Ishaan Khatter recently opened up about growing up with a single mother and how it shaped his perspective. He also spoke about the financial struggles his mother faced and how his middle-class upbringing meant he couldn’t study abroad. He is the son of Neelima Azeem and Rajesh Khattarand half-brother of Shahid Kapoor.
Early life and schooling experiences
In conversation with Barkha Dutt, Ishaan said, “Any child of divorce grows up before their age because you have to, and you have to understand things that may be a bit beyond your age. The one consistent thing for me was school. I still have my school friends. My memories of school are mainly Jamnabai, and then I shifted two schools after my eighth grade, which is when I stared losing interest in academics. That’s when I became a cinephile.”
Pursuing cinema and the arts
Elaborating further, he added, “I wanted to educate myself in the world of cinema and media and dancing and artistry. I wanted to be a cultured kid. So, they allowed me that. I did one year of training as a dancer. I frequented film festivals for three years. I was an assistant director on two films. I didn’t do a foreign film course; I couldn’t really afford it, to be really frank.”
Admiration for his mother’s sacrifices
The actor also shed light on his mother navigating personal and professional lives while raising two boys. “Anybody who has been raised by a single mother realises that they are superhuman. It’s hard enough being a working mom, and being a working mom who is also a single mom… By the time my brother grew up and was able to take care of himself, I was born. She had to do it twice over. It’s a very big part of how I see the world, and my point of view of women has been shaped by that. I remember mom doubling up as both parents, and she was also a woman, living her own life and navigating those years. But she sacrificed most of who she was to put the mother first,” he said.
Perspective on privilege and upbringing
Talking about his privileges, Ishaan shared, “I’ve just done Homebound, so my perspective on privilege is… We’re the 0.1 percent. Even if you’re an ‘outsider’, once you’ve made it in the industry, you’re practically an insider. Our privilege is beyond what we understand. I was born into a household which was a middle class household. I was the first in my family to be born and raised in Mumbai, so I was closer to the film world by virtue of that.““My family saw financial rock bottom when I was three or four. I was very young, but that’s where it begins. We were very lucky, because my mom worked. She did a TV show in Delhi for three months and got us out of that place. And we slowly started climbing back up the ladder. Even if it’s two steps forward and one step back, I have seen it as a positive. So, while I’ve seen adversity, it has built character in me. It hasn’t broken my spirit. The toughest years in my life were early on, and seeing the strife my mother went through was tough to see and understand,” he concluded.
