After his studies he and a few of his college friends formed a theatre group called "Abhiyaan", and then joined Delhi-based "Yatrik", a bilingual theatre repertory founded by director Joy Michael in 1964; he became its first paid artiste, though after a few years Yatrik collapsed as the director was lecturing in US universities. That is when he moved to Kolkata in 1972 and started working with the theatre group "Padatik" which did Hindi theatre, under director Shyamanand Jalan. Here he worked for a while before moving on to Mumbai and films.
