Tea, sleep, anger and mangoes: PM Modi’s non-political chat with Akshay Kumar

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a conversation that steered away from politics and focused on Modi’s personal life, habits and childhood. Kumar had earlier shared a short teaser of the interview on Twitter.

Childhood and early life

• Modi said he learnt Hindi while selling tea, by talking to traders from Mumbai who came on goods trains, since he was a Gujarati.
• As a child he attended RSS camps, where he played many group games; he said such games build team spirit, and he later grew more involved in yoga.
• He washed his own clothes, ironed them using a vessel filled with coal, and used chalk to whiten his canvas shoes.
• He once wanted to join the army and tried to get into Gujarat’s Sainik School.
• As a boy he never had money in the piggy bank given out when a bank opened in his village.
• He said he never imagined he would become Prime Minister.

Habits and family

Asked why he sleeps only three or four hours, Modi said doctors and friends urge him to sleep more, and that President Obama had also taken this up with him whenever they met. He said he had not thought about retirement and would spend his life on some mission.

He said his mother still gives him money, that no government money is spent on his family, and that his mother tells him not to waste time on her. He said he never celebrated Diwali at home, instead going away alone for a few days.

Modi said he enjoys mangoes, which he used to pick from trees as a child, but now has to control how many he eats.

Anger, opposition friends and social media

Modi said he is strict but has never lost his temper with anyone, from a peon to a principal secretary. To deal with anger, he would write down what had happened, throw the paper away and repeat the exercise, often realising he had been wrong.

He said he has many friends in opposition parties, recalled chatting with Ghulam Nabi Azad, and said Mamata Banerjee still sends him a kurta or two. He said he looks at social media to understand what ordinary people are thinking.

See also: political leaders

Originally published on 24 April 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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