{"id":19154,"date":"2026-06-10T01:38:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/manav-kaul-recalls-living-on-rs-30-a-day-in-a-mumbai-chawl-after-leaving-kashmir-i-had-to-cut-away-my-kashmiriyat-hindi-movie-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T01:38:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:08:42","slug":"manav-kaul-recalls-living-on-rs-30-a-day-in-a-mumbai-chawl-after-leaving-kashmir-i-had-to-cut-away-my-kashmiriyat-hindi-movie-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/manav-kaul-recalls-living-on-rs-30-a-day-in-a-mumbai-chawl-after-leaving-kashmir-i-had-to-cut-away-my-kashmiriyat-hindi-movie-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Manav Kaul recalls living on Rs 30 a day in a Mumbai chawl after leaving Kashmir: &#8216;I had to cut away my Kashmiriyat&#8217; | Hindi Movie News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-131619924,imgsize-54390,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/screenshot-2026-06-10-011720.jpg\" alt=\"Manav Kaul recalls living on Rs 30 a day in a Mumbai chawl after leaving Kashmir: 'I had to cut away my Kashmiriyat'\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Actor, writer and playwright <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/manav-kaul\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">Manav Kaul<\/a> has reflected on his journey from Kashmir to Mumbai, opening up about displacement, survival, and the years he spent living in a chawl while trying to find his footing as an artist.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>Speaking about his childhood during his appearance on The Real Story with Sanghmitra Hitaishi, Manav recalled that his family left Baramulla, Kashmir, when he was young and moved to Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"7\"\/>&#8220;We came back to Hoshangabad because my mother is from Hoshangabad. My grandmother&#8217;s health had deteriorated badly,&#8221; he said.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"9\"\/>What initially seemed like a temporary move eventually became permanent as the situation in Kashmir worsened.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"13\"\/>&#8220;My father was still working there, so he told us to stay back because something seemed wrong. Then by the time things got worse, we had already stayed on, joined school, and kept saying, &#8216;Let&#8217;s wait another year.&#8217; Eventually my father had to come too. That&#8217;s how it became displacement.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"15\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>&#8216;There wasn&#8217;t much acceptance&#8217;<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Manav admitted that adjusting to a new environment wasn&#8217;t easy.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"18\"\/>&#8220;My brother and I looked very different. We were clearly Kashmiri children. There wasn&#8217;t much acceptance.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"22\"\/>He spoke about the challenges of fitting in as a child, saying, &#8220;Children can be a very cruel world. Adults are often more empathetic and kind. Children aren&#8217;t.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"24\"\/>The actor revealed that adapting to his surroundings came at a cost.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"26\"\/>&#8220;My brother and I struggled a lot and survived. In the process, I had to cut away my Kashmiriyat. Eventually I forgot the Kashmiri language.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"28\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>&#8216;You had to manage an entire day on Rs 30&#8217;<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Years later, when he moved to Mumbai to pursue his creative ambitions, life remained far from easy.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"33\"\/>&#8220;A lot of it came from the empty time I had when I was living in a chawl in Parel and other places,&#8221; Manav recalled.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"35\"\/>Looking back, he is grateful those years unfolded before the era of social media.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"37\"\/>&#8220;Thank God there were no reels back then. If there had been, I think I would have become a completely ruined person.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"39\"\/>Describing his financial struggles, he said, &#8220;We lived in a chawl. There was nothing to do. The day still had to pass somehow. <!-- -->We didn&#8217;t have enough money to spend freely either.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"43\"\/>&#8220;You had to manage an entire day on Rs 30.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"45\"\/>With little money for entertainment, Manav turned to books.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"47\"\/>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t go out. You couldn&#8217;t celebrate. There were no cafes. So there were books. And somewhere from there, I developed the habit of finding entertainment through books.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"49\"\/><span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"51\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Finding freedom in displacement<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>While displacement once felt painful, Manav said he eventually began to see it differently.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"55\"\/>&#8220;The first time the Lincoln Center invited me to New York, an elderly Egyptian man came to pick me up. Then I understood something. It&#8217;s an amazing thing that displacement happened.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"57\"\/>Reflecting on the many places that have shaped him, he added, &#8220;I was born in Kashmir. I grew up in Hoshangabad. I live in Bombay. I&#8217;ve been to New York. Now I can go anywhere and be that person.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"59\"\/>For Manav, the experience of constantly moving between places ultimately became part of his identity as an artist.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"62\"\/>&#8220;I think one of the most beautiful things about art and artists is that they don&#8217;t belong. And I love that.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"64\"\/>Even so, Mumbai remains home.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"66\"\/>&#8220;I travel a lot, sometimes for months. But as long as I know I&#8217;m going to come back to Bombay, I&#8217;m fine. I have a small flat there that I&#8217;ve created. It&#8217;s almost like an art studio for me. That&#8217;s my anchor.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/entertainment\/hindi\/bollywood\/news\/manav-kaul-recalls-living-on-rs-30-a-day-in-a-mumbai-chawl-after-leaving-kashmir-i-had-to-cut-away-my-kashmiriyat\/articleshow\/131619867.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actor, writer and playwright Manav Kaul has reflected on his journey from Kashmir to Mumbai, opening up about displacement, survival, and the years he spent living in a chawl while trying to find his footing as an artist.Speaking about his childhood during his appearance on The Real Story with Sanghmitra Hitaishi, Manav recalled that his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-latest-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}