Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai

Mumbai, Sep 12: Pratik Gandhi and Bhamini Oza had a full-circle moment at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as their latest collaboration, Gandhi, received a standing ovation. For the couple, the applause wasn’t just for the show — it was a celebration of their 19-year journey together that began, fittingly, on a theatre stage.

Pratik, known for his breakout role in Scam 1992, shared a heartfelt note online alongside photographs of himself and Bhamini from TIFF. He reminisced about the moment they met — he was performing on stage, and she was in the audience. A single glance sparked a connection that would evolve into a lifelong partnership, bound by their shared love for acting and storytelling.

Their relationship, as Pratik described it, started with coffee neither of them liked, but they stayed — long enough for friendship to grow into love, and love into a marriage filled with dreams of performing side by side. That dream now finds its place onscreen, with Pratik portraying Mahatma Gandhi and Bhamini playing Kasturba Gandhi in Hansal Mehta’s ambitious series Gandhi.

The series also stars Kabir Bedi and Tom Felton and is based on historian Ramachandra Guha’s seminal works Gandhi Before India and Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World. The first season follows the formative years of Gandhi’s life — from his teenage days in colonial India, through his legal studies in London, to the transformative 23 years he spent in South Africa.

Nineteen years after their off-stage love story began, Pratik and Bhamini stood together at an international premiere, not just as co-actors but as co-dreamers. As Pratik poetically put it, the boy is still in love, the story is still being written — only now, it’s unfolding on one of the world’s biggest stages.