'We consider you as God': When Arun Govil’s fan caught him smoking and he quit overnight

Arun Govil became a household name soon after he started playing Lord Rama in the Doordarshan show Ramayan. So much so that in the 1980s, people would come up to him and touch his feet as he was seen as Lord Ram by the audience. The show made a resurgence in 2020 after the first lockdown came into effect and Ramayan started re-airing on Doordarshan. During an appearance on The Kapil Sharma Show in 2020, Arun had shared that he was once scolded by someone because they saw him smoking.

Arun shared that this incident happened on the sets of a Tamil film he was shooting with Bhanumati. It was a mythological film where he was playing the role of Balaji Tirupati and they were shooting in the south.

Arun Govil recalled, "I hid behind a curtain on the set, and then a gentleman came there and he stared at me. I did not know what he said in his language, but I could understand from his gestures that he was just abusing me and he was very upset with me."

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Govil then asked someone nearby to translate what the man was saying. The person explained, “We consider you a god, and you are sitting here smoking cigarettes.” The remark deeply affected him, and Arun shared that from that very day, he decided to quit smoking. He added that he has never touched a cigarette since.