Pankaj Tripathi takes his childhood dream of playing a musical instrument to the next level

Actor Pankaj Tripathi got around to not only learning to play a musical instrument called handpan recently, but has also hired a teacher to perfect it.

On screen, he slips into the role of a doting father (Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl) as easily as he picks up a gun and mouths abuses (Mirzapur). Off screen though, actor Pankaj Tripathi likes to remain grounded, the same way he was when he entered films, and keep his hobbies alive.

Actor Pankaj Tripathi has learnt to play a musical instrument called handpan.

It was his childhood dream to learn how to play a musical instrument. And he finally fulfilled his dream through an exquisite instrument called the handpan. Showcasing and sharing his talent with his fans, he recently posted a video on social media playing the instrument — having learnt in a matter of just five days — and that too all by himself.

On how this idea came about, he recounts, “In 2017, our film Newton went to the Berlin International Film Festival and after we won an award, I travelled across Europe and visited a museum in Poland one time. Right outside the museum, an artist playing the handpan on the streets there caught my eye and so, I spent about half an hour just listening to him play and recording it.”

Tripathi says it was in that moment that the beauty of the instrument got stuck in his mind. “And I began a quest in search of it. Finally, after three long years of searching, I found a wonderful handpan here in India and that’s what you see me playing in the video,” he tells us.

While the video fetched him a lot of appreciation from his fans, the actor adds that he fell in love with the soothing sound of the instrument and would love to learn it properly. And he has already planned to go that extra mile for the same.

“I have found an experienced tutor in Pune, who is willing to teach it to me via online classes. Handpans were actually first made quite recently — in fact just 25 years ago. For me, my aim in life is to continuously keep learning and experiencing new things that it has to offer, very much like this new instrument I happened to have found today,” concludes the Kaagaz actor.

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