Ranbir Kapoor recalls dad Rishi Kapoor making him travel by bus, survive on shoestring food budget: ‘It was as strict as…’

During his stint at the film institute, his father kept him on a tight budget, barely enough to have two meals a day. Sharing the experience, he told Nikhil Kamath, “By then I was very eager to come back and start work. I felt like I had gotten the experience of America. It was not really the college experience but the exposure of talking to people from all over the world and living alone. My father had kept me on a very tight budget. Of course, when I say tight budget, I am still coming from a privileged background, but it was enough to have a McDonald’s dollar menu meal for lunch and dinner. So, it was like $2 for lunch and $2 for dinner. It was as strict as that, even though I come from a privileged background.”

When further asked why his father kept him on a tight budget, he said, “He never addressed this, but I think he wanted me to live like a student and not a superstar’s son. Maybe it was to teach the value of money.” Ranbir also shared that he continued living frugally when he returned to Mumbai, as his father stopped giving him pocket money. He recalled taking public transport when he assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the film Black. “My father wanted to school me that this is not life, you are too moisturised, you need to see what hardship is,” he said.

Talking about his college days in Mumbai, Ranbir recalled how he developed the ‘nasty’ habit of smoking during his college days in the city and how that habit lasted until last year when he finally quit, keeping his health in mind after the birth of his daughter Raha. “HR College reminds me of smoking because that was the first time I bought a packet of cigarettes. You smoke with your friends outside the college and you feel grown up. It’s the first time you are wearing your own clothes and not a school uniform.”

In an earlier interview to Filmfare, Neetu Kapoor had also spoken about Rishi’s insistence on a normal upbringing for their kids. “When Ranbir was assisting in Black, Rishi told him to go by an auto or a bus… And Ranbir poor thing, he was so tall and he had to go to America on these long flights and he had to go in economy, he used to say mom, my legs get numb, I get jammed. The only thing I used to make sure then was to give him an aisle seat. So at least he can stretch his legs. I think these things are important. I would give the credit of this to my husband, because I used to spoil them.”

On the professional front, Ranbir will next be seen in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayan, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Love And War.