Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

Didn’t know helping Vineet will make it to headlines: Pankaj

Pankaj Tripathi’s ‘long associatio­n’ with Varanasi helped him get assistance for Vineet Kumar Singh’s family and friends

- Titas Chowdhury

Awhile ago, actor Vineet Kumar Singh took to social media to request help in arranging medication for his friends and family affected by Covid-19 in his hometown, Varanasi. Shortly after, actor Pankaj Tripathi reached out to his Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020) co-star and helped him out.

Tripathi tells us, “Vineet is a friend. I reached out to him and asked about the situation back in Banaras. I share a long associatio­n with the city and I know many people, including journalist­s, there. So, I contacted a few people and that’s how we arranged for the medicines.”

But what baffled the actor is how the gesture immediatel­y made news. “It’s a very basic thing that I did for him. I didn’t expect that it would make to news headlines. Vineet took to social media to thank me and that’s how people got to know about it. That’s the power of social media,” he shares.

The 44-year-old actor has eight projects in the pipeline. And speculatio­ns are rife that one of his upcoming films,

Mimi, which was slated for a theatrical release, is now headed the digital way. Talking about it, he says, “I’m not aware of the release of Mimi yet. But the experience of watching a film on the big screen is magical. It has the power to make an emotional scene even more emotional and a comic scene even more comical. The joy of watching a film in a dark room full of people is unparallel­ed.”

Tripathi shares that even though he has a packed schedule ahead, he has been spending his time reading scripts. “When people approach me with new scripts, I feel sad telling them that I’m busy over the time of the next year-and-a-half years. Apart from that, I’ve been reading a lot of literature and planning to watch Seema Pahwa ji’s film next,” he concludes.

 ?? PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/VINEET_KSOFFICIAL ?? Vineet Kumar Singh
PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/VINEET_KSOFFICIAL Vineet Kumar Singh

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India