When Kader Khan reminisced his first stint in theatres, and his first token earning

It all started with bunking the mosque prayers

“My mother always insisted that I attend the mosque prayers, which I generally used to bunk, thinking that my mother will never come to know. And whenever she used to ask me about my prayers, I used to confidently reply positively. But every time I lied, she used to scold me. One day, when I asked her how she came to know that I lied, she showed me my dirty feet and said that “You feet are dirty. That means you didn’t go to mosque at all.” It’s mandatory for every Muslim to do ‘vazoo’ at the mosque, which involves proper cleansing of the body.” [sic]

Kader Khan’s talent was spotted

“Strange it may sound, but the fact is that, I used to bunk prayers and sit at the nearby graveyard and mimic everybody whom I had met the whole day! What I was unaware was that there used to be people who used to regularly watch me ‘perform’ there! One night, when I was all alone in the graveyard and was lost in my own world of mimicking people, an old man held a torchlight on me and asked me what I was up to.” [sic]

The first time Kader Khan heard the term ‘drama’

“When I said that these were ‘frustrations’ that I take it out through my mimicry acts, he immediately asked me, “Will you act in my drama?” And that was the first time ever I had heard the term ‘drama’ in my whole life! And the next I knew was that I was at his house practising for my ‘debut’ stage performance.” [sic]

The first performance, received a token of appreciation

“As I entered the stage I was nervous initially. But the very moment the play ended, the audience came rushing and picked me like the way they hold a Ganpati. And as a token of appreciation for my performance, a man from the audience came out of nowhere and handed over a crispy Rs. 100 note to me and said, ‘Please take care of this note. This will get converted into a lakh of rupees one day’.” [sic]

Had to give up the first token of appreciation?

Reportedly, it is heard that Kader Khan had kept this note, his first token of appreciation, with him, as a valuable treasure for many years. But, sadly, there was a rough period in his life when he had to use it to fulfill his basic household necessities.