Veteran actor Pankaj Kapur shared a heartwarming anecdote involving a young Shah Rukh Khan during a recent reunion with his former classmates. Recalling his days as a student at the National School of Drama (NSD), Pankaj revealed that Shah Rukh Khan once served samosas to him and his friends backstage.
Speaking about a recent reunion on Kindle Cast's YouTube channel, Pankaj said that he had completed 50 years since graduating from NSD and hosted a get-together at his home. During the gathering, memories from their student days came flooding back, including stories from legendary theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi's productions staged at Purana Qila.
Pankaj recalled that Alkazi was simultaneously directing three major productions — Razia Sultan, Tughlaq and Andha Yug. The plays were staged against the backdrop of the fort's ancient walls, creating a grand and immersive theatrical experience.
The actor remembered a particular scene from Razia Sultan in which hungry citizens gathered before the ruler. As first-year students, Pankaj and his friends were cast as members of the crowd, while two of their classmates played soldiers. During the scene, the soldiers were required to throw naans into the crowd, and the students soon devised a clever plan.
Pankaj recalled, 'We made a team with friends. They would throw the naans towards us, we would catch them, and during the interval we would buy samosas, take everything backstage and enjoy naan, samosa and tea together.'
The secret arrangement, however, did not remain hidden for long. According to Pankaj, Alkazi eventually noticed that some actors appeared to be altering the staging of the scene and promptly reprimanded them.
What made the story even more special was the identity of the person who supplied the samosas. 'Those samosas were supplied to us by none other than Shah Rukh Khan. He was a 10-year-old boy at the time. His father used to run the canteen there,' he recalled.
Earlier, in a 2016 interview with the Times of India, Shah Rukh Khan had revealed that his father ran a canteen at NSD. He said, 'I wasn't a part of the National School of Drama, but I used to work with a lot of actors who were from there. Manoj (Bajpayee) wasn't from there either, but he and I worked with actors like Raghuvir Yadav and others who were a part of NSD. They used to help with our syntax and enunciation when we were doing theatre in Delhi. I learnt a lot from them. My father used to run the canteen at NSD, which is how I got to know all the amazing actors from there.'
