The actor, who makes his Bollywood debut with Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas,reveals how rapping helped him express his innermost feelings and deal with the bullying he faced in school
Neha Maheshwri (BOMBAY TIMES; September 14, 2019)
Over the years, many Bollywood actors have turned rappers, including Abhishek Bachchan and Ranveer Singh. However, not many know that Karan Deol, who will make his acting debut in Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (PPDKP), directed by his dad Sunny Deol, has been rapping for years now. He had delivered a rap number for Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 (YPD2), and will be heard rapping in PPDKP as well. Interestingly, Karan, who is quite shy by nature, took to rap as a medium to express his angst and inner conflicts as a teenager. He tells BT, “In school, other students saw me as an actor’s son, they made me feel that I was too privileged. The fact that I was a quiet kid didn’t help either; people mistook it for arrogance and maintained a distance from me. So, I didn’t have any friends for the longest time. It was only in the eighth standard that I finally made friends.”
Karan faced a lot of bullying because of his ‘star son’ status. Recalling an incident, he says, “Once, a fellow student locked me in a hold, and asked me to break out of it.” Karan adds, “When I failed to do so, he said that I couldn’t be Sunny Deol’s son, as I wasn’t able to break free. I would share these incidents with my mom, but not dad; he got to know about it much later. I kept a lot of things to myself and started rapping to express my inner conflicts. It was easier for me to put it down on paper. I would write about love, life, people, misunderstandings, emotions and what my state of mind was.”
Papa Sunny got a first-hand experience of his son’s talent on his birthday, a few years ago. Karan shares, “I write mostly in English. In fact, I wrote a rap for dad on his birthday a few years ago. He became emotional and was surprised.”
While Karan had co-written the rap in YPD 2, this time around, he has just rapped the lines written by Siddharth-Garima for his rap number in PPDKP.
I started rapping to express my inner conflict-Karan Deol
