Épisodes

  • A Conversation With Mohan Kapur
    Dec 17 2025

    In this episode, Pooja sits down with actor and voice artist Mohan Kapur, a performer who has mastered his craft by simply living life.

    The episode sees the two friends trace Mohan’s journey: from being paid ₹500 an episode on Saanp Seedi - money he jokingly refers to as for “cigarettes and booze” - to finding himself inside the Marvel universe. He laughs about being “a man everyone loved to hate,” recalls the time a co-actor on the sets of Angaaray got so carried away that he hurled real rocks at Mohan and Pooja ended up getting punched, and the time Samuel L Jackson complained to him about being scratched by a cat named Thor.

    The conversation moves fluidly between humour and heartbreak. Mohan opens up about losing both parents, caring for his mother through her final months, and refusing to enter his home after the death of his beloved cat, Ladoo Singh.

    Mohan also reflects on the question of nepotism in the industry, and of film casting being dictated by social media following.

    This is an intimate, funny, often disarming exchange between two friends who have unknowingly shaped each other’s lives.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 1 min
  • A Conversation With Abbas Ali Moghul
    Dec 10 2025

    In this episode, Pooja meets Abbas Ali Moghul, the award-winning action director behind more than 300 films and shows, and the son of actor Habib, who fled Iran at seventeen to chase his dream of working in Hindi cinema.

    Habib went on to appear in more than 150 films, yet passed away with little recognition. Abbas carries that legacy forward with quiet pride, and has become one of India’s most respected action directors, known for crafting iconic sequences in films like Ghulam, Josh and Agneepath.

    In this conversation, Abbas reflects on performing death-defying stunts long before VFX and modern safety gear. He shares what it means to stand in for stars when things turn dangerous: jumping off an eleven-storey building without ropes, crashing through glass walls, even setting himself ablaze.

    Abbas takes Pooja behind the scenes of some of Bollywood’s most unforgettable moments: Aamir Khan’s legendary train stunt in Ghulam, Akshay Kumar’s daring leap onto an aircraft’s wings, and the thoughtful lesson Hrithik Roshan once offered his son, Arbaaz.

    The discussion traces Abbas’s extraordinary arc—from acting in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi to witnessing his father’s struggles and isolation within the industry.

    This episode shines a light on the grit behind the glamour: the underpaid stunt performers who risk everything, the moments Abbas worked while wheelchair-bound, and the sleepless nights that still precede every dangerous shoot, even after forty years in the business. It’s a heartfelt reminder of the invisible backbone of cinema, and the passion that keeps it alive.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 4 min
  • A Conversation With Amruta Subhash
    Dec 3 2025

    In this moving conversation, Pooja meets Amruta Subhash, a National Award-winning actor and theatre director. This conversation is one between soulmates: it starts with tears, ends with tears and wanders through many worlds that have shaped Amruta’s life.

    Amruta speaks with candour and vulnerability: about directing and acting in her brilliant play, Asen Me Nasen Me — a gift from her husband and playwright Sandesh Kulkarni, based on her father’s descent into Alzheimer’s — and about grappling with her grandmother’s death and the guilt and desperation that followed.

    Amruta recounts the time theatre legend Satyadev Dubey threatened to slap her, even as Pooja likens her to a dragon unleashed when the camera rolls.

    Beyond this, the conversation is also a meditation in resilience and healing. Amruta talks about her transformation--being confined to a wheelchair at 23 to rebuilding her life piece by piece; about finding an unexpected father figure in playwright Vijay Tendulkar, who quietly nudged her toward therapy and healing. The two look back at Amruta’s acting journey, and how she grew up seeing her mother Jyoti Subhash transform from a bhakri-cooking homemaker to a force on stage — a metamorphosis that left her spellbound.

    Along the way, Amruta laughs about receiving a postcard from Aamir Khan that convinced her, as a young girl, she was meant to marry him; and how her first words weren’t speech at all, but song.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 6 min
  • A Conversation With Avtar Gill
    Nov 26 2025

    Pooja sits down with the ever-unassuming yet endlessly fascinating Avtar Gill—a man who insists he’s “ordinary” despite a career spanning 350 films.

    In this episode, filled with sardonic humour and candid reflections, Avtar looks back at the quiet strength of his truck driver father, jokes about being labelled Mahesh Bhatt’s third wife, and reflects on the lessons he has absorbed from greats like Dilip Kumar, Pran and Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

    Along the way, he regales Pooja with stories—of the time Rishi Kapoor pranked him at midnight by pretending to be Steven Spielberg, why Sanjay Dutt pushed for a Sadak remake, when he wrote his own dialogues in Rangeela and the time he witnessed Mithun Chakraborty eat rice and salt water in a hotel suite in Malaysia.

    Avtar also reveals how he has managed to look the same for decades, why he calls himself an also-ran, why he has no ego in asking for work and how, despite nearly five decades of work in the industry, he remains a labourer at heart.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 6 min
  • A Conversation With Rahul Bose
    Nov 19 2025

    In this episode, Pooja sits down with Rahul Bose - actor, director, writer, activist, sportsman, sports administrator and dear friend.

    In a conversation marked by candid admissions, warm banter and thoughtful reflections, the two revisit the Bombay they grew up in and what it means to embrace singledom. Rahul speaks openly about the arc of his life: the early hunger for money, success and fame, and the slow shift toward quieter pursuit of service and cutting out negativity. He recalls the night Anurag Kashyap phoned him at 2 AM to praise his directorial debut, Everybody Says I Am Fine; his overwhelming encounter with the generosity of Zakir Hussain; and why he believes the lines between arthouse and mainstream cinema have largely dissolved. Along the way, the two remember a series of moments from their shared past—Rahul scribbling poetry for Pooja on a tissue in the middle of the 'Ghetto' and breaking a traffic signal for a shot.

    Rahul also reflects on why marriage holds no particular fascination for him and why he’s content being an eternal bachelor. He talks about the time he kissed Pooja on screen, the bewilderment he felt when he saw his friends’ mothers cooking instead of their fathers, and the deep sense of gratitude that anchors him today.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    57 min
  • A Conversation With Jayesh Sheth
    Nov 12 2025

    In this episode, Pooja talks with Jayesh Sheth, who has spent over four decades chronicling the industry and its stars by bringing his sense of spontaneity and soul into his photographs.
    From being a wedding photographer to being chosen to shoot Richard Gere, Jayesh takes Pooja through his journey marked by vivid encounters with India’s biggest stars. He recalls Rishi Kapoor’s first lesson to him in showbiz, why Zeenat Aman was as fierce as a ‘tigress’ in their first photoshoot after her eye injury, how a laughter-filled accident got him an iconic shoot of Rekha, and the time he coaxed Jagjit Singh into donning a pair of jeans for a photo shoot.
    From napping while Shahrukh Khan waited in his studio, to why he thinks actor Raj Kumar was the toughest actor to shoot with, Jayesh shares what it was like to capture an industry over decades, where every star had their own aura.
    Together, Pooja and Jayesh look back on a time before filters and followers and why Jayesh wants young artists to “chase the light and not the likes.”

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h
  • A Conversation With Shreya Dhanwanthary
    Nov 5 2025

    In this episode, Pooja meets Shreya Dhanwanthary, actor, author and someone who believes in seeking validation within, and holding onto your true self. Shreya, best-known for her roles in Scam 1992, The Family Man and Chup, opens up about how she navigates lean times and keeps the fire burning, despite it all. Shreya tells Pooja why travel keeps her rooted, and why failure still scares her. The two crack up about the time a director assumed Shreya’s wit came from ChatGPT, which she calls “the plastic surgery of vocabulary”. They both discuss embracing singledom in an age where the fear of loneliness is driving people into loveless relationships, with Pooja noting that slavery comes in attractive packages. An episode that will nudge you to own your journey, be true to yourself and stand up for your choices. Honest, funny and fiercely real—episode has it all. Listen to it now.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 2 min
  • A Conversaion With Suhrita Das
    Oct 29 2025

    Pooja sits with writer-filmmaker Suhrita Das, a woman who had to lose everything she was before she could finally become who she is. Das, the director of Tu Meri Poori Kahaani, and Pooja speak of the price of awakening —a motherhood lived in absence, a marriage left behind, a body changing before the world was ready to see her, and a film born through fire instead of applause. Two women —no masks, no posturing —holding space for the truth that: sometimes a life is not built, it is survived into. Not achievement. Rebirth.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 h et 1 min