Neha Saini Amritsar, November 2 Though she comes from an illustrious Kapoor family of Bollywood, her love is not cinema. Sanjana Kapoor, an eminent theatre personality, grand-daughter of Prithviraj Kapoor, daughter of Shashi Kapoor and aunt to actor Karishma, Kareena and Ranbir Kapoor, says that though she likes cinema, it is not something she wanted to dedicate her life to. “Theatre has always been my love and I found my place in the world doing theatre,” she said. One of the participating artistes for the first Children Literature Festival at Majha House, Sanjana conducted a three-hour intensive theatre workshop with kids. Sharing that she has inherited her passion and love for theatre from her grandparents from both sides, Sanjana said, “My grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor founded Prithvi Theatre in 1944 at the peak of his film career because it was his dream and he believed it to be the best way to reach out to people. He loved to tell stories of farmers, social issues and then my maternal grandparents too came to India in the 1940s and performed English plays, the classics from Shakespeare to Bernard Shaw. They thought that the Indian audience was the best in the world as it was attentive. I discovered my love for theatre while I was studying in New York.” She managed Prithvi Theatre for two decades and later co-founded Junoon, a theatre company that takes theatre to schools. For someone, whose greatest joy in the world was to engage in fine arts, including poetry, books, paintings and drama, Sanjana feels that the standards of theatre are not what they were. “We, at Prithvi Theatre, did summer theatre workshops for 25 years for a reason to create a discerning audience and with Junoon too the efforts are to reach out to kids in smaller towns and cities, the ambition is to build a relationship with audience there.” Her workshop at Majha House was an extension of her theatre-learning programme under Junoon. “I feel that functional sciences are taking over abstract sciences in our education system. Theatre, for me, is transformative, it shifts your insides, gives you your place in world. I am interested in engaging people to experience theatre for what is truly is. Cinema is a passive for of art but theatre forces you to experience a new dimension.”

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