Sanjay Kapoor (EastEnders)
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| EastEnders character | ||||||||||
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| Sanjay Kapoor | ||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Deepak Verma | |||||||||
| Duration | 1993–1998 | |||||||||
| First appearance | 9 February 1993 | |||||||||
| Last appearance | 24 September 1998 | |||||||||
| Profile | ||||||||||
| Status | Married | |||||||||
| Occupation | Market trader | |||||||||
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Sanjay Kapoor was a fictional character in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders. He was played by Deepak Verma.
Sanjay the market trader had an eye for the ladies and a weakness for gambling. He was always full of big ideas and get-rich-quick schemes, which never worked.
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[edit] Background
Sanjay was first seen in Albert Square in February 1993. He was an old friend of the market inspector, Richard Cole, and he came to persuade him to bend the rules and give him a pitch in the market for his clothing stall. Richard agreed and gave him Rachel Kominski's permanent pitch, much to her dismay.
Sanjay, a Hindu, was married to Gita Kapoor and at the time of his arrival she was heavily pregnant with their first child, which was due in March 1993. They had been living separately since the failure of their previous business, and Sanjay needed to find a place for them to live.
Sanjay had a weakness for gambling, a fact that Richard was all too aware of and he immediately tempted him with a late night poker game. Sanjay got himself into trouble when he gambled away the deposit money he was due to spend on a flat. This meant that Sanjay and Gita had to lodge with Richard for a while at number 13 Turpin Road (over the Bookies) until they could find another flat. Understandably, Gita was not pleased. Eventually Sanjay (via more gambling) managed to get some money together and put down a deposit on flat number 43B Albert Square. That same day Gita went into labour, giving birth to a little girl, who they named Sharmilla.
Sanjay was always out to make a quick buck and it wasn't long before he'd gotten himself into trouble with the trading standards for selling fake designer labels on his cothing stall. Gita would despair over all Sanjay's money making schemes, as invariably, they all ended in disaster.
[edit] Adultery
Sanjay had never gotten along with Gita's sister, Meena McKenzie. Meena was bossy, snooty, domineering and she had always looked down on Sanjay. So Sanjay was none too pleased when she turned up on their doorstep in July that year, announcing her intention to stay. She immediately caused friction between Sanjay and Gita with her constant criticism and bitching and it wasn't long before Sanjay had kicked her out.
However, despite this, Meena was a regular visitor to Square, often spying on Sanjay and informing Gita about his troublesome exploits, which usually involved gambling and the like. Gita had began to get extremely wary of Sanjay's dishonest behaviour, particularly when she discovered a restaurant receipt in his pocket for a champagne meal for two. To make matters worse she was suffering with severe post-natal depression and her and Sanjay were involved in regular shouting matches, which only sought to drive Sanjay further away. By the end of the year Gita had convinced herself that Sanjay was having an affair, and the women she suspected was Michelle Fowler. She decided to confront Michelle and furiously told her to keep away from her husband. Bizarrely, Meena, who was always the first to criticise Sanjay, leapt to his defence and desperately tried to convince Gita that she was imagining his infidelity. Gita was consoled by her sister and decided that she needed a break, so in December that year she decided to leave Sharmilla with Sanjay to go and stay with relatives. Sanjay was hopeless at tending for his baby, and instantly called Meena to come and stay so she could help him out.
Early in January, Gita arrived home late at night, much earlier than expected. As she crept into the flat to check on Sharmilla, she was shocked by the sight that greeted her - Sanjay and Meena laying naked and asleep, in her bed. She suddenly realised that it was Meena Sanjay had been sleeping with all along. Disgusted and hurt, she grabbed Sharmilla and left. When Sanjay awoke and realised Sharmilla was missing, he immediately guessed that Gita had discovered the affair. He went into a panic and they agreed to pretend that last night was their only time together and as they were so drunk, nothing untoward happened anyway. Gita however, didn't believe a word of it and after throwing a tirade of abuse at them, she threw them both out of the flat.
First Gita refused Sanjay access to their stall, leaving him with no money and constant rowing broke out into violence, and Gita then decided she wasn't going to allow Sanjay access to his daughter either. More problems arose when Gita informed Meena's husband, Jerry McKenzie, about the affair. After much insults and provocation from Jerry, an enraged Sanjay finally admitted that he'd been sleeping with Meena for months, 3 or 4 nights a week. When Gita discovered that Sanjay would have rights to see his daughter, she took her child and left Walford.
[edit] Reconciliation
A few months later she returned and took possession of the flat again. She and Sanjay started sharing the work on the stall and the care of Sharmilla. This led Sanjay to think that it would only be a matter of time before he and Gita would be back together. However, with Meena still visiting Gita in an effort to be reconciled with her, it was not proving to be easy. Later in the year, Gita became the target of a racist attack. Her door was graffitied, and she even had dog faeces posted through her letter box. After her window was smashed in and a swastika was painted on her door, Gita started to panic and turned to Sanjay for help. Sanjay was furious that his wife was being subjected to such vile racism and he became hell bent on uncovering the people who were doing it. He eventually managed to catch the perpetrators in the act - a gang of vicious yobs. He managed to grab hold of one and started to punch him to the ground, just when a police car pulled up. Sanjay was then arrested, while the yob escaped. After a night in a cell, he was eventually released with a caution. The incident appeared to stir some worry in Gita and on Christmas day they eventually reconciled and spent the night together. However Gita was quick to remind Sanjay that their night of passion was just about sex and she refused to get back with him despite his pleas. During 1995 Gita and Sanjay continued to meet up regularly for sex and eventually Gita was persuaded to give their marriage another shot and she allowed Sanjay to move back in.
In September of that year, Sanjay was forced to return to India to tend to his dying grandfather. This left Gita to get friendly with a business associate called Guppy. It turned out that Guppy was actually Meena's fiancé, sent by her to put business to the Kapoor's in a last ditch attempt to patch up with her sister. However this backfired when Guppy tried it on with Gita, and upon Sanjay's return he immediately assumed Gita was sleeping with him. Gita eventually put him straight and in 1996 Guppy managed to persuade him to invest £2000 in a dodgy business venture. However Guppy was just a conman, and after getting hold of the money he disappeared, leaving Sanjay to face up to a furious Gita. Sanjay had borrowed the money from a loan shark and was now forced to repay extortionate amounts of interest on the loan. Gita had to sort out the mess - she paid off the loan in one go, but was forced to compensate the loan shark for his potential loss of interest.
Later in the year Sanjay decided that he wanted to extend the family and so he started putting pressure on Gita to have another child, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't conceive. A worried Sanjay then instructed Gita to go to the doctors to ascertain what was wrong. Even though Sanjay had assumed that the problem lay with Gita, it was eventually discovered that the problem lay with him, as he had a low sperm count. This made Sanjay question his manhood and he spent several weeks wallowing in exaggerated misery over his wounded male pride. This caused a lot of arguments between the Kapoors, but things were about to get a lot worse for Sanjay when he discovered that his father had died and he was forced to return to India for yet another funeral. He returned in March 1997 and to Gita's horror, he had brought his mother, Neelam, home to live with them. Neelam's traditional views often clashed with those of her westernised daughter-in-law and Sanjay was often in the middle of their spats. To make matters worse, Sanjay was forced to admit to his mother that he'd lost her clothing business years earlier, and his fashion empire was merely a clothing stall on the local market.
Meanwhile, Gita and Sanjay, still desperate for a baby, decided to try IVF treatment. Unfortunately this failed and as each IVF session cost £3000, they could no longer afford the treatment. As the year wore on, Gita became more and more annoyed by Neelam's interference and she and Sanjay began to bicker constantly. in October of that year Gita announced she was going away for a few days to stay with her sister.
[edit] Where's Gita?
However, Gita did not return in a few days and she kept putting her return off. Meanwhile Sanjay was enjoying his freedom, and he spent his time, drinking gambling and flirting with women. In January 1998 Gita and Sharmilla were finally due to arrive home, however a dodgy business proposition (concerning stolen clothing) made Sanjay late for their rendezvous at the train station, and when he finally arrived, Gita was nowhere to be seen. Days went by and still there was no sign of Gita, so Sanjay was forced to contact the police. However it soon became clear that police suspected that Sanjay may have had something to do with her disappearance. They set about questioning everyone on the Square about Sanjay and built up a less than flattering picture of a feeble womaniser who was infertile, 'under the thumb' and prone to aggressive outbursts towards his wife. Next the police noticed blood on the door of Sanjay's van, and seemed sceptical when he assured them it was his own blood. Their theory was proved to be correct when DNA tests confirmed that the blood matched Gita's type and not Sanjay's. To make matters worse, a bloody shirt (the same colour as the one Gita was wearing the day of her disappearance) was found in the back of his van. Sanjay was then arrested on suspicion of murder.
The police seemed to have a strong case. They had statements to show that Sanjay had left Walford earlier than he initially told them, and they had a video of a man (that could have been Sanjay), meeting a woman (that could have been Gita) at the train station. Sanjay then admitted that the reason he was late was because he was purchasing stolen goods to sell, and he had gotten into an altercation with the seller - hence the bloody shirt. This was all a bit too coincidental for the police's liking however. Sanjay's solicitor managed to get him released and told him they had no real evidence and were merely holding him in the hope that he would confess. Eventually the police confirmed that the blood wasn't either Gita's or Sharmilla's and so Sanjay was in the clear.
With Gita missing Sanjay spent the rest of the year gambling and drinking himself into a stuper and he eventually came to accept that Gita and his daughter were probably dead. However in July that year, a very much alive Gita contacted her friend on the Square, Ruth Fowler. She was in desperate need of money and needed her help, although she made her promise not to inform Sanjay that she'd called. Ruth tried to get the money together, but when her husband, Mark Fowler, discovered what was going on he went to inform Sanjay. Sanjay went livid and made Ruth promise to take him with her to meet Gita. They went to Birmingham, where she was staying, but were shocked to discover that a woman fitting Gita's description had been taken away in an ambulance the night before. They went straight to the hospital and were shocked to discover Gita there, carrying a new born baby in her arms. She divulged that she had fallen pregnant after a one-night-stand and instead of returning to face Sanjay she had run away. The father had since abandoned her and now she was all alone. Sanjay was furious, but after much soul-searching he decided that he could be a loving father to her new child, Arjun, and he eventually decided to give their relationship another go. This didn't sit well with Neelam, who couldn't forgive her daughter-in-law's infidelity, and she decided to go back to India soon after Gita's return, disowning Sanjay on her way out.
Sanjay and Gita were happy for a while, until the local reporter, Polly Becker, discovered their recent scandal. After secretly taping confessions from both Sanjay and Ruth, she wrote their shocking story and it was published in the Walford Gazette. Suddenly the whole of Walford knew what had transpired in Gita's absence. From then on both Sanjay and Gita were hounded by reporters and Sharmilla began to get bullied at school. The Kapoors then decided that the only option was to leave Walford to start again somewhere else. Their last appearance was in September 1998.
