Manoj Bajpayee reveals he only reads scripts written in Devanagari: I refuse to read anything else

Manoj Bajpayee believes that Hindi is getting marginalised, both in society as well as in the film business. The actor is attempting to combat this by establishing a rule that he would only accept film scripts written in Devanagari .

According to a report in Hindustan Times, upon being questioned about the reasons for his belief, Manoj responded, “It’s not the fault of the entertainment industry. I feel that everyone likes to send their children to an English-medium school, whether they are good, bad, or average. We want our children to learn to speak English first. And then, if there is time and energy, they can go ahead and learn some other language. So, actually, we are failing as parents. We are failing as teachers, too, to inculcate a passion for our own language.”

Manoj further believes that society and the entertainment business are not dissimilar from one another. According to him, 90–95 percent of newcomers to the field solely write in English, and he calls this an awful situation. Manoj, however, is determined about reading only Devanagari scripts.

The actor continued, “There are very few of us who demand that our scripts be written in Devanagari. I refuse to read anything else. If it is written in English, it is returned back to them. It’s not like I don’t know English. I know the language, but as artistes, we are expressing or we need to express ourselves in Hindi (on screen), so it should be in our knowledge of writing, reading and speaking. In fact, reading [scripts] in Hindi should definitely be there."

In the meantime, Manoj has given some noteworthy performances in classics in films and series like The Family Man, Satya, Shool, Gangs of Wasseypur, Aligarh, and Ray.