Prashant Singh (HINDUSTAN TIMES; May 11, 2020)

India has been under lockdown for close to 50 days now. And as the country goes through lockdown 3.0, Arjun Kapoor feels “a large number of people — especially an entire generation — had forgotten the sheer simplicity of life”. “But now, everyone is sort of learning that we can actually survive on smaller things, and lesser stuff. The idea should be to enjoy and embrace the finer things of life, and learn,” says the actor.

At the same time, Kapoor hopes that people don’t go back to being how they were before the Coronavirus pandemic. “We are a very ‘dheeth’ civilisation. That’s why my fear is that a year later people may not even remember this period. But whenever things go back to ‘normal’, we have to come out as good people and better human beings on the other side of it,” says the Mubarakan (2017) actor.

Nowadays, although his daily routine has gone for a toss, Kapoor says he “tries and works out as much as possible, at home”. “Aur sone ki koshish karta hoon but since I don’t get too tired these days, woh bhi thoda challenging ho jaata hai,” says the actor, 34, who feels “saddened to see the misery” due to the pandemic. “When I look around, I feel we — as the privileged lot — shouldn’t even dare to complain,” says Kapoor, who recently went on a virtual date with fans to raise funds for the families of daily wage earners.

Work-wise, the actor has around 10 days of work left on the Nikkhil Advani-produced film co-starring Rakul Preet Singh. “I was supposed to sign a few films but all of them are on hold now,” says Arjun, for whom watching a film in a theatre is on his to-do list once the situation is under control. “That will be very special, though at this point, it looks like a privilege,” he says.