Pankaj Tripathi recalls how he once ate ‘insects’ in an attempt to learn swimming!

Pankaj Tripathi is well-known to be a talented and hard-working actor. He has delivered terrific performances in films like Angrezi Medium, Stree, OMG 2, and Mimi among others. He is currently gearing up for the release of his film Main Atal Hoon, which is a biopic on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In a recent interview with India TV, Manoj got candid as he opened up about his childhood and village life. The actor recalled the time he ate ‘insects’ in an attempt to learn swimming. That’s not all, he also revealed why he changed his and his father’s surname from Tiwari to Tripathi.

Pankaj Tripathi recalls eating insects

Pankaj shared, “I wanted to learn swimming. We had a river behind our house. The river water has small black insects swimming on top of it. So, the kids in the village, they are very naughty, they told me that if I drink these insects I will learn swimming. So, I picked up 10-12 of those insects and drank them with the water. I am thankful that my stomach didn’t get upset.”

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Pankaj reveals why he changed his surname

Talking about the time he decided to change his and his father’s surname, Pankaj said, “It must be the first time in history that a father got a name from his son. I was filling the admit card of 10^th standard. My uncle use the surname Tripathi and he had become an officer in the government. There was also one Baba who had Tripathi surname, he became a professor of Hindi. Those who had my surname, Tiwari, they all were either priests or were doing farming.”

He added, “So, I thought this because of the surname. I didn’t want to become farmer or a preists. So, I wrote my name as Tripathi in the form. But then I thought I can’t write my father’s name as Tiwari in the form as it might get rejected. So, I changed his name too.”

On the other hand, Main Atal Hoon is slated to release on January 19, 2024.

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Also Read: Did you know Pankaj Tripathi was approached by real-life gangsters after Gangs Of Wasseypur? “They thought of me as their idol”

Mamta Naik

Content Writer