's incredible.
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Now, this moment that you have where you start to feel some confidence or I want to be a public figure or there's this seed that's planted how do you pursue that?
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How do you not get scared by it?
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I think a lot of people when they have this inner calling, they hear it in a voice.
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They can think, "Oh, but no, I can't do that. It's not for me.
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You know, I've been laughed at.
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Maybe I got lucky but you pursued it.
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What was the first initial step that you took towards that inner calling in and voice?
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>> I actually didn't do anything.
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It just life just unfolded when I went into college.
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I actually went to a public speaking academy because I wanted to kind of nurture that part because I knew I was good at that.
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I wanted to get better at it.
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And it was the head of that public speaking academy.
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He actually told me that I I wouldn't encourage it today but that time it made sense to me.
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today in in the world of awareness.
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I think he was actually inappropriate because he said that your voice sounds very girlish and you should bring baritone in your voice and let me help you like get that baritone because the world will be tough on you.
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And I think he meant really well.
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think he meant really well. So he gave me these voice exercises and I felt like my entire voice texture changed because I I feel like three years I went to him every single day >> to learn with him and his wife taught me like how to get baritone in my voice to sound more like a man and I used to tell
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my parents I'm going to computer class you know because I didn't know how else to pay for that course cuz I had to pay cuz they had to give me the money but I couldn't tell them I'm going actually to sound like a man and 3 years later the computer arrived in my dad's office and he was like you've learned it for 3 years, you know what to do. And I hadn't
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And I hadn't done a single day of computer lesson in my entire life.
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So I had no idea what to do with that computer.
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So he was like, one minute, but you've gone to computer class for 3 years.
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What have they been teaching you?
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And I was like, uh, I had no explanation cuz I was staring that computer like it was an alien.
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I had no idea what to do with it, but I did get some baritone in my voice.
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Subsequently I I did about a theater and uh I did some fashion choreography.
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some fashion choreography. I did a lot of I dabbled in a lot of creative aspects and that's when at one juncture I got best friends with Yash Chopropra veteran filmmaker legendary filmmaker his son Adita and he and I got really close and we knew each other as kids but
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he said why don't you assist me on this first film of mine called Dilvali and I was like no I want to go to France cuz I used to speak French fluently and I wanted to go and like study it further my dad was like saying that we have a tiny export business if you learn French it'll help the business. We made movie
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We made movie my father made movies but very unsuccessful ones.
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So we used to have a small export import business of garments and handiccrafts and he said our main client is in France.
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So if you learn the language so I had learned the language so I wanted to pursue it and go to Paris.
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Adi as in Chopra turned around and said why are you running away from your calling?
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You are meant to be on a film set.
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He says you have everything that that a Hindi Hindi films or other cinema require. You're overdramatic. You're melodramatic. You can be funny.
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you love song and dance like you're made for the movies like why are you running away from it?
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I was like who's going to watch anything I'm going to do or make?
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He was like just get onto that set.
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So I asked my dad and he gave me permission and he didn't want me to do this.
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He was very against because he had faced a lot of failure in the business. My mom was very worried.
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She just wanted me to get a salaried job.
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She was like I need you to have a salary.
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I need for you to g get like a remuneration every month because your dad has lost a lot of money and I'm very afraid for your future.
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I was like look I really want to do this.
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Give me a year of my life.
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If I manage to kind of make any impression in the movie business then maybe this is going to happen.
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going to happen. That's where I met Shah Ruk and that's where I knew Kajill from before but I got to know her better and one year on that film set that film went on to be a massive blockbuster a legendary film even today defining love story and I was on that set Adi allowed
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me access to every meeting every discussion everything it's because he's my mentor my guide my philosopher everything and Shah Ruk took it further he actually took me aside and said I want you to direct a film and I'll do it and And I thought he was just being kind
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and polite and I'm like why is he Shah Ru Khan why is he asking me like what do I you know then he called my dad and he was like look we should make a movie together and your son will direct a film I'm telling you he'll make a really good filmmaker so I mean I'm here because of Adi and Shahuk they are the two pillars
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that actually moved my destiny path so when you ask me like what was that I didn't do anything things just happened and I'm I feel like Beyonce like destiny's child like I really believe the destiny was carved out and I just walked the path and I made my first film. That's where I saw the ark lights.
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That's where I saw the ark lights.
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I saw the red carpets roll out and it was an instant blockbuster.
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And I suddenly felt like all the tough times in my childhood, my growing years where I was felt like I didn't belong, suddenly I felt my work belonged.
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>> And because my work belonged, my identity became my work.
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>> Um, and it seemed like some kind of divine intervention and so much validation all at the same time.
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validation all at the same time. like everything that I ever see and wanted and desired and it was almost a dream you know it felt like a dream in 1998 when my film released I felt like is this really happening to me to us as a family it's not what I ever envaged for myself it's not something that I ever
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expected it's not something my parents expected it was like someone really answered a prayer you know but life is push and pull right because you give you get and so some things that happened subsequently also I was also grabbed of something but at that moment it felt like this is the best thing to happen to anyone. >> Yeah. And that is an iconic legendary >> Yeah.
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And that is an iconic legendary movie that so I saw that when I was 11 years old in 98 me while I while I sit right in front of you but I will allow you that.
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>> I was just saying how like how early you've been in my life or your storytelling has been in my life and just >> how how formative it was and I still probably watch that movie every year.
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Like I don't think you can go a year without seeing it.
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But I want to roll back a little bit.
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back a little bit. Were they still like carry on with your French and let's focus on the business or >> my mother didn't talk to me for a for a month >> if someone feels upset or sometimes if you feel you've upset at someone how do you transform >> I apologize firstly there's nothing wrong in saying sorry you know there's
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nothing wrong in reaching someone's residence and saying look I was insensitive and I apologize I did you wrong >> when I told them I wanted to be a monk they weren't the happiest it's not the best news to get as parents but >> my request is always to parents please know that your child has to be loved no matter what. >> Walk me through. You just said now that >> Walk me through.
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You just said now that it was at that moment that all those tough moments, all those difficult moments really almost felt like they made sense.
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There was a destiny that was calling you that way.
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What was the hardest moment up until then?
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What was the most difficult moment that you'd experienced?
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>> Was there a memory that you have or >> Yeah, it was there was so many.
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It was actually the toughest moment at that time right prior to that was just me watching my father fail. It was really tough.
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Uh the film business uh like most businesses but the film business I'll tell you why is particularly can be sometimes hard because your success and failure are very known.
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Uh you know when you have a business J like it doesn't do well.
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Not everybody knows like if any ex person starts a a shop a business a startup doesn't do well unless it's a listed company you don't really know what's going on with anybody's business.
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But with a film you know its success you know it's failure.
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the success is celebrated and the failure is discussed and analyzed all the time.
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and analyzed all the time. So when my father actually produced his very first film in 1980 that did really well and then the four films subsequently all failed and we had tough financial times those days producers were there were no studios there was no funding from studios there was no corporate funding
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there was no bank funding it was like those old-fashioned producers sold homes sold jewelry sold stuff and all that happened to us my mom had to sell her maternal house there was jewelry sold my father had to sell the only piece of land he owned all because we gave some backto-back disasters at the box office. So just watching them fail and today
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So just watching them fail and today when there's this whole chatter about nepotism specifically surrounding me, I laugh in my head.
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I'm like my father would have had the biggest laugh because he was like we weren't even on the radar as the most influential production house.
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We had failed, we had stumbled, we had fallen and we were still rising because my father was a good man and loved by the business.
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loved by the business. He loved he was very loved by the movie fraternity but he was not he was not a success story and I saw and to watch your own parent go through that on a daily basis is not easy to watch your mom like cry when my dad's not watching is not easy because I was watching both at a distance cuz they
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try to keep me away shelter me but every day I saw sadness in the house and I was yet given so much love and so much joy yet everything they had they would give me like whether it was holiday or it was like a night out or it was a movie and I everything that I ever wanted like was I was never denied anything. It's because
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It's because whatever they could have it was for me. It was all for me.
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So I saw the blend of Kushi and happiness and sadness all at once at all at times.
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So the toughest times were watching all this but then you knew that there was a silver lining coming and the film Kuchai was that silver lining. >> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. when they saw you uh Yeshua Praj and Adi and start working with them were they still like carry on with your French and let's focus on the business or >> my mother didn't talk to me for a for a month uh when I decided to do this she was very unhappy because as I said she
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saw my father fail and she was like this is not the profession to be in you don't have the the wherewithal you don't have the emotional tools you don't have the personality for this business you won't you're too soft you won't be able do and my dad was pragmatic and he was also emotional. He was like okay you're
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emotional. He was like okay you're asking for a year take a year but assure me after that year you will do what what you think is right that is more stable like please don't pursue something if you feel it's it's not working out because don't do what I did because I've I've stretched myself in the business and I haven't achieved success and I
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don't want that for you but then my mom came around because Adi came and explained to my mom that look this is going to be great for him and you know then eventually she's my mom so she came around but a year later things really started changing because when the film released Then Shah Ruk spoke to me and then opportunities you know were seeming like they were coming my way. I still
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I still remember when my movie was being made till the very last day before I went on to set my mom actually took me aside at home and said look you don't have to do this.
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Are you doing this because everybody else is telling you to do it or you really want to do it?
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Do you really think you're good enough?
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And I was like I don't know.
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I'll have to get onto that film set.
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And I was like mom like that's not really a vote of confidence.
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like a day prior to me filming Kucha.
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She said, "You can still back out." >> Wow.
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>> You can still like stop.
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She's saying, "Do you even know what to do with the camera?"
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And I was like, she's saying, "Because we we're not creative people.
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How have you got this bug?
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Why do you want to do this?
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Are you sure you are good at it?"
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And I sat back and I actually thought about it that entire night before I went on to film.
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I was like, "Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?
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Is this really meant for me?
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Should I be making movies at all?"
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But then I was like, you know what?
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Now I can't do anything about it.
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Shah Rukh Khan's reporting on set at 9:00 a. m. in the morning.
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I better be on that set and try and give it my best.
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>> What do you think Adi saw in you? >> I have no idea. I asked him even now. Really?
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>> I had no idea what he saw in me.
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>> He's like, I just knew you were.
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He says he says you you were so passionate about cinema, but you were subduing it and suppressing it because of your circumstance.
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And um he was I just knew it. He just knew it.
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He's the reason I I sit here across you today.
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And then Shah Ruk, I have no idea.
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Even Shah Ruk says the same thing.
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I don't think they have a valid explanation.
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I think they just they just felt it.
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It was an in which is why I think instincts are are superpowers.
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When we don't listen to them, we're actually failing that superpower. It's all of us have it. We're all super people.
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Like we all have superpowers. We don't act on it. We intellectualize it. We give it circumstance. We give it logic.
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We give it like overinking.
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But actually our first instinct is always bang on.
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And their first instinct was this kid knows what he's going to do. So they acted on it.
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Fortunately for me, but they have no rational explanation for why they asked me to do what I what I do today.
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>> Walk me through an example of when you've followed your instinct and it's worked.
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I guess you've given some examples already, but an example of when you have ignored it or when you suppressed it.
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suppressed it. Every time I've met a person and asked him to direct a film for me, I've met and some of the biggest filmmakers um you know who've come off from our studio Dharma Productions have been my first instinct whether it's Ayan Mukharji, Shakun Batra, Shashankan
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so many I can measure they ally making Brahmati he's he's a big filmmaker he came met me assisted me I told him you should direct a film he makes his first film called wake up he and several others have been a result of my first instinct And those have people a lot of people said, "Well, why? What What have they done?
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Have they even done anything before?
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Why are you asking them to direct a whole feature film?" And I'm like, I felt it.
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And yet there are sometimes when I'm producing a film and everything about it seems right.
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It's all falling into place, but something's telling me that there's something wrong, but I haven't acted on it because I feel it's all looking too good to be true. >> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. You know I remember there was a film it was an adaptation of a Mani Ratnam film a very beautiful film and it was film called Okanu and Aditya and Shadha had just done a blockbuster called Ashiki and they had already agreed to do the film and the film came to me as a project ready with a great
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remake shad was a wonderful director wonderful actors and yet in my heart I had actually felt that should this film be remade because it's so much in the moment can that moment be recaptured and that movie and as special as all my movies are to me and both of them were
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incredible in the film Adityas Dashad made a lovely film but somehow I think that magic of the original we couldn't recapture and it was nobody's fault it was nobody's fault but my instinct told me I shouldn't do it and I did it and that's when I realized that that I should listen to my instinct and yet
24:37
after that I haven't and I've gone wrong you know I've gone because somehow we do repeat our our mistakes we make them again and again no matter how you say mistakes and failings are learnings not really you know we say it do we really follow we'll make it again. Life is till
24:49
Life is till your dying day you're going to make what you call errors or mistakes or misjudgments and there's nothing you can do about that.
24:57
No amount of spirituality, philosophy, books, sessions of like spiritual learnings can ever make you stop making those mistakes.
25:06
Those mistakes also define us.
25:08
Those wounds and scars are also such a huge part of us.
25:10
Every failure of mine is as special to me as every success.
25:15
It's just the way I look at it.
25:15
How did you train yourself to look at it that way or have you always been that way?
25:21
>> I in fact believe extreme failure gives me relief because I feel ah it failed. I know it failed.
25:28
I have to analyze why but it's failed.
25:30
It's a it's a it's a result because success is so stressful.
25:36
Nothing fails like success because you have to follow success with more success and then with more success.
25:40
Failure is a great place to sometimes be for you to reflect, analyze, take some time off and also it's a verdict. It's a failure.
25:49
What I can't bear J is is average. >> I hate average. I hate mediocre. I hate average. I hate above average. Average average.
25:57
AVG was neither here nor there.
26:00
I hate that space because I don't know how much of it is tilting towards success and how much towards failure.
26:05
And I can't bear that verdict.
26:05
I'd rather a very big massive failure than an average grosser.
26:10
I can't bear those cuz those give me like nightmares about what it could have been >> or what I could have done and I didn't do.
26:18
Whereas failure is like ah I went totally wrong. This is a great result.
26:21
Failure gives me a lot of relief.
26:24
Success extreme success stresses me out.
26:26
When I give a big blockbuster I'm like oh now they'll expect a bigger one the next time.
26:29
Now what am I going to do?
26:30
You know, it's like somehow I think like nothing like success is a is a heavy feeling to to carry with you.
26:35
So I look at success like I look at sadness like an obvious eventuality like you have to have to have to envelop it, embrace it because it's going to be part of your life.
26:47
There's a Hindi song and I'll translate it for you.
26:49
Something that I I think is my life philosophy.
26:50
It says so it's like okay dear person like why does sadness affect you and why you afraid it's actually should be your friend and the next line is so it's like happiness is like a shadow like it's like breeze it's like it'll come in and out of your life you know but your constant is sadness so embrace it because it's going to be your constant and when sadness and when happiness comes in, it's like sunshine.
27:24
It'll come and then it'll go back into the clouds.
27:26
So, embrace what you have, which is sadness.
27:29
And it's such a positive look at sadness or tragedy or dark areas of your life, gray areas of your life, because it's always there.
27:37
So, you might as well befriend it because when sunshine comes, you'll enjoy it even more.
27:40
But know that you have to come back to this.
27:42
And I don't look at it like with sadness or darkness.
27:45
I look at it with like with a lot of joy.
27:47
So, I embrace sadness with a lot of happiness.
27:50
And that's the only way I think I can live my life.
27:53
>> Karin, you're a philosopher.
27:53
I >> I don't know about that.
27:55
I just think there are certain fundas in life really that if you kind of like just know that like it's like life and death.
28:01
Like you know we can mourn death. We can feel terrible. But can your life stop? No. You have to move on.
28:07
Nothing is worse than losing a loved one.
28:09
But you eventually have to come to terms with the fact that it's happened.
28:13
That's why there's a full stop because the next sentence has to begin.
28:17
So it's only can start when that full stop is registered and then you move on.
28:22
I look at life like that.
28:24
Whatever goes wrong is going to go wrong.
28:26
Nothing is going to be constantly happy.
28:28
Nothing is going to be constantly sad.
28:30
It's the way you have to kind of just understand life.
28:32
And and maybe because as a child I had such a rough patch.
28:37
I think I kind of armored myself for me to you know feel the way I do today about anything.
28:43
>> Who have you lost that that full stop was hard to >> My father.
28:46
He passed away much earlier than I ever imagined when he was in his early 70s and uh very healthy on his feet, active man, no vices.
28:59
He just one day had a fourth stage tumor in his esophagus which we found out much later when it was in its fourth stage and that went into full-blown cancer and he passed from the time of uh the diagnosis to the point of him passing away was 10 months. I'm a realist.
29:14
I'm not an optimist or or a pessimist. I'm a realist.
29:19
So I went to the oncologist in and we were surprisingly filming uh Kalhono which is about a man dying and it is about a man dying.
29:27
it is about a man dying. We were in New York and I went to my ancologist and said look my father you know and like tell me give me the heart fact and he said look it doesn't look good and I said okay now I know this that I know it doesn't look good and we'll do everything in our capacity medically to kind of you know but I said I don't want
29:45
to see him in pain and actually oddly the five days that he had a tough time were the five days of his chemotherapy those were the tough days the subsequent days to the chemotherapy but actually those 10 day other months besides those five days gave me so much time that I could spend with him that I had conversations I never thought I would. We discussed my childhood. We discussed
30:04
We discussed my childhood.
30:04
We discussed his early years.
30:07
We discussed his achievements, his failures, his regrets, his joys.
30:11
I have complete closure with my relationship with my father because I have no unanswered questions because in those 10 months I wasn't running around like a headless chicken trying to keep him alive.
30:24
him alive. I had accepted that he may go and in those months I lived in the moment with him and I was able to have all those conversations that I would have loved to have had with him earlier but I didn't but now those 10 months gave me that and I even told my mom I
30:41
was like talk to him speak to him but she was finding very tough to accept the situation so she couldn't and that's why she still doesn't have closure 20 years have passed since he passed away and she still has not been able to deal with his passing away and she's 82 years old today. Whereas I actually have complete
30:56
Whereas I actually have complete closure because I had every conversation I could have dreamt of having with a with a parent I did and I that's why I always tell people like communicate today because there may not be a tomorrow.
31:09
tomorrow. Tell them today anything you have a problem you have resentment issues you have parental trauma you've got to speak today because today communication is the resolve is the is the aid is you're looking for is the solution to every problem we don't talk
31:26
specifically I think um in our parenting structure in India we have respect and respect sometimes equals distance >> you know and that respect should not give you distance in a relationship respect should also be a close component of love. It should actually give you the
31:40
It should actually give you the ability to communicate to your parent.
31:44
Just because you respect your father and mother doesn't mean you can't say what you want.
31:47
Parents are not always correct.
31:49
It's not that they are saying the right thing to you all the time.
31:53
They are carrying the baggage of their parents and they put that baggage on to you and you may not need it or you shouldn't have it.
31:59
And you have to kind of have an open line of channel and you can still be respectful.
32:03
Never not be respectful because that's something that our tradition teaches us, our culture teaches us.
32:10
But please, I always tell people, keep an open channel of communication with your parent because they may not always be correct.
32:16
They may not always be right. They may not be right.
32:21
Advice or value system may not be good for you and you have to sometimes question it. >> Yeah, for sure.
32:27
Was there a specific question you asked or a conversation you remember fondly from that time?
32:32
As you said, you had every conversation, you asked every question.
32:36
Is there one that stands out?
32:38
>> I asked him whether he has any regrets, you know, and he spoke to me widely about like his relationship with his parents and his siblings and, you know, what he thought he did wrong as even career-wise and how he thought he was taken for a ride, but he didn't act on it at the right time.
32:54
He lost a lot of money because some of his indiscretions and, you know, he spoke about that openly.
32:58
He also spoke about the fact that like sometimes he has he has things he wants to tell my mom but he doesn't say it because he doesn't want to hurt or upset her and he says I wish I had.
33:08
Then he tells me he told me like you know I wish uh I would have spent more time with you.
33:13
You would have been I I wish I had incorporated sport in your life.
33:17
It would have given you a sense of much more like because I believe sport is not just for physical health.
33:22
It's also gives you it trains your mind very differently.
33:25
and he said I didn't spend enough active time with you cuz I was so busy working.
33:29
So he told me a lot about his regrets and his um thoughts at that time and I think it really helped him as well.
33:35
well. I think it kind of gave him so much closure and I think those conversations are very dear to me and then he wrote an 11page letter to me >> which I didn't know existed was given to me post him passing away um where he wrote all the business or the accounts and it was a technical letter of
33:53
everything about like this is the account these are the these are my like the businesses that we've this you don't owe money to anyone it's all done this is where the bank account etc detail mutual deposits funds like whatever the investments At that time he gave me like
34:07
an handwritten handwritten it was written by him in hand and then he wrote people you can trust people you can't trust things you should never do like he just it became my Bible and I've literally I think 90% of it is what I followed and he wrote me a 11page letter and I still unelievable had he ever
34:22
written you a letter before >> never he knew he was going so he wrote me that and it wasn't an emotional letter it was a practical >> thoughtful businessminded futurebased letter it was all about me, how to manage the funds, what we have, what we don't have, who owes him money. And he
34:38
And he said, but never ask them till they come to you.
34:43
Uh because you know it was all given in good faith.
34:46
And he said we don't owe anyone anything.
34:48
So if anyone comes and asks, it's not true.
34:49
And he gave me every single detail that me who was not business-minded, had zero business acumen, needed that 11 pager, uh that I followed as my Bible to kind of uh uh forge forward at that time. >> Wow.
35:05
What a beautiful gift >> to leave someone. That's so powerful.
35:09
>> I've never heard that before.
35:11
>> I've never heard someone leaving their child a practical, thoughtful.
35:13
I mean, the idea of who to trust and who not to trust.
35:18
>> He never wrote anything that I love you.
35:20
I will always that that was said already. It was none of that.
35:21
It was not a hallmark letter, >> you know.
35:25
It was a it was a business letter. >> That's unbelievable.
35:28
Thank you for sharing that.
35:29
I mean, as I'm listening to you today, I feel like and I felt this in any of our conversations we've had, but even more so today because I'm learning so much more.
35:37
There's so much depth and intention behind everything you've done.
35:42
Like there's there's even even you saying that you follow your intuition, you calling it a superpower, even that idea that we all have superpowers and we can connect to them is quite beautiful.
35:51
I wanted to go back to something you shared earlier.
35:54
You were talking about how you don't like being mediocre or average.
35:57
And there's a beautiful study in science that shows that that's true because people who come second in a race feel much more disappointed than those who come third.
36:10
if you come second for us psychologically that coming second is the worst feeling in the world.
36:22
At least third you made the podium.
36:23
At least you're up there standing up there.
36:25
You're happy that you made it.
36:26
I wanted to go back to that time when you're working on and you're on the set because you told me some stories when we were together that blew my mind because I think what we think of a film set and what you're actually doing and running around trying to make everything happen that paints a very different picture of this glamorous view of film making that a lot of us have if we're not in the business.
36:50
Walk us through what the dayto-day and some of those set stories actually look like.
36:56
I mean it was nothing like it is today.
36:58
Today we have a department for everything.
36:59
We have teams for everything.
37:00
We have like human resources doing everything.
37:02
We didn't even have a monitor where we could see the frame.
37:04
We had nothing which was all dependent on the on the cinematographer to tell us you know and we were three assistant directors who doing everything.
37:12
They were doing everything from continuity to like managing actors.
37:16
There was no such thing as a call sheet.
37:18
It was like verbally told to everybody.
37:20
You had to go knocking on doors and saying tomorrow 9:00. tomorrow 9:00. That's what we did.
37:26
Uh there was no call sheet.
37:26
There was no dialogue printed on a computer and it was written handwritten.
37:30
We wrote handwritten dialogues and then we zeroxed them and gave them to actors.
37:35
Like that's how they they had handwritten like it was predominantly written by us.
37:38
And then we did everything. I was costume designer.
37:40
I was also designing Shah's clothes and costume coordinator and continuity and uh Chopra Adi's brother was doing all the other we also handling crowds at at live locations like screaming and shouting and telling them to back off because we are shooting and filming. It was not easy.
37:57
I mean I didn't and the only thing that traumatized me was doing the clap.
38:01
the clap. I tried to do it for two days and then the DP the cinem cinematographer told me like you're not going to get this so just give it to somebody you know who has like a modicum of intelligence because I wasn't just managing to stand with that clap I just would never know where to stand with it
38:15
and I was just like you know I and we were doing every single thing it was there was no such the best learning in my life was on that one year of because it was crazy how much we all had to achieve and today when I have a costume department There's production doing all the this the crowd management and then there's a there's a camera department. There are DAs, there are ads, there's
38:37
There are DAs, there are ads, there's everything. We had nothing.
38:39
We were like one-stop shops doing everything.
38:41
I've literally gotten up in the morning, gone to shops, bought like accessories for all the women in the frame like bangles and like those jewelries and rings and you know things they put in their hair, bought them from stations because those were where they were cost were cheaper.
38:57
Brought them on set, made everyone wear that.
38:59
that. Like there was no help assistance on the there was like outdoor when we used to shoot like AC out of the country when we shot in Switzerland we were a unit of 21 people just 21 people making a movie in one bus we would sit in one bus we would drive and Adi would look at the locations let's stop and this looks
39:17
beautiful let's go film and then and then then we used to take Kajul behind a tree make her wear a sari and Shah Ruk change anywhere and then come and shoot and then we would go back into that bus and start when we were shooting a long sequence and they were like, "Oh, this is beautiful. Stop. Stop. You could Stop. Stop. You could shoot here."
39:32
And I'm like, it was eventually it seems hilarious location. >> There was no scout. Where? What? What scout?
39:38
We didn't have the money to do it.
39:40
I mean, back then like it was like movies and when you went travel out of the country, it was a big deal that you were out of the country like and we were like everyone everyone held equipment and walked up if you had to shoot on a mountaintop.
39:51
Shah Ruk was holding equipment.
39:52
Kajel was holding equipment.
39:54
We were all like literally everyone was a team.
39:56
Everyone had to kind of take stuff.
39:57
There was no such thing as additional help support.
39:59
Today everyone is so spoiled.
40:01
Today you walk into a vanity when an actor has eight people. There was no publicist. There was no management. There was no anybody. There was nothing.
40:11
A leading lady had her parent, her mom or her family member there and the leading the man had nobody.
40:17
And it was like literally there was like one person doing everything.
40:21
And I remember a time when Kajul was in and her hair and makeup team didn't show up because they didn't get a visa.
40:26
And I was brushing her hair on set and her mom was doing her makeup and and I didn't know the anything about straightening her hair. So her mom helped her.
40:33
We used to straighten her hair together, brush it on set and then I would go and do all the other stuff because I we didn't have a hair and makeup person for her and you know it was like crazy.
40:41
But I look back on those days and I remember at one point of time me and there was a stylist who's now a huge celebrated stylist called Anita Shruff.
40:49
She was in the film as an actor at that time and we were told like get Kajul in a sari.
40:53
We have to shoot immediately.
40:55
So we went to change and then all of us realized that none of us knew how to tie a sari, right?
41:00
Neither did Kajul know how to tie her sari.
41:02
Neither did Anita know how to make anyone wear a sari and neither did I know.
41:06
So I went on memory cuz I watched my mom wear a sari.
41:08
So whatever I could remember at that time and whatever night and we've tied that sari in some way which looks according to me terrible.
41:16
And if anybody watches Dilval, it's the electric blue sari she wears in the snow in the song where Shah Ruk is in a red shirt.
41:23
Please see how she has draped her sari.
41:25
It's like a cafan on her or something like that.
41:27
It's like there's no shape in the draping.
41:29
There's no there's no technicality and like I remember like looking and like God pray please nobody points this out because we didn't know what to do.
41:37
We had no one to help us.
41:40
>> So I mean this just few of the stories to tell you how we made movies back then. >> Yeah.
41:44
And it's it's >> and let me tell you still we had the best time.
41:48
>> Today there was there was a purity, innocence and camaraderie that doesn't exist today.
41:51
like it's just today is so structured but it's also so boring >> because it's all too organized.
41:58
There was some method to that madness that doesn't exist.
42:02
>> Yeah, there was a magic there. There's magic.
42:03
And was it planned that you would be in the movie yourself?
42:04
Was that always part of the plan?
42:07
>> The guy who was meant to play the part didn't show up and like Shah Ruk and Hardi turned around and said you're doing the part.
42:11
And I was like you wanted me to be an extra in a movie as if like I had done anything in my life to achieve that to say that.
42:16
But I just had some aspiration you know and they were like just do it. You don't have a choice. And I was like, "Okay."
42:21
And my mom got a shock because she I didn't tell her that I was in the movie.
42:25
So when she saw the first movie the first time, she was like, "What?"
42:27
Like, "Why did you I said, "Okay."
42:29
So I'm in I'm I'm in a blockbuster. That's what matters.
42:33
>> What was the moment on set?
42:33
Obviously, you have that conversation with Shah Ruk afterwards and people love your friendship.
42:37
What was the moment where you felt you really connected on that set that you felt there was some beautiful connection that brought you together?
42:46
>> It was actually the climax.
42:46
>> It was actually the climax. We were shooting the climax much earlier on in the filming of the film and I had written about 60 or 70% of that scene and Adi allowed me to write it and it's the first piece of writing I ever did and when we were rehearsing the scene Adi told Shah Ruk that Karan's you know
43:02
really helped in the scene and written you know this much of the scene and it was very gracious of him to say it and Shahuk looked at me and he was like you wrote this so I was like he's like really and he's like you can write dialogue I was like well you know he said but I don't see I didn't I just saw cuz I was doing his costumes at that time. So he thought that that's where my
43:19
So he thought that that's where my inclination it was that he didn't even know that I was.
43:22
know that I was. So after that I think he just kind of started talking to me and he realized that you know I have such a crazy passionate synagoguer in me and how passionate I am about the movies and we began our friendship from then onwards I think and and then we would hang out every day and
43:38
he would like ask me to do he would read his lines and call me and you know he would like rehearse with me because Adi was busy and then of course Adi was the magician who created the magic but he made me like he was jam with me on the side before and I think that's where we formed such a close friendship. It was
43:52
It was right like working when he thought that this kid probably has some potential and that's something probably that he knows best and will answer best. >> Yeah. Yeah.
44:02
I remember the leather jacket story you told me. >> Oh my god.
44:05
We all went we wanted to buy that Harley-Davidson jacket and it was so expensive.
44:09
It was so expensive at that time.
44:11
First thing no one knew that Harley-Davidson made jackets.
44:13
We just thought they made >> motorcycles.
44:16
And uh we went and and Shah Ruk and Adi and everybody like literally like wanted that jacket.
44:22
And I remember we all had to kind of like really convince each other, put in everything that we had to buy that jacket. It was like crazy.
44:28
It was 300 sterling 300 at that time. 350 I'm not sure of.
44:31
But today it's equal to 30,000 maybe.
44:34
I don't know what it would mean.
44:36
But like at that time buying a jacket of that cost was crazy.
44:39
But but I remember staring at it like staring at it and feeling like can we even afford it?
44:44
And at that time everyone then did what they could to make sure that we got that jacket which today is so iconic and such a part of the film.
44:51
It's like Manish was doing the costumes of Kuch and we were passing a store that had the polo sport t-shirt which he wears in the song and it was in at a at a cycle shop cuz you know a cycle shop cycling shops have these colored you know wear which is not avail So I was like, it said Polaro Sport color t-shirt, bright blue and green was £75 and I was like, we can't.
45:14
We thought about it for 3 days and we made some sacrifices in our budget to buy that at that time and I was like, today one wouldn't blink an eyelid and just buy, but at that point of time it was like a massive decision to make. >> Yeah.
45:25
The reason why these stories are so important to me is because I was an 11 to 14 year old kid trying to dress like that >> in real life.
45:31
If you'd get the turtleneck with the suit which comes later on in the polo sport shirt that you mentioned. >> No, I know. And those gap.
45:38
So, we decided that if we were buying the brands, we must show them. They must be written.
45:44
Unlike today where people are doing quiet luxury, this was not quiet.
45:48
This was screaming brand luxury.
45:48
So, Gap and DKNY and Polo Spot, Tommy Hilfiger.
45:54
It was like we just splashed all over.
45:57
We said that we must show that we've bought these expensive garments.
45:58
If you're paying the money, people must know this today. Who would do it? It was crazy.
46:03
You know, we would never do it today.
46:05
But that time it was like, "No, we're going to do it.
46:07
We're going to tell everyone we spend this money."
46:10
>> You weren't just impacting my love life, you impacting my fashion choices, my wardrobe, everything in our life through all your movies.
46:16
>> And I think I think that was the biggest thing.
46:18
I remember watching Kuch Pach and like you watch that movie and you just think >> everyone wants a love story like that.
46:24
>> You know, every everyone wants that.
46:26
Everyone's looking for that, yearning for that, searching for that.
46:27
And and I found myself all these movies literally became a compass for my life. Yeah.
46:34
Whether it was fashion, whether it was love, whether it was life, whether it was success.
46:38
>> And in in the same way you said for yourself, they became that place.
46:40
And you know my early teenage years and childhood also different from you in terms of the type of criticism I was refer facing.
46:49
But I was also experiencing some of those things.
46:52
I was overweight as a child.
46:53
So I was bullied for that.
46:54
There weren't many Indian kids at my elementary primary school.
46:56
So I was bullied for that because there just weren't many Indians in the area that my parents chose to live in.
47:02
And I remember I used to always act in school plays and dramas and I loved that.
47:07
But I remember once my mom had asked me to sing a budgeon for Diwali at my school and my friends didn't really know what Diwali was.
47:17
They didn't know what a budgeon was.
47:19
And my mom had dressed me up as Lord Ram.
47:22
>> And so I'm dressed up basically in a sari kind of like a toga because like you were dressing people on set, my mom had dressed me up. It wasn't professional.
47:30
And I walked on stage and my whole circle of friends just started laughing.
47:34
Everyone in the audience just started laughing because they never seen a kid dressed like that.
47:38
>> And then I remember I started singing this budge and I have a terrible singing voice.
47:42
>> I I can't sing to say my life >> and everyone starts laughing more and now I'm crying on stage and I look down at the page and now all of the lines are blurred because my tears are blurred the lines. So I forget the lines.
47:52
So people are laughing more and then the worst thing happens.
47:56
My teacher comes on stage, she puts her arm around me and walks me off stage, which everyone laughs and claps at more.
48:01
And so it almost feels like your movies, like what those older movies were for you, your movies were for me >> because I didn't really have a space to experience magic >> or experience love in that way.
48:14
Again, my my parents were wonderful, but >> I remember if I liked a girl at school, she would tell the whole class and everyone would laugh, you know, like that was kind of my experience of that.
48:24
So, your movies were a place where I felt a bit safer, a bit cooler, a bit, you know, a bit more hip and trending.
48:32
>> Well, I'm happy to hear that.
48:34
>> How does how does that feel?
48:34
Because you travel across the world and millions of people probably say that to you now.
48:37
You probably hear that a lot from people like myself who grew up on that. How does that feel?
48:44
>> I mean, a whole lot of gratitude.
48:46
There's so much gratitude in my heart.
48:48
Like, I'm always overwhelmed when everyone anyone comes up to me.
48:50
And I heard you just now and I've heard so many people you meet invariably at events or parties or even airports.
48:56
events or parties or even airports. uh you know people just come up and you know just say things that how you've impacted their childhood or like their growing years and that the cinema has really like helped them seek a certain sense of joy and you feel like you are not just contributing to pop culture or
49:12
cinema but also to people's hearts and minds and and their souls like you know because everyone needs some love you know and everyone if if your cinema has provided that love for them and like just it's such a beautiful feeling for me it never makes me feel proud of myself it just always makes me feel grateful to the universe. Uh that
49:28
Uh that allowed me to be a storyteller and allowed me a platform that could be impressionable that could give people love and joy and even shedding a tear because you know we all know a cathartic cry is the most that is the most soulful thing to happen to you.
49:46
Like just crying is such a beautiful release.
49:48
I'm always that's my one big emotion is gratitude. >> That's it.
49:54
That's there's nothing more than that. Just grateful every day. Yeah.
49:57
No, what you're referring to all these movies had so many great messages, undertones, so many fascinating perspectives.
50:04
What's your personal inner spiritual journey been like through all of this?
50:08
I think I found myself in the last five or seven years. I'm 52 today.
50:14
So, it started with me conforming to like religious practices because it was like my mom is from is from Cindas. She's Cindi. My dad is Punjabi.
50:22
So my dad had a prayer in the morning which was like a blend of many prayer.
50:27
He prayed to many gods you know because he was like he believed he was Arya samaji he didn't believe in any form of ritual or but he believed in like havs.
50:36
So you know we used to pray in the morning then we had havs on important occasions because he believed that was a beautiful aura and energy cleansing way you know of doing havan.
50:46
My mother and my father both believed in the gurwara. Yeah.
50:49
So I believe in going to langers in my growing years.
50:53
You know I believe in you know going very often to gwaras across the country.
50:57
Um golden temple being my my most soulful place where I can really find peace and happiness in the golden temple in Amritsar.
51:05
temple in Amritsar. So I remember then going to temples as well and you know idol worshiing and uh I did everything you know I remember walking to a temple one day before the release of a film uh because all this is because it was told to me uh I hadn't found my own inner voice uh viz religion or spirituality or
51:25
worship or belief I went through my process of going to even like religious like pundits and astrologers and charts and you know going through psychics and everything just finding all the tools you can to protect yourself and preserve things you have till I realized that I don't want to be someone that I don't want to be and I don't want I don't
51:50
believe that I'm going to do anything that not coming from my heart I believe that life lessons have equaled my spirituality in the moment what I've learned and what I embibe and what I say and what I believe is going to be my journey ahead so if I feel like going to a place if I feel if someone has calls me to worship an idol and I don't feel it I won't go it's not that I don't I
52:13
nothing against anybody else's religious belief but it may not necessarily be mine >> you know so my belief is karma based my big belief is in karma I believe that karma is a bank that you have to keep depositing on a daily basis the more your karma collects the more your world and your family and your loved ones are protected. I believe being good is
52:37
I believe being good is karma. Giving is karma. Helping is karma. Supporting is karma.
52:43
Coming in someone's way is bad karma.
52:46
Hurting someone is bad karma.
52:48
You know, stopping someone's growth is bad karma.
52:51
Just, you know, betraying someone is bad karma. I don't want that.
52:55
So, I believe my religion or my spiritual school of thought is karma related.
52:59
It's all about building my karma points, my karma bank.
53:05
I want that to be the richest part of me. It's my my karma bank.
53:06
And that is to me my religion, my spirituality, my everything.
53:12
So there's a line in Yashopra film called which means your karum is your victory.
53:19
And that is what I believe.
53:19
What's the point of me going to temples and places of worship but actually stabbing somebody in their back?
53:25
What is the point of me chanting every morning if I'm being terrible in my relationships or my friendships or being insensitive?
53:34
What is the point of me learning discoursing like reading books but not operating like and people and I don't judge anyone for what they do. You do you. You be you.
53:45
If if every morning meditating and chanting is your thing, please do it.
53:48
To me, I get peace from my actions, from my doings.
53:51
When I can genuinely contribute to somebody's life, I sleep better that night.
53:58
That's all I'm doing, Jay, is that I'm actually building that bank.
54:04
>> That to me is my belief system.
54:06
>> If someone feels upset or sometimes if you feel you've upseted someone, how do you transform? >> I apologize.
54:11
Firstly, there's nothing wrong in saying sorry.
54:13
You know, there's nothing wrong in reaching someone's residence and saying, "Look, I was insensitive and I apologize. I did you wrong.
54:20
You know, I did something wrong. I said something wrong.
54:21
I overspoke in the moment or I wasn't there for you, you know.
54:26
And I believe that ego is it's so restrictive.
54:29
It stops you at every stage.
54:33
So you have to as a human being realize the difference between ego and selfrespect. There is a difference.
54:40
There's a huge difference. >> Tell us. >> Ego is very simple.
54:42
Ego is unproductive and idiotic. Anyone has an ego. It's stupid.
54:48
If I come to your party uninvited, you know, because I feel I can, I don't have an ego.
54:52
If you treat me well, that's great.
54:54
But if you treat me badly and I've come uninvited, that hurts my self-respect and I leave that party.
54:57
So, we preserve our selfrespect, but we kill our ego.
55:02
Selfrespect is everything.
55:02
How people treat you, how they respect you, how they deal with you is dabbling onto selfrespect.
55:11
Me having an ego because I feel I'm a public figure and I I deserve something. I'm entitled something. That's an ego. Who am I? We're all a dot.
55:19
In the larger galaxy of the world, who is anybody? We're all one dot. Know that you're a dot.
55:24
You know, you could be the biggest achiever in this world, but you are still one tiny dot.
55:28
And you will be erased and another dot will come in your place.
55:33
So when you look at life like this, we are all nobody.
55:35
So how dare you have an ego?
55:37
Self-respect you have to do for your soul.
55:38
You have to do it for yourself.
55:40
So I understand the difference and I try very hard never to bring my ego. We all going to get it. Ego, we're human.
55:46
We're going to fail and fall and fumble.
55:47
But I don't want ego to be my my speed breaker.
55:49
I don't want it to come in my way.
55:52
So if I mess up, if I I'm insensitive and I have done something that I believe is incorrect, I will apologize. >> I will apologize.
56:02
>> Where did these ideologies come from within you? >> I have no idea.
56:04
I think it's acknowledging your circumstance, embracing the life that you've led, understanding your failures, acknowledging your missteps.
56:13
acknowledging your missteps. All that teaches you right you know you know where you've gone wrong what you've done wrong and you know what you need to correct and what you need to course correct and that gives you a certain sense of life lessons for me I love what
56:27
you do and I love what you say and I love your belief system I can never be you but I can always listen to you but many a time I've interviewed spiritual leaders and I with a lot of respect I go you know and whether it's from you know in India we have so many spiritual I've had the good fortune of interviewing myself. I've learned I've embibed. But if you
56:47
I've learned I've embibed.
56:47
But if you ask me, do I follow anyone? No, I don't.
56:53
I follow my life's errors and my life's strengths and I learn from that and I follow and I chart my own path ahead.
56:59
I don't believe in a certain religious force.
57:04
I don't believe in a certain human guru.
57:06
I don't believe my I have no belief, personal belief.
57:10
And I don't have anyone's image on my phone or in my room baring my parents.
57:15
I believe when you lose a parent also you gain a god.
57:20
And I believe my god is my father.
57:20
So when I'm in distress or I'm in duress and I'm in in a zone of turbulence in my life, I turn to my dad and I'm like even >> help me like what what what are you doing up there?
57:33
Like you know move your magic like you know like take your magic wand out. You can help me. You can do this. You can come through.
57:39
It's not that he everything comes through when you pray, but at least you're you're communicating to a higher force.
57:44
And I believe that force is genuinely a higher force.
57:48
I know for a fact that he is there in the universe somewhere.
57:50
And I know his spirit is listening to me.
57:53
So I know somebody, but I don't know what else God is. I don't know.
57:57
I don't know where this force is, but I know my father somewhere in the universe.
58:01
So I believe when you lose a parent, you do gain a god.
58:04
And that's the one thing I live by as well. >> Yeah.
58:06
And and I love what you were saying about I think ultimately life is trying to teach each and every one of us to trust ourselves. >> Yeah.
58:14
>> To not have this false external dependence on some external force in this world as opposed to actually discovering within us where those answers evolve.
58:26
>> Because I mean like you you've been brought into this world.
58:28
The na nature is a is an unexplainable phenomena.
58:30
How we've all been born and we live this life.
58:35
We're in this moment right now.
58:36
I'm talking, you're listening.
58:36
It's all so fantastical if you really look at it from an external gaze.
58:40
I don't want to be dependent on anything because I need to find my own answers.
58:44
I have to ask my own questions. It's as simple as that. >> Yeah. Yeah.
58:48
And I think that that accountability and responsibility transforms people's lives.
58:52
And I think that's what we should hope for everyone and everyone should aspire for rather than hoping that someone else >> and again I say to each his own.
58:59
You find your space, your happiness, your joy in your belief system.
59:03
You must do what makes you happy.
59:06
>> If you feel this is what I need to do for myself, please do it.
59:08
There is no right or wrong in any practice >> in any belief system.
59:12
There's just perspective.
59:14
You have it for yourself. You operate therefore. >> Yeah, definitely.
59:18
In when when in your life did you realize you were comfortable being single?
59:23
>> You know, through my when I turned 40, I had a deep desire of finding a partner and I was like, how can I be single? I need love. I need this. I need that.
59:30
and and then I went ahead and had my babies.
59:36
I was fortunate before you know the laws were made I could have um you know through the legal route uh my babies and when the babies were born in 2017 I realized that my uh kota of love that I felt was owed to me by the universe was
59:52
brimming was full and uh the biggest love story in my life is now my mom and my kids and um I felt like okay so I could get the joy of intimacy with somebody um I could be physically intimate with a person and enjoy that experience. I could be dating somebody
1:00:08
I could be dating somebody who kind of helps complete that moment in my life.
1:00:14
But do I really need an external human being, another person to live with uh to complete me? No.
1:00:18
I feel very complete already.
1:00:21
And am I closing that door completely? Not at all. You never know. You never say never.
1:00:25
But today, if you ask me, am I looking? No. Am I dating? No. Am I happy being single? Yes.
1:00:31
Am I happy sharing my bedroom with no one? Yes. my bathroom with no one? Yes. Do I think I can? No.
1:00:38
Uh if I'm in a relationship, get a room.
1:00:41
Uh we'll meet for breakfast.
1:00:41
Uh we'll meet for lunch and dinner.
1:00:44
But you can't stay with me.
1:00:45
That's I'm now set in my way. Will I fall in love?
1:00:48
Well, I hope I rise in it firstly and because I've done my bit of falling. It's not fun.
1:00:52
And I've been through one-sided love stories.
1:00:57
I've been through unrequited romances.
1:00:58
I've been through my own trauma visav emotional search for your partner. It's not worked for me.
1:01:04
Let's just say it's not for me.
1:01:07
Uh at age 52, am I closing that door?
1:01:10
Like I said, no, I'm not.
1:01:12
But I'm very happy with my single status.
1:01:14
I can't tell you the joy it gives me.
1:01:17
>> Did you ever have your heart broken? >> Yes. Oh, yes. Twice.
1:01:18
Uh second eye was tougher.
1:01:22
Second night was a long love story of which I actually was almost cathartic because for me I kind of autobiographically told it in mushkiller the story of one-sided love. Uh I that story is mine.
1:01:34
Of course, I'm Ranir Kapoor in that because I'm the one chasing somebody I couldn't get.
1:01:38
Um and wanting something I I that and no one lied to me.
1:01:43
You know, the person involved never lied to me. Always was clear.
1:01:47
But I was just wanting it and I was not myself in those seven years.
1:01:49
I was not my personality type. I was out of character.
1:01:54
I did things out of character. And I hate those years.
1:01:56
When I look back, I'm like I was so weak.
1:01:58
But then it also empowered me. It made me feel alive.
1:02:02
One part of me also felt like oh that romance that love that yearning is still there.
1:02:05
So it was a bit of like a two things that were going on.
1:02:09
One I was hating the person I was being in those seven eight years but I was also enjoying the fact that that love had come back into my life like it had re but that was a tough time.
1:02:16
It taught me so much and made me mildly cynical at the end of that experience about love.
1:02:22
Now I'm okay cuz I'm not I'm over that as well.
1:02:24
Like I'm not cynical about love.
1:02:25
I'm just happy being single. >> Yeah.
1:02:27
How did you heal and overcome that?
1:02:28
Because that's seven years is a long time.
1:02:30
long time. I also went through a bout of anxiety in that phase and that was u my first burst you know with a psychiatrist uh where I actually spoke about it and I needed medication because I was feeling >> uh I didn't realize at that time what I
1:02:44
was going through till she analyzed it for me and said you know you have it's a form of depression you are going through this and it's anxiety and uh you need to be medicated if you want to lead a regular normal life and those sessions with her really helped me. That
1:03:00
That medication helped me.
1:03:01
I weaned it off eventually, but then I came back into it in March last year where I got this attack.
1:03:08
Actually, you were there.
1:03:09
>> Yeah, we um at NMAC at the at at the convention center launch, which is by the way outstanding.
1:03:14
It was a thousand people and I was sit standing right there and at one point I thought I couldn't breathe and I looked at a friend of mine and I said, "Just take me into an empty room cuz I don't I I thought I couldn't move like I had to be guided into the room."
1:03:28
and he gave me water and I had regular coke cuz I felt my sugar had dropped and I left and I went to my doctor and I thought is this a cardiac arrest?
1:03:35
Is this was a panic attack?
1:03:37
It was an anxiety attack.
1:03:37
I went back into my medication. I'm still on it.
1:03:41
Uh and I realized that what happened in the last 2 years strangely from the most sociable person is that I developed what you call social anxiety.
1:03:48
I'm okay with places that I'm really comfortable.
1:03:54
But if you take me in a room full of crowded people of people I know and who know me, I have to leave. I can't take it.
1:04:00
I need to I need windows.
1:04:00
I need some outdoor space.
1:04:03
You take me to a place where nobody knows me and I don't know anybody and oddly I'm fine.
1:04:07
So it's I don't know what it's to do.
1:04:09
And we've analyzed it at my sessions with her but I'm uncomfortable in crowds or people after a point.
1:04:15
I always leave parties early and this is a new thing that has started in my life. I don't like to go.
1:04:19
I I get cold feet before, you know, any kind of a massive big event I have to go to.
1:04:24
But if I'm on stage hosting an award show, I'm fine.
1:04:27
You know, if you put me on stage and there are 10,000 people in front of me, I'm okay.
1:04:30
But if I'm in that 10,000 people, you take me to a rock concert or like I I won't be able to do it. >> I can't do it. >> I just can't.
1:04:38
I just don't like to be in the middle of a crowd.
1:04:41
And from somebody who thrived on it, from somebody who loved it, from somebody who was at every single social event and party because I really wanted to and loved it, I've gone the exact opposite way. >> What changed? >> I have no clue, Jay.
1:04:53
I have no idea what happened.
1:04:56
I think it was excessive in my life and now it's like, you know, it's too much of something and then you start developing a fear of it.
1:05:03
And that's what happened to me.
1:05:05
Like I have the the most ironical thing happened to me is that I developed a form of social anxiety.
1:05:14
>> Would you ever want to go back to being the other way again or >> it's more just >> I'm not saying I'm happy with the situation cuz I'm on medication but I don't know if I want to go back to that either.
1:05:24
I think I found what I did find in these years >> is a lot of great joy spending time with myself.
1:05:32
M >> I found myself as my closest companion.
1:05:37
I was never my best friend.
1:05:37
I've become very close to myself in the last couple of years.
1:05:41
I finally feel like my companion is now me.
1:05:44
My life partner is now me and we're getting along really well.
1:05:49
I'm also Gemini, so >> uh that also works in a certain way.
1:05:53
You get two for the price of one.
1:05:55
But but I finally found my life companion >> and uh we're doing very well.
1:05:59
Yeah, I think I actually think that's a beautiful place to be even when you're in a relationship.
1:06:06
So my wife and I thankful to have a wonderful relationship.
1:06:10
been together for 11 years now and I still feel that my relationship with myself is my most important relationship >> and she does with herself and I think that that's so important even in >> a relationship because otherwise if you're always trying to fill your gaps with the other person and you have to call them and you have to message them and you have to be together.
1:06:29
A it's not physically possible.
1:06:31
B you will be separated at some point whether through travel or by life inevitably.
1:06:36
and building that relationship with yourself to be able to spend a weekend by yourself, an evening, months sometimes I think is one of the most beautiful traits and abilities.
1:06:47
So to hear about it from you is is actually really really special.
1:06:51
And one thing that you shared with me that I that really resonated with me about social anxiety was this feeling we all have of letting people down. >> Yeah.
1:07:00
And so when it's the people that are around us that we know, we all have this feeling of like I hope that person doesn't feel I didn't say hello to them and >> so that people pleasing has been part of my it's been part of my personality type for years.
1:07:14
for years. And so even now today if I'm at a party I think the social anxiety also was a result of like have I met everybody have I gone and wished to everybody you know have I been nice to them have I hugged them warmly these thoughts keep coming in even me I have message reply anxiety like have I
1:07:28
replied have I forgotten to reply and I always write sorry for my delayed response if I'm always reply it's that people pleasing was part and that continues and that's part of my anxiety you know and you're absolutely right um that this does happen to me like I feel like have I met everybody body warmly. Have I said if I'm at the party and
1:07:44
Have I said if I'm at the party and there are 10 people I know I can see from the my in my from the corner of my eye but I haven't met them it plays on my head oh it's exhausting I can never be at a party and just sit in one place and talk to one person I'll feel like I'm upsetting 100 people they may not be upset at all but I can't fight that thought
1:08:03
>> it's in my head >> yeah and it's and it's real >> and I don't want to win this popularity contest with anyone because Lord knows I may not be the most popular person or whatever whatever people I think but the people I know who love me love me and and know me as who I am and you know but somehow that personality type doesn't leave you >> of wanting to please people. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's and it's deep >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:23
And it's and it's deep wiring and deep conditioning like you've we've all had it since we were so young to be that person.
1:08:28
And then with someone like yourself, the more you grow, the more people you know, the more expectations and and maybe sometimes in the past, like you said, not everyone cares, but the few people who did care, maybe sometimes they've judged you or interact in a certain way.
1:08:42
I know I've been through that myself.
1:08:44
>> And it happens to me because I'm always meeting people in a certain way that if I sometimes meet them slightly tepidly, they're like, it's not like you to be like this. Are you okay? Like why?
1:08:52
I'm like, you know, it's like you have to put up an act on a show.
1:08:55
put up an act on a show. Like you know if you're the funny guy in the room then you have to always be funny and I sometimes you just don't want to be >> you just and I've reached that point in my life like I get that so often when I'm just quiet they're like are you sad about something are you okay I'm like no I'm just quiet >> I'm allowed to be quiet I don't need to crack a joke I don't need to say a funny
1:09:13
thing you know I know I can be funny but I don't want to be today can you just leave me but nobody does because you're you you're conforming if I don't reply to a message to a person because it slipped me because I they're like not like you not to reply you know cuz I get that cuz I'm so good at at communication that when you don't, you know, so all this I think put together has built this >> this anxiety. >> Yeah. And and I I think I shared with >> Yeah.
1:09:34
And and I I think I shared with you I I feel that pressure sometimes or I used to many years ago that I let go of was everyone was always waiting for me to say something profound >> and and just waiting for someone for you to say something that >> but you could also enjoy saying something frivolous. >> Yeah. Totally. Totally.
1:09:49
And and I don't like to give unsolicited advice also.
1:09:52
So if someone's not sitting with me as a client, as someone that I'm guiding, as someone that I have that kind of relationship with, I'm not just going to suddenly tell them life advice or tell them how to live for what?
1:10:05
>> And and if I don't know you at all, sometimes I'll say to people like who I've spent 10 seconds with and they say, "Can you give me some life-changing advice?"
1:10:11
I'm like, "The most life-changing advice I can tell you is I don't know you and you know yourself better than I know you.
1:10:16
So you're more likely to find it within you because I I don't have all the answers to everything.
1:10:21
I don't know everything about everything and I don't believe anyone does either.
1:10:23
And so I I totally resonate with it in my own way and I think everyone who's listening whether they're a public figure or not I know everyone feels this way. >> Yeah.
1:10:32
Because I think I always feel like people are seeking some sense of guidance, validation, searching.
1:10:36
That's why you resort to spiritual forces, religious forces, learnings, books, discourses.
1:10:44
And I'm like you know the answer.
1:10:47
If you really looked within, you have the answer.
1:10:48
Like I said right at the top of our chart, instinct. Instinct will tell you.
1:10:53
You'll know this is the right thing to know.
1:10:54
You don't need anyone to guide you.
1:10:55
And of course, people must of course do what they need to do in the moment.
1:10:59
But really, do we do have the answers?
1:11:01
We underestimate ourselves.
1:11:04
>> As a race, >> we all know what we really need to satisfy our souls. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:11:08
You define yourself on Instagram as a father first, then a filmmaker.
1:11:12
And I was very grateful to meet Ruhin Yash last time I was here in Mumbai.
1:11:17
They were so sweet and so wonderful and and playful and >> I was wondering like >> being a only child now being a single parent.
1:11:26
How is that and having beautiful parents who you speak of so highly?
1:11:28
How is that impacted your uh your journey of being a father? >> It's very difficult.
1:11:35
Firstly, I have to say being a only child in a single parent is a double whammy no one asks for or wants but it just so happened. choices.
1:11:45
The choice I made of being a single parent is something but I didn't choose to be an only child.
1:11:48
That was my parents choice.
1:11:50
Uh but today when my mom is not doing very well and she's keeping poor health, it's really tough because you're constantly torn and there's guilt.
1:12:00
Every time I'm with my parents and with my mom with my kids and joyous I feel about my mom.
1:12:05
When I'm with my mom then I feel I'm denying my children time.
1:12:10
It's like you feel and I live with my mom, you know, we live together.
1:12:12
So I'm very grateful that I can you know be a part of her immediate day and take care of her needs and requirements but I'm not there a lot because I also run a studio.
1:12:22
So there's and a creative studio you know you are the one point of contact for so many things at a given point of time.
1:12:29
There are 18 questions people have on a daily basis and you have to constantly answer. So it's all right now.
1:12:35
right now. right now is uh as I said an emotionally uh tough time in a sense because my mother's health and my kids at a certain impressionable age they're eight and then the studio everything is like happening all at once everything everywhere all at once and like it's um it's a bit daunting uh but you know
1:12:57
again like I said what's the point of like you know uh like feeling terrible you can because self-pity is also a spa you you know, it makes you feel really good temporarily, but it's not going to like you'll need that treatment once in a while, but you can't live in a spa, >> you know, to get out of there and pace the world. So, I love visiting that spa
1:13:15
So, I love visiting that spa once in a while, feel terrible for myself.
1:13:20
I sit there in that spa, >> feel terrible for myself, and then know that I have to get out there and and and make it all happen. >> Yeah. >> You know, so yeah.
1:13:28
So, right now, how does it make me feel?
1:13:30
Makes me feel like a bit overwhelmed. >> Yeah.
1:13:33
>> Yeah. How do you help your children prepare for like you were saying at the beginning of our conversation the different life that they have as you had and how have you what are some of the things you have to think about talk
1:13:44
about connect with them communicate about to help them prepare the in the way that you didn't have >> I didn't have a lot um so I was able to um kind of find my feet my own way the kids whether I like it or not are much more entitled and privileged than I ever was. They have much more already. So, I
1:14:04
They have much more already.
1:14:04
So, I have to first kind of ground them >> and root them. It's very tough. >> It's so hard. >> It's very tough. >> How do you do it?
1:14:12
Because they're already, you know, in a good car, in a good home, >> on holiday, staying at the best hotels, traveling well, eating well.
1:14:20
Nothing is denied to them.
1:14:23
So, and when you deny it, then there's peer pressure, comparison with other kids who are getting stuff and you're not giving it to them. Then you combat that.
1:14:29
uh I have no one to share that that responsibility.
1:14:34
So all I can do is teach them goodness and kindness and sociability like I can like be kind.
1:14:37
I always say so at least the moral value system I can control or rather control is a too strong a word.
1:14:45
I can monitor or I can look over I can make sure that they're good kind souls.
1:14:50
That's all that I tell them to be. Be kind, helpful, share. Be warm. Meet people warmly. Respect your elders. Respect your friends.
1:14:58
you know, life lessons like that is what I'm really focusing on because the privilege I cannot do anything about.
1:15:06
I can of course deny, make changes and tweaks, but they are born to privilege and there's nothing I can do about that.
1:15:12
So, I've learned to kind of accept that and mold them as human beings because I hope that eventually they're strong human beings, they will understand the power of privilege. >> Yeah.
1:15:23
>> And know how to handle it when they grow older. >> I think you're right.
1:15:25
I think that's the right order.
1:15:26
If you try and disrupt the privilege, you can't. It will always be there. >> There's no point.
1:15:30
It's like fighting a battle that you know you won't win.
1:15:31
But if I tomorrow make them good, solid human beings, they will not misuse their privilege. >> Yeah.
1:15:38
How is your feeling around the word man and masculinity change from those early days of being told you were not man enough, you didn't run like a man or walk like a man?
1:15:48
How how do you now define what it means to be a man and masculinity?
1:15:52
I mean like what is machismo and masculinity and you know I mean what does it even mean?
1:15:58
It's a gender you were born with you have nothing to do with that.
1:16:02
You know you have no reason to feel gloat about something that you had no control over. You're a man.
1:16:08
So you know what makes you superior?
1:16:11
What makes you feel superior?
1:16:13
What makes you in control or command?
1:16:16
You're just a human being as much as a a woman is.
1:16:18
That's the same thing there is.
1:16:19
is. I think that equality is such it all this inequality rather comes from like age-old you know society and patriarchy and misogyny is all part of like is things that we just keep inheriting and you got to some point of time just know that it's not a privilege that you're a man no there's not a privilege and how
1:16:39
dare you like think it is one and I don't know if today I walk this way and they're like walk like a man I'm like no I'm walking like myself and I love myself and I will walk the way I want Do I will I refuse for people in my household to tell my children don't wear pink cuz girls don't boys don't wear pink. My son wears pink. I will never My son wears pink.
1:16:57
I will never ever tell my girl don't cry.
1:16:59
Like I tell my son don't cry like a girl because these are things that have been told to me. No, he can cry. He's allowed to cry.
1:17:07
He can run here how he wants to.
1:17:07
He can wear what he wants to.
1:17:09
She can do what she wants to.
1:17:10
They're both in taekwondo class together. They both play football.
1:17:14
Um they both sing and dance.
1:17:14
They both go to the hula hoop class. They both do everything.
1:17:19
That's how I want my kids to be.
1:17:21
They must be in, of course, my son has some so-called conforming boyish, you know, like he does like and she does he doesn't play with her dolls, but I've never encouraged.
1:17:30
I never just bought dolls for her. I buy two of everything.
1:17:34
So, if I'm buying her a doll, I buy him a doll and it's his choice whether he wants to.
1:17:37
But I'm not making any differentiation because to me, they are the same.
1:17:40
I know of the price I had to pay emotionally for being singled out and I do not want to do that with my children. Mhm.
1:17:48
>> Walk like a human being if you can and are able to. >> Yeah.
1:17:53
>> Do not give yourself a gender because a gender is not something that you had any control over.
1:17:57
I can't give you a gold medal because your m as a man.
1:18:02
>> Your sperm chose to be one.
1:18:02
You that's all that's all that you know somebody's sperm chose to be one. Sorry.
1:18:06
Someone's egg and sperm made you a man.
1:18:08
You have nothing to do with >> like that.
1:18:11
So I mean like I I have no I don't ever think masculinity and machismo and all that are things that I didn't want to discuss because it's so irrelevant to my think way of thinking. >> Yeah.
1:18:22
Do you do you think that not that you've tried to be this and not that you claim to be this but that you being so open about these conversations has actually pushed the culture along as well.
1:18:34
I've done my bit Jay to kind of contribute to people of a certain orientation um to the community um through my cinema through some of my my own thoughts and expressions in my own way.
1:18:47
I'm I thought that maybe if I talk about it through my work it'll be impressable and I hope it has.
1:18:52
I've never shied away from talking about myself or what I represent and uh I will always be the person I am.
1:18:59
I've never conformed to society, so to say.
1:19:01
Uh, I've always done what I've drawn to, dress the way I wanted to, express myself through my my cinema, my fashion, myself, my thoughts, my ideologies.
1:19:10
I've never ever pretended to be somebody I wasn't.
1:19:15
>> I'm proud to be who I am, who I was born to be.
1:19:17
And I am I've told my life story to the midpoint of my life, and I plan to tell it further.
1:19:22
And I want my kids to have that same level of confidence and jo that I have today being myself.
1:19:29
I'm comfortable in my skin.
1:19:29
I am not apologetic of who I am and I never will be.
1:19:35
>> How hard was it to get to that clarity?
1:19:37
>> We live in in a society that is judgmental and that is quick to kind of pick point a finger at you.
1:19:41
Um, you know, if you're different from them, you grow to kind of being the person you are without conforming to tradition.
1:19:51
I always knew that marriage was not for me.
1:19:54
I always knew that, you know, I didn't have to lie about who I was.
1:19:57
I just knew these things somehow.
1:19:59
They just came to me naturally.
1:20:00
And I think it's to do with my progressive parenting.
1:20:03
It's to do with the fact that my parents allowed me to who I was.
1:20:05
They never questioned anything.
1:20:06
They never told me don't wear that, don't do this, don't dance like that, don't walk like that. No one told me anything.
1:20:14
Unknowingly perhaps maybe they were very progressive and very very forwardthinking in their approach to me.
1:20:21
I was privileged because of my parenting not because of my my monetary circumstance or my financial circumstance at that time.
1:20:27
It was I was privileged to very progressive parents.
1:20:31
Not everybody around me has that privilege.
1:20:34
>> My request is always to parents that you know please know that your child has to be loved no matter what you think or you believe in.
1:20:43
Love is something that you cannot not give.
1:20:45
If they are of a certain orientation, you have to accept it and you have to allow them to be the person they are because they choose to be that and they want to be that and give them the freedom and joy of being that. That's all. >> It's great advice. Great advice. I I mirror it similarly.
1:21:05
I think my parents gave me the freedom when I told them I wanted to be a monk.
1:21:09
They weren't the happiest.
1:21:11
It's not the best news to get as parents, but they never blocked me.
1:21:16
They never stopped me when I told them I wanted to leave the mon monastery. They never blocked me. They never stopped me.
1:21:22
Same as when I said I'm going to move to New York and then later on to LA.
1:21:23
Again, I think unknowingly my parents were very progressive as well.
1:21:29
>> And that has been such a gift in my life because even if uncles and aunts and society and people around us were judging those decisions or questioning them >> because they were not they were not positive about it but they weren't negative about it.
1:21:42
They were neutral about it and that created such a freedom for me to become who I wanted to be and not become who they wanted me to be.
1:21:48
And my father was somewhat aloof in my early years too and that was so useful.
1:21:52
A lot of people you know and and it's fair when people feel like their parents weren't around.
1:22:00
I think my father not being around allowed me to become the man I wanted to be and choose the male role models that I wanted to have.
1:22:08
>> So Karanjora, you have been so kind and gracious with your time. Thank you so much.
1:22:12
Uh we end every interview of on purpose with a final five.
1:22:14
These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum and I will break those rules and I'm sure you will too.
1:22:22
Uh but Karan Jorah these are your final five.
1:22:24
The first question is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received.
1:22:29
>> My father people need people.
1:22:33
>> That's the three words if I have to expand on it.
1:22:35
Uh he says that if you're not there for people they won't be there for you.
1:22:39
for you. M >> so you know you just need people need people >> that's what he always told me >> yeah and it's okay to ask >> what is equal in Hindi it's called dunyari >> you know so I live by that you be there for people they'll be there for you >> yeah and it's okay to ask for help as
1:22:53
well when you are helping others naturally second question what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received >> to listen to others >> question number three you've been hosting one of the most incredible talk shows I think it's 20 season now >> 20 years unbelievable Uh what's your favorite question to ask people? >> Uh it's also got me into a lot of
1:23:12
>> Uh it's also got me into a lot of trouble when it's not my favorite question actually.
1:23:16
question actually. Uh I used to do these comparisons which I I think is incorrect and I won't do it again because why compare one to the other and I used to always say oh Ranir or Anir and I'm like how stupid this is not like like idiotic and I think that's not something but my
1:23:29
favorite question I I I think u on that show uh it's not our kind of chat which is evolved and you know so intense it's so surface that that show that's a lot of fun it's fun it's like guilty pleasure So I think whenever I do that show the entire show the vibe is like there's no favorite question. It's just the vibe is
1:23:52
It's just the vibe is like it's like downtime like downtime chat talking about things that have no relevance or absolutely are immaterial to your way of being but it's just like you've taken one hour to have a great time and you want to give an audience great time watching it.
1:24:06
So it's like yeah that whole show is like one big great question. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:24:11
>> I've I've enjoyed watching many many episodes.
1:24:13
Uh, question number four.
1:24:13
Uh, what's something that you wish people knew about you that maybe they don't?
1:24:22
>> Well, they think what they know about me.
1:24:23
They >> Something you wish people knew >> that I can be sexy. >> Oh, okay. Now, people know that. No, >> I don't think so.
1:24:30
>> Me and you talk about fashion.
1:24:31
>> I think I think No, not not not outwardly. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah.
1:24:36
I come across a little I think a little like vanilla, which I'm not. >> Oh, interesting.
1:24:40
You think you come across vanilla? >> I do. I do. Why is that? >> I don't know.
1:24:44
I come across >> very vanilla, I think, to people, but I'm not. >> Okay.
1:24:49
>> Not when the door shuts. >> Okay. Any anything more? No.
1:24:53
>> This has turned into a coffee with Karan at this. >> Yeah.
1:24:55
I'm suddenly like, why am I discussing my sex life?
1:24:58
>> Completely transformed.
1:24:59
>> No, it's just that I'm not vanilla.
1:25:01
There is some chocolate sauce there. >> Okay. I love it. Great.
1:25:03
Uh, fifth and final question.
1:25:05
We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
1:25:07
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
1:25:14
>> Equality in every which way.
1:25:18
Pay parity in every which way.
1:25:21
>> Any expansion or >> um I I I I get like, you know, I don't get it actually sometimes, you know, I feel like I know and I've been there where I've seen like a man and a woman do the same thing and the man get more money for it.
1:25:33
It doesn't make any sense to me, >> you know.
1:25:36
So, I wish that that that equal pay was something that really was a law.
1:25:41
Like, if there are two people doing the exact same job, why is sometimes the man given more money for what joy? There's no logical.
1:25:47
They both have the same educational qualifications, same work experience, and yet the man will get more.
1:25:52
I I wish and desire for pay parity in the world.
1:25:59
>> And how does that work in the film industry? >> It's the same thing.
1:26:01
It's like the same thing.
1:26:03
Like what is in the film industry is not different from the rest of the world. It's same everywhere. >> Mhm.
1:26:09
>> From a higher behind like at a coffee shop to like right up there to a corporate force to the world of politics to anywhere films, entertainment, everywhere there is that difference and I wish for it to kind of be eroded. >> Right.
1:26:26
Karanjora, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so grateful.
1:26:29
I felt like I learned so much about you today.
1:26:31
I genuinely feel you have so many lessons to teach.
1:26:34
You're a >> you've actually in the since the time I met you become one of my favorite storytellers in person.
1:26:38
You're always on screen, but I think you tell great stories.
1:26:42
You have so much attention to detail.
1:26:44
And today I learned about the philosophical and sexy side of you too.
1:26:48
And so I'm very grateful for your time.
1:26:50
>> I'm glad I could put that out.
1:26:50
Maybe there'll be some takers right after this. I'm waiting.
1:26:53
I'll let you know Jay if there's any kind there's any positive ramification to this as in America.
1:26:57
Uh I go there often enough. Yes.
1:27:00
So, I hope that there is some positive result to that last declaration of mine.
1:27:06
>> I hope that our next dinner in LA that you're giving me some is fruitful.
1:27:13
>> It was it was lovely to see you and thank you for inviting me.
1:27:16
>> Thank you so much, Karen. >> Thank you.
1:27:17
If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.
1:27:33
If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.
1:27:40
>> Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value.
1:27:41
Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.
1:27:46
That's the success comes when you say, "I like this enough for other people to see [Music]