An ambassador of Indian theatre

Sanjana Kapoor, daughter of Bollywood star Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal, was at the Hyderabad Literature Festival 2018 recently. During her talk, The Junoon of the Kendals and Kapoors, she spoke about the need to promote more art and culture spaces in the country. Sanjana said, “There should be more spaces where people can come together to perform and learn. What I realised very early in my life is that I loved theatre, and hence, wanted to promote it.”

Having been born and brought up in one of Bollywood’s most well-known families, Sanjana confessed that her parents kept her brothers and her away from the glamour of the industry. “I think my parents really kept us very protected from the filmi duniya and stardom. It was not by chance, but a conscious decision,” revealed Sanjana.

Mentioning her special connection with Goa, where she spent a lot of quality time with her family, the late Shashi Kapoor’s daughter said, “The fishermen there didn’t know who my father was, and initially they didn’t accept us. But later they treated us like members of their family and would even sleep on our balcony in the night to make sure we were okay. In fact, we took my parents’ ashes there too.”

Talking about her father and his busy shooting schedules, Sanjana shared that once when she asked him to narrate to her the story of the movie he was working on, he had to make it up as he was drowning in confusion with the number of films he was working on at the same time.

Sanjana also spoke about her grandfather, Prithviraj Kapoor, and with great pride mentioned that apart from being a brilliant actor, he was also a member of the Rajya Sabha for eight years. “Prithviraj Kapoor passed away when I was five, so I hardly got to know him. But I think my love for theatre is inspired by him and my maternal grandfather Geoffrey Kendal,” she stated.