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Tanuj Virwani opened up about his new journey into fatherhood in an exclusive chat with Zoom. The actor shared insights on balancing paternity leave, recovering from a recent injury, and embracing the responsibilities of raising a child. He also discusses how his mother, veteran actress Rati Agnihotri, has joyfully reacted to becoming a grandmother, and teases exciting projects on the work front.
Below are excerpts from the interview –
So Tanuj, are you on paternity leave?
Yes, as of right now, I am on paternity leave. I also actually had a pretty bad accident a couple of months back where I broke my collarbone and I've had a metal plate which has been put in, so it put a bit of a spoke in the wheel of my acting work. I had to kind of request the producers to kind of postpone it by a bit till I'm in a position physically able to perform those scenes. So, I will go back to shoot towards mid-October, so I will be on paternity leave for about three weeks, yes.
How has fatherhood changed you?
I can't answer as yet if fatherhood will change me or not because I've technically just been a father for a week or so, but of course the hope and intent and intention is to be overall more sorted, more, you know, understanding, more responsible, all these things… because I'm no longer just in charge of my own life, you know, there are other people who are also dependant on me and in my personal space and my professional space, it is my moral duty to appraise who I have been and into who I want to be.
So time for a lot of introspection?
I think this is just the beauty of life and, you know, it's not like you have to kind of keep reminding yourself or building into your subconscious, it just happens. It's like when I got married, suddenly I felt responsible for another human being as well, and of course my wife Tanya and I go back a long way and it's not like I didn't care for her before marriage. That I didn't love her prior to getting married.
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Marriage changes that equation?
Yes, something just changed, so I feel similarly now that we have a daughter, that sense of responsibility and protectiveness has kind of gone up like ten times.
Are you good with the nappies and burpees?
I wouldn't say I'm a pro at the nappies and the burpees and stuff, but I have been seeing a lot of videos and self-educating over the past few months, but now it's time to actually show my family and show my wife that I am indeed capable of doing so, so maybe three steps, today is day two, but we'll get there and, yeah, I don't think it's rocket science and I feel if you put your head to it, you can easily do it.
No name for the baby yet?
We've not decided a name as yet, because we're just having a janampatri made and based on that we will decide what is the ideal name.But I can tell you that it will in all probabilities start with the letter N, so that's all I know as of now.But hopefully we’ll find a nice befitting name for our princess soon.
How has your mother (veteran actress Rati Agnihotri) reacted to becoming a grandmother?
My mom has reacted very, very positively and she's over the moon, she was really emotional when our kid was born and she's like 'oh my God, am I her grandmother now?' And I'm like 'yeah, because I'm the dad, so you are the grandmother', she's like 'I don't know if I'm ready to be a grandmother yet'. Then I'm like 'listen, age has nothing to do with it, I just feel you're going to make the most amazing grandmother' and she was always so hands-on while she raised me and stuff and all and I expect her to really help and aid Tanya, since we all live in the same home, it's a lot simpler, but it's an amazing feeling for me as a son to see her so happy, like every time she sees our daughter, her eyes just light up and she's just like, okay, what do we need to do now?
What's next for you on the work front?
So I just had a show that released on Zee5 with KK Menon called Murshid, next up I've got a show with Applause Entertainment which is tentatively titled DAU, Domestic Anti-Terrorism Union. Then I have Mumbai Edition, this co-stars Rahul Dev, I play an ACP and it's a really fast-paced crime thriller set in Mumbai, I've got this film called Johnny Jumper directed by Saurabh Varma. I play a cable-wala who's also an undercover operative for the police in Bhopal, my character is also a Parkour expert, so it offered me the opportunity to do a lot more, to play with the physicality of the role a whole lot more, I've got this cute little rom-com called Puppylove and I just got done shooting for the second season of Rana Naidu with Venkatesh Daggubati and Rana Daggubati and whole bunch of amazing actors.