From Engineering to Acting
Okay, first of all, I must thank you so much for agreeing to do this. We've have a absolutely enraptured audience who are all looking forward to this. They want to decode this enigma called Vicky Kaushal.
It seems like a mysterious, and and yet such a draw that you have over especially the youngsters. It's, it's something absolutely breathtaking. So the theme of the event is, the stories we tell also tell us.
So we want to know your story. Was it an unlikely one? I mean, could you take us back to the, your days of engineering and then how you journeyed, how it all started off?
Because I know that it, you know, it all started with an industrial event, if I'm not wrong. A lightning struck. I would actually like to take the story a little further back.
Oh, lovely. We are For two years of my life, I have, stood at the bus stop right here. Oh. I was a Mithibai student. Oh, wow. For two years of my life, I have stood at this bus stop.
I was a science student, so my classes used to be from 7:00, 7:30 to 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and I used to stand at the bus stop over here, wait for 79, 33, 38. These are the three buses that used to take me home. And I want to know how much does the vada pav cost over here now?
It's pretty steep now. It's pretty steep. 30? 30. 20. 20. 10 as well.
So when I was, when I was doing my junior college in Mithibai, this was 2001 to 2003. By the way, when was the last time you had a vada pav? Vada pav? Yeah. I keep having vada pav on set.
Vada pav. Yeah. I call for vada pavs. But in 2001 to 2003, I was in Mithibai, and that time the vada pav used to be, five rupees.
Wow. Five rupees. So, I've started from here. Right. And then of course, I did my engineering from Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. 'Til that huh.
I'm still that guy, but I've always believed in living in the present, going with the flow, and just being completely honest to what I'm doing now. Mm-hmm. The plan was to do post-graduation. I was good in studies, but I was very active on stage since childhood, but never really thought that I want to make it a career choice.
Right. Right. So when I was doing my engineering, in the second year, the college faculty took us to an industrial visit to show us, "Kids, this is your future. You know, when you pass out from. You complete your graduation, this is how an MNC looks.
This is how the work-" Right. "Whatever, the floor Okay. And how people work."
So that was the first time I started introspecting as to what do you want to do. So the answer was performing for the audience. The rule was in the family that first you have to finish graduation.
You have to finish it well. I had a blast doing my engineering. I finished that, and then in 2009 is when I started my journey as an actor.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's how it all began. As audience, we always like to look at the glory days of an actor, of how he's doing well and all the success and fanfare that he's enjoying. But failures is something that we don't talk about.
Like, the, everyone has a good share of it. Was it a very, was it a straightforward journey? Because I because if I'm not wrong, you started off with assisting, Anurag and then your first break.
So was it a straightforward journey or how did you take failures? It was a straightforward journey, but of course I wanted to learn acting. Of course I wanted to learn the skills.
But more than that, I just wanted to be sure that if I'm made to act every day, am I a happier soul or am I cribbing about it? That's what I really wanted to know. So I did that, and by the end of it, I got my answer, that I really love doing this.
After that, I was also sure. I remember I was 22 back then. Mm. Right after engineering, I was 22.
I was in no hurry to be in front of the camera. Right. Because I knew that firstly, camera captures everything. You're a good actor, bad actor, fantastic actor, worst actor.
It will present you the way you are, because in acting, your eyes have to be honest, and the the camera captures everything. The audience, in two seconds of sitting in that cinema hall, in that first shot you give, in that first scene that you do, they know that if you can act or no. Right. And once they've made that judgment-