Actor Kanwaljit Singh’s one of the latest projects, Mrs, where he played the patriarchal father-in-law to actor Sanya Malhotra, has become a huge talking point.

Talking about this sudden moment of spotlight, he shares, “Never before have I got so many responses and feedback — both praise and hate. Meri zindagi mein pehli baar hua aisa! There is a string of memes on my character. One Punjabi woman said to me, ‘Usey ‘betaji’ lafz se hi nafrat ho gai hai’. And in fact, ‘betaji’ word was my addition to the script.”

Opening about his character and the role-reversal viral clip, where he can be seen serving dishes instead, the 72-year-old shares, “My character in Mrs is not really a villain and one of those people, we see in our families. But maine bhi meme bana dala role-reversal karke and it went viral with multi-millions (8M) views. Yeh mera prayaschit hai!”

He continues, “Rishika Mishra (the girl in the viral clip) is the granddaughter of [legendary kathak dancer] Sitara Devi. Since she is a kathak artiste, she has no stage fear. So, she agreed to do the role. It came out so well ki viral ho gaya...”

But the actor’s prayaschit doesn’t just end here. He also recalls saying sorry to Sanya herself: “After the film was over, I went to Sanya and said, ‘Sorry, for being so cruel to you’. Mujhe bura laga ki women ko humare samaj mein yeh jhelna padta hai.”

He adds, “However, I come from a very liberal family and mere father meri mummy ko roz do (two) cup chai bana kar dete the, and Saturday ko motorcycle pe Saharanpur mein cinema bhi dikhate the.”