Star son Arjun Kapoor gets less work than outsider Sushant Singh Rajput

For those spreading the false narrative of Sushant Singh Rajput being jobless, here is a comparative study of the careers of Sushant and Arjun Kapoor , the latter a privileged industry insider who started at the around the same time as Sushant.

They both had a successful film debut Sushant with Kai Po Che in 2013 and Arjun Kapoor, who is the son of one of Bollywood’s most influential producers Boney Kapoor, a year earlier in Ishaqzaade. Thereafter Arjun, for all the push from his father and Karan Johar (whom he served as an assistant for many years) Arjun’s career has refused to take off.

Sushant, on the other hand, climbed from strength to strength slowly and sturdily. His second film Shuddh Desi Romance from the prestigious Yash Raj studios, was also a hit. Then came Dibakar Bannerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshy which did not succeed at the boxoffice but showed Sushant’s fierce dedication to getting into character, on a par with Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapoor.

The brief successful journey continued with M S Dhoni The Untold Story where Patna’s Shatrughan Sinha says Sushant did a Dhoni even better than Dhoni. He looked like a professional cricketer not an actor playing a cricketer.

The success streak continued with Kedarnath, Sonechiriya and Chhichore. While Sonechiriya was a boxoffice failure it is Sushant lifetime’s best performance. See it for his intense immersing abilities. In Sonechiriya we don’t see Sushant. We only saw the outlaw Lakhan Singh in his cheap sneakers and priceless smiles.

I think Sonechiriya placed Sushant ahead of all his other contemporaries including Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh. In his 7-year career Sushant did barely 10 films out of which only two Raabta and Drive were outright disasters.

I remember after my screening of Raabta the first person I spoke to was Sushant.

“How was it, Sir?” he asked in an unsure voice.

“I liked it,” I said with a straight face, not wanting to hurt the film or its team even before release.

“Are you sure, Sir?” Sushant asked again.

We both knew I was lying.

This and the Netflix trash Drive (which I didn’t even pretend to like) were the only film in Sushant’s repertoire that let him down.

8 out of 10 hits…is according to me a solid average which star-kid Arjun Kapoor, for all his backing, doesn’t have. And really, if Karan Johar only patronized star-kids wouldn’t he have cast Arjun Kapoor in at least one of his productions?

The fact is, this industry looks at an actor only from the viewpoint of success and failure. And from where I stand I see Sushant Singh Rajput as a success.