‘Tragedy is a qualification’: Sanjeev Kapoor slams reality TV, refuses ‘sob story’ for his upcoming biopic

Sanjeev Kapoor, one of India’s most celebrated culinary icons, has a strong message for the entertainment industry: stop glorifying struggle. Amid discussions surrounding his highly anticipated biopic, Kapoor sat for a candid conversation with LiveMint, expressing his discomfort with the industry’s obsession with amplifying personal hardships.

Kapoor, who revolutionised Indian television in the 1990s with Khana Khazana, said that having a tragic backstory has almost become a prerequisite for participation in today's reality shows.

"Look at reality TV shows…having a tragic backstory has become a qualification," he said. "We are nurturing struggle. People don't realise it.”

Without confirming if his biopic is being made or not, Kapoor added, "One thing I am sure that I don't want to portray or amplify is struggle...We need to talk more about the goodness that is around us. Let's create more positivity. I want to show more goodness; I want to believe goodness will inspire people more than struggle."

The Indian Express had reported last year that Chef Kapoor said a biopic was being made about him. “Hansal Mehta is directing it, and Aamir Khan Productions is behind it,” he was quoted as saying in the interview.

Talking to LiveMint, Chef Kapoor said that he does not want to call his early days a period of suffering or victimhood.

"You can call it the struggle of me not doing it for a few months…or it can be the process of learning," he said. "Most people, what they celebrate as struggle, is actually learning. It's training. It's riyaaz (practice). That's how I see it."

Chef Kapoor became a household name with the success of the cooking show ‘Khana Khazana’, which aired for the first time in 1993. Kapoor said that like today, cooking was seen as a female domain.

“The initial thought was that the host should be a female, and every week there would be one chef featured. I was one of the chefs to be featured with a female host,” he said.

However, he added that the director of the show, Hansal Mehta, thought that he would actually do a better job than the female host.

“We shot three episodes and submitted those to the channel, and the channel rejected them. They said, ‘No, no, the host has to be a female. How can you decide who the host will be?’” he shared.

“I didn't think too much. I was working in a hotel as a chef; I had a full-time job. This was just some kind of fun activity on the side. Did I feel bad? Of course, you feel bad. But it wasn't like my world came apart or my dreams were broken. I was doing my job, and this was just something that happened. If it worked out, good; if not, I had a good job and was working hard,” Kapoor added.

As the fate would have it, on one of the following days, the chef who was supposed to come for the shoot didn’t turn up. On Mehta’s request, Chef Kapoor shot that episode with the female host, and “when it went on air, the ratings went through the roof”.

Kapoor went on to do over 600 episodes for the show.