Sanjay Mishra, Actor
“My workout? I filled 40 buckets of water a day with a hand pump!”
Where were you career-wise?
I had no career then. It was later that I got a scholarship from NSD (National School of Drama).
What was your bank balance like?
I didn’t have a bank account then.
What was your family life like?
Though they were always worried about my career, I had a good relationship with my parents, my father (the late) Shambhu Nath Mishra and my mother Meera. I was born in Patna but we shifted to Delhi. My siblings, (the late) Sumit, Amit and Meenal, loved me and gave me a positive vibe. When my younger brother started working as a journalist, he supported me.
What was your relationship status?
I was in a relationship with a village girl, but it didn’t last long.
What was your focus in life?
I was in the process of discovering my potential. This was before my acting phase — I wasn’t aware that I was going to become an actor. I had a slight inclination
towards music but I was clueless about what I wanted to achieve in life.
Which places you had travelled to?
Nepal, Bihar, Delhi, Bhopal and Varanasi.
What was your fashion sense like back then?
My fashion sense was really great from a young age (laughs). I would wear Hara jeans from Nepal and rubber chappals.
What was your fitness quotient?
My weight was around 50kgs. I played cricket and football, walked and cycled a lot. But the best workout was thanks to the handpump — I filled 40 buckets of water a day.
Your usual mode of travel?
Bus, train and my feet. I walked a lot.
What was your biggest dream?
I had a talent for copying the signatures of dignitaries like Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan and so on. So, I wanted to become someone whom people would ask for autographs.
Who were your idols when you were 22?
Ravi Shankar, Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan, Govind Maharaj, Kishan Maharaj, Lacchu Maharaj in music. In cricket, it was Sunil Gavaskar and in films, I was inspired by Amitabh Bachchan, Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt.
A memory from that time that has left an impression?
I went to fetch my uncle from the railway station. He had travelled in the first class air-conditioned compartment, and I really liked the compartment. I was delighted to get a chance to sit in it till my uncle told me, ‘This compartment is not for people like you!’
“BEFORE MY ACTING PHASE, I WAS CLUELESS ABOUT WHAT I WANTED TO ACHIEVE IN LIFE.”
Growing up, I remember the “our generation was different from yours” comment being thrown at me by my family. When I told my mom I’d have a love marriage, she would say, “Oh, in my time, I didn’t even have the guts to speak with boys in our school openly.” And when I spent my first internship paycheck taking my family for a dinner, my grandpa had said, “Your generation is imprudent, not saving money when required.”
These generational differences still continue, but when I read the blurb of a book titled What Millennials Want, which quoted nearly 84 per cent of my cohort as wanting an arranged marriage and said that 65 per cent preferred having a government job, I was curious. So, I got into a conversation with the author of the book, Vivan Marwaha, a millennial himself.
Inside India
“I was shocked when I travelled to different Indian states and towns and cities and people spoke about their choices in life. Sitting in Mumbai or Delhi, our perspective is different compared to those in Bhopal, Kozhikode or Jabalpur. For instance, Jabalpur was thriving as an industrial town in the 1950s and '60s. And it still continues to function at the same pace as it did back then, unlike different metro cities that developed with time. So, people prefer being employed in a government job where there’s security rather than being unemployed or meddling with the uncertainty of a private job,” says Vivan.
The 26-year-old then points out that it’s not just the youth in Jabalpur that has these thoughts, but also people working at big multinationals in India like Infosys.
What inspired the Delhi youth to write a book on his generation? “I grew up in Delhi and moved to California in 2015-16 to study International Relations. During my time in the USA, I realised that the government there was extremely focussed on understanding how millennials work, hire and vote. There was this emphasis on understanding people. So, I wondered about India, which actually is one of the youngest countries in the world right now. Why were we not trying to understand millennials in our country?”
Travel and learn
When Vivan visited his grandparents in Bhopal and spoke to his friends there, he realised their thoughts were different because life was so different there.
“I then worked with a think tank in Delhi. But soon, I realised I wanted to study more about my generation, so I quit my job and started travelling and collecting data and then began blogging about it. I had so much data which needed to be published that eventually a book came on track as well,” he says, adding that he had finished writing the book between 2018 and 2020, but the launch had to be pushed back due to the pandemic. “We are the internet generation, with access to the net at all times, whether you live in Bengaluru or you live in Patna. Also, today all of us have taken this internet accessibility to focus on self-improvement. People are watching YouTube videos to learn make-up, English, computers and more. The role of technology has contributed to self-development today. While there are pros and cons to social media, we are constantly working our way on it. It’s interesting to learn the aspirations and capabilities of our cohort and their thought processes,” says the author whose book is not only about studying the generation but understanding different problems faced by people, from access to mental health care to using fintech apps.
What Millennials Want focusses on talking to people and decoding the problems of the generation through first-hand discussions. After all, it’s about the largest generation of young people in the world!
“WE ARE THE INTERNET GENERATION... TODAY, ALL OF US HAVE TAKEN THIS NET ACCESSIBILITY TO FOCUS ON SELFIMPROVEMENT"