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Sanjay Kapoor (EastEnders)
Encyclopedia
Sanjay Kapoor is a fictional character
from the BBC
soap opera
EastEnders
, 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 scheme
s, which never worked.
in February 1993 as a friend of market inspector Richard Cole
, who came to persuade him to bend the rules and give him a pitch in the market for his clothing stall. Richard 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 them a home.
Richard, all-too-aware of Sanjay's weakness gambling
, immediately tempted him with a late-night poker
game. Sanjay gambled away the flat-deposit money, so the expectant parents had to lodge with Richard 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, the very day Gita gave birth to their daughter Sharmilla.
It wasn't long before Sanjay got into trouble with the trading standards for selling fake designer labels on his clothing stall. Gita despaired over Sanjay's moneymaking schemes as they all ended disastrously.
Sanjay never got along with Meena McKenzie, Gita's bossy, snooty, domineering sister, who had always looked down on Sanjay. So he wasn't pleased when she arrived on their doorstep that July, announcing her intention to stay. She immediately caused friction between Sanjay and Gita with her constant criticism and Sanjay soon kicked her out. But Meena was a constant visitor to the Square, always spying on Sanjay and keeping Gita informed of his exploits. Gita had become wary of his behavior, and soon she discovered a restaurant
receipt in his pocket for a champagne meal for two. Worse, she was suffering from severe post-natal depression and she and Sanjay had regular shouting matches, which only drove Sanjay further away. By the end of the year, Gita had convinced herself that Sanjay was having an affair with Michelle Fowler
. She confronted Michelle and ordered her to stay away from her husband. Bizarrely, Meena--always the first to criticize Sanjay--leapt to his defense and tried to convince Gita that she was imagining his infidelity. Gita felt better but she decided she needed a break, so in December she left Sharmilla with Sanjay and went to visit relatives. Sanjay was hopeless at child care and immediately summoned Meena and invited her to stay and help out.
Late one night in early January, much earlier than expected, Gita came home. As she crept into the flat to check on Sharmilla, she saw Sanjay and Meena sleeping naked in her bed, and she realized that Sanjay's "other woman" had been Meena all along. Hurt and disgusted, she left with Sharmilla. When Sanjay awoke to find Sharmilla missing, he guessed that Gita had seen him with Meena. The pair agreed to pretend that the night before had been their only time together, and they'd been so drunk that nothing had actually happened anyway. Gita didn't believe them; she threw them out of the flat amid a tirade of abuse. She went on to refuse Sanjay access to their stall, which left him with no money; their constant rowing soon became so violent that she refused Sanjay access to Sharmilla. Next she told Meena's husband, Jerry McKenzie, about the affair, and after many insults and much 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 she couldn't block Sanjay's rights to see his daughter, she took Sharmilla and left Walford. A few months later they returned and moved back into the flat. She and Sanjay shared the stall work and care of Sharmilla and Sanjay believed he and Gita would be back together soon. But Meena was also around too much, trying to reconcile with Gita as well, so the husband-wife reconciliation wasn't going as well as it would have without Meena's presence.
Later that year, Gita became the target of racist attacks. Her door was graffitied, dog feces was shoved through her letterbox, her window was smashed, and a swastika
was painted on her door. Gita panicked and turned to Sanjay for help, and the furious husband became hellbent on finding the perpetrator(s) of such vile racism. Eventually he caught a bunch of yobs in the act and was just shoving one to the ground when a police car pulled up. The yob escaped and Sanjay was arrested. After a night in a cell, he was eventually released with a caution. Sanjay and Gita reconciled on Christmas Day and spent that night together. Gita was quick to remind Sanjay that their night of passion was just about sex, but during 1995 they continued to meet regularly for sex. Eventually Gita agreed to give their marriage another try and let him move back in.
That September, Sanjay returned to India to look after his dying grandfather, leaving Gita to get friendly with a business associate called Guppy. Guppy was actually Meena's fiancé, sent by her to put business to the Kapoors in a final attempt to patch things up with her sister. However, this backfired when Guppy tried it on with Gita, and upon Sanjay's return, he assumed Gita was sleeping with him. Gita eventually put him straight and in 1996, Guppy persuaded him to invest £
2000 in a dodgy business venture. However, Guppy was a conman, and after Sanjay gave him the money, he disappeared, leaving Sanjay to face a furious Gita. Sanjay had borrowed the money from a loan shark
and now had to pay extortionate amounts of interest. 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 another child. When he and Gita couldn't conceive, they consulted doctors. Gita got the all-clear; Sanjay was diagnosed with a low sperm
count. This shocking verdict made Sanjay spend several weeks questioning his manhood, nursing his wounded pride, and taking it out on Gita; in the midst of this, Sanjay's father died and Sanjay had to go back to India for another funeral...and when he returned in March 1997, his mother Neelam was with him, and she joined the troubled household. Neelam's traditional views often clashed with those of her westernised daughter-in-law and Sanjay was often in the middle of their spats. Also, and worse, he was forced to admit to his mother that he'd lost her clothing business years earlier and his "fashion empire" was a single stall on the local market.
Meanwhile, Gita and Sanjay decided to try IVF treatment. Unfortunately the first session failed, and as each session cost £3000, they couldn't afford to continue. As the year wore on, Gita became more and more annoyed by Neelam's interference and she and Sanjay bickered constantly. In October, she announced she was taking Sharmilla and going to visit her sister for a few days. She kept postponing her return, and Sanjay enjoyed his freedom, spending his time drinking, gambling, and flirting. Gita and Sharmilla were finally coming home in January 1998, but a dodgy business proposition concerning stolen clothing made Sanjay late to meet them at the train station. When he finally arrived, his wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen. When there was still no sign of them days later, Sanjay called the police
, but they suspected that he had something to do with his wife's disappearance. They questioned everyone on the Square and built up a picture of a feeble, infertile womanizer who was prone to aggressive outbursts toward his wife. Next the police saw blood
on the door of Sanjay's van and were skeptical when Sanjay explained that it was his. Their theory was proven correct when away for a few days to stay with her sister.
However, Gita did not return and she kept putting her return off. Meanwhile, Sanjay enjoyed his freedom, spending his time drinking, gambling and flirting with women. In January 1998, Gita and Sharmilla were finally coming home but a dodgy business proposition (concerning stolen clothing) meant Sanjay was late, meeting them at the train station. When he finally arrived, Gita was nowhere to be seen. Days went by and still there was no sign of Gita, so Sanjay called the police
. However, it soon became clear that police suspected that Sanjay had something to do with her disappearance. They set about questioning everyone on the Square about Sanjay and built up a picture of a feeble, infertile womanizer who was prone to aggressive outbursts toward his wife. Next the police found blood on the door of Sanjay's van and skeptically greeted his claim that it was his. They were proven correct when DNA
tests confirmed that the blood matched Gita's type, not Sanjay's. To make matters worse, a bloody shirt (the same colour as the one Gita was wearing the day she disappeared) was found in the back of his van. Sanjay was arrested on suspicion of murder
.
The police seemed to have a strong case. They had statements proving that Sanjay had left Walford earlier than he 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 admitted that he was late because he was purchasing stolen goods to sell and got into an altercation with the seller--hence the bloody shirt. This was all too coincidental for the police's liking. Sanjay's solicitor
managed to get him released and told him they had no real evidence and were holding him in the hope that he would confess. Eventually the police confirmed that the blood wasn't either Gita's or Sharmilla's, so Sanjay was in the clear.
Sanjay spent the rest of the year gambling and drinking himself into a stupor and he eventually accepted that Gita and Sharmilla were probably dead. But that July, Gita contacted her friend on the Square, Ruth Fowler
. She desperately needed money and help but made Ruth promise not to tell Sanjay that she'd called. Ruth tried to get the money but her husband, Mark Fowler
, discovered what Ruth was doing and told Sanjay. Sanjay was livid and made Ruth promise to take him with her to meet Gita. They went to Birmingham
, where she was staying, and were shocked to discover that a woman fitting Gita's description had been taken away in an ambulance
the night before. They went to the hospital and saw Gita with a newborn baby in her arms. She explained that she had fallen pregnant after a one-night stand and had run away instead of facing Sanjay; then the father had abandoned her (them). Sanjay was furious, but after much soul-searching he decided he could be a loving father to this innocent new child, Arjun, and to give their marriage another chance. Unable to forgive her daughter-in-law's infidelity, Neelam decided to return to India; she disowned Sanjay on her way out.
Sanjay and Gita were happy for the short while until local reporter Polly Becker
discovered their recent scandal. After secretly taping confessions from Sanjay and Ruth, she wrote their shocking story and it was published in the Walford Gazette. Suddenly all of Walford knew what had transpired in Gita's absence. From then on, Sanjay and Gita were hounded by reporters and Sharmilla was bullied at school. The Kapoors decided that their only option was to leave Walford forever. Their last appearance was in September 1998.
".
Among the departing characters were longrunning Asian family the Kapoors, including Sanjay, Gita
and Neelam Kapoor. As they were the only Asian characters in the show, EastEnders received criticism for axing them from angry black and Asian MPs, including Oona King
, MP for East End
constituency Bethnal Green
and Dr Ashok Kumar.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
from the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, played by Deepak Verma
Deepak Verma
Deepak Verma, is a British Asian actor, writer and television/film producer.- Career :Verma trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama for three years . He made his television debut in the Scottish detective series, Taggart in 1992...
.
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 scheme
Get-rich-quick scheme
A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to acquire high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 1900s....
s, which never worked.
Storylines
Sanjay was first seen in Albert SquareAlbert Square
Albert Square is the fictional location of the BBC soap opera EastEnders. It is ostensibly located in the equally fictional London borough of Walford in London's East End. The square's design was based on the real life Fassett Square in Hackney, and was given the name Albert Square after the real...
in February 1993 as a friend of market inspector Richard Cole
Richard Cole (EastEnders)
Richard Cole is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Ian Reddington between 1992 and 1994.-Storylines:...
, who came to persuade him to bend the rules and give him a pitch in the market for his clothing stall. Richard gave him Rachel Kominski's permanent pitch, much to her dismay.
Sanjay, a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, was married to Gita Kapoor
Gita Kapoor
Gita Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Shobu Kapoor.Gita had a fierce temper, which was needed to keep her troublesome husband in check. Any success they achieved was down to her...
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 them a home.
Richard, all-too-aware of Sanjay's weakness gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, immediately tempted him with a late-night poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
game. Sanjay gambled away the flat-deposit money, so the expectant parents had to lodge with Richard 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, the very day Gita gave birth to their daughter Sharmilla.
It wasn't long before Sanjay got into trouble with the trading standards for selling fake designer labels on his clothing stall. Gita despaired over Sanjay's moneymaking schemes as they all ended disastrously.
Sanjay never got along with Meena McKenzie, Gita's bossy, snooty, domineering sister, who had always looked down on Sanjay. So he wasn't pleased when she arrived on their doorstep that July, announcing her intention to stay. She immediately caused friction between Sanjay and Gita with her constant criticism and Sanjay soon kicked her out. But Meena was a constant visitor to the Square, always spying on Sanjay and keeping Gita informed of his exploits. Gita had become wary of his behavior, and soon she discovered a restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
receipt in his pocket for a champagne meal for two. Worse, she was suffering from severe post-natal depression and she and Sanjay had regular shouting matches, which only drove Sanjay further away. By the end of the year, Gita had convinced herself that Sanjay was having an affair with Michelle Fowler
Michelle Fowler
Michelle Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by actress Susan Tully.Although she was one of the brighter people in Walford, that didn't stop Michelle making some huge mistakes during her time in Albert Square...
. She confronted Michelle and ordered her to stay away from her husband. Bizarrely, Meena--always the first to criticize Sanjay--leapt to his defense and tried to convince Gita that she was imagining his infidelity. Gita felt better but she decided she needed a break, so in December she left Sharmilla with Sanjay and went to visit relatives. Sanjay was hopeless at child care and immediately summoned Meena and invited her to stay and help out.
Late one night in early January, much earlier than expected, Gita came home. As she crept into the flat to check on Sharmilla, she saw Sanjay and Meena sleeping naked in her bed, and she realized that Sanjay's "other woman" had been Meena all along. Hurt and disgusted, she left with Sharmilla. When Sanjay awoke to find Sharmilla missing, he guessed that Gita had seen him with Meena. The pair agreed to pretend that the night before had been their only time together, and they'd been so drunk that nothing had actually happened anyway. Gita didn't believe them; she threw them out of the flat amid a tirade of abuse. She went on to refuse Sanjay access to their stall, which left him with no money; their constant rowing soon became so violent that she refused Sanjay access to Sharmilla. Next she told Meena's husband, Jerry McKenzie, about the affair, and after many insults and much 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 she couldn't block Sanjay's rights to see his daughter, she took Sharmilla and left Walford. A few months later they returned and moved back into the flat. She and Sanjay shared the stall work and care of Sharmilla and Sanjay believed he and Gita would be back together soon. But Meena was also around too much, trying to reconcile with Gita as well, so the husband-wife reconciliation wasn't going as well as it would have without Meena's presence.
Later that year, Gita became the target of racist attacks. Her door was graffitied, dog feces was shoved through her letterbox, her window was smashed, and a swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
was painted on her door. Gita panicked and turned to Sanjay for help, and the furious husband became hellbent on finding the perpetrator(s) of such vile racism. Eventually he caught a bunch of yobs in the act and was just shoving one to the ground when a police car pulled up. The yob escaped and Sanjay was arrested. After a night in a cell, he was eventually released with a caution. Sanjay and Gita reconciled on Christmas Day and spent that night together. Gita was quick to remind Sanjay that their night of passion was just about sex, but during 1995 they continued to meet regularly for sex. Eventually Gita agreed to give their marriage another try and let him move back in.
That September, Sanjay returned to India to look after his dying grandfather, leaving Gita to get friendly with a business associate called Guppy. Guppy was actually Meena's fiancé, sent by her to put business to the Kapoors in a final attempt to patch things up with her sister. However, this backfired when Guppy tried it on with Gita, and upon Sanjay's return, he assumed Gita was sleeping with him. Gita eventually put him straight and in 1996, Guppy persuaded him to invest £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
2000 in a dodgy business venture. However, Guppy was a conman, and after Sanjay gave him the money, he disappeared, leaving Sanjay to face a furious Gita. Sanjay had borrowed the money from a loan shark
Loan shark
A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
and now had to pay extortionate amounts of interest. 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 another child. When he and Gita couldn't conceive, they consulted doctors. Gita got the all-clear; Sanjay was diagnosed with a low sperm
Spermatozoon
A spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
count. This shocking verdict made Sanjay spend several weeks questioning his manhood, nursing his wounded pride, and taking it out on Gita; in the midst of this, Sanjay's father died and Sanjay had to go back to India for another funeral...and when he returned in March 1997, his mother Neelam was with him, and she joined the troubled household. Neelam's traditional views often clashed with those of her westernised daughter-in-law and Sanjay was often in the middle of their spats. Also, and worse, he was forced to admit to his mother that he'd lost her clothing business years earlier and his "fashion empire" was a single stall on the local market.
Meanwhile, Gita and Sanjay decided to try IVF treatment. Unfortunately the first session failed, and as each session cost £3000, they couldn't afford to continue. As the year wore on, Gita became more and more annoyed by Neelam's interference and she and Sanjay bickered constantly. In October, she announced she was taking Sharmilla and going to visit her sister for a few days. She kept postponing her return, and Sanjay enjoyed his freedom, spending his time drinking, gambling, and flirting. Gita and Sharmilla were finally coming home in January 1998, but a dodgy business proposition concerning stolen clothing made Sanjay late to meet them at the train station. When he finally arrived, his wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen. When there was still no sign of them days later, Sanjay called the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
, but they suspected that he had something to do with his wife's disappearance. They questioned everyone on the Square and built up a picture of a feeble, infertile womanizer who was prone to aggressive outbursts toward his wife. Next the police saw blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
on the door of Sanjay's van and were skeptical when Sanjay explained that it was his. Their theory was proven correct when away for a few days to stay with her sister.
However, Gita did not return and she kept putting her return off. Meanwhile, Sanjay enjoyed his freedom, spending his time drinking, gambling and flirting with women. In January 1998, Gita and Sharmilla were finally coming home but a dodgy business proposition (concerning stolen clothing) meant Sanjay was late, meeting them at the train station. When he finally arrived, Gita was nowhere to be seen. Days went by and still there was no sign of Gita, so Sanjay called the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
. However, it soon became clear that police suspected that Sanjay had something to do with her disappearance. They set about questioning everyone on the Square about Sanjay and built up a picture of a feeble, infertile womanizer who was prone to aggressive outbursts toward his wife. Next the police found blood on the door of Sanjay's van and skeptically greeted his claim that it was his. They were proven correct when DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
tests confirmed that the blood matched Gita's type, not Sanjay's. To make matters worse, a bloody shirt (the same colour as the one Gita was wearing the day she disappeared) was found in the back of his van. Sanjay was arrested on suspicion of murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
.
The police seemed to have a strong case. They had statements proving that Sanjay had left Walford earlier than he 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 admitted that he was late because he was purchasing stolen goods to sell and got into an altercation with the seller--hence the bloody shirt. This was all too coincidental for the police's liking. Sanjay's solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
managed to get him released and told him they had no real evidence and were holding him in the hope that he would confess. Eventually the police confirmed that the blood wasn't either Gita's or Sharmilla's, so Sanjay was in the clear.
Sanjay spent the rest of the year gambling and drinking himself into a stupor and he eventually accepted that Gita and Sharmilla were probably dead. But that July, Gita contacted her friend on the Square, Ruth Fowler
Ruth Fowler
Ruth Fowler is a fictional character from the popular British BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Caroline Paterson from 1994 to 1999. Ruth was Mark Fowler's second wife and she was far more comfortable with his HIV status than many of his other girlfriends. However their marriage eventually...
. She desperately needed money and help but made Ruth promise not to tell Sanjay that she'd called. Ruth tried to get the money but her husband, Mark Fowler
Mark Fowler
Mark Albert Fowler is a fictional character from the popular British BBC soap opera EastEnders. Mark was an original regular character in the series starting February 1985 but became a semi-regular after his original portrayer David Scarboro was written out of the role in April 1985. Scarboro made...
, discovered what Ruth was doing and told Sanjay. Sanjay was livid and made Ruth promise to take him with her to meet Gita. They went to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, where she was staying, and were shocked to discover that a woman fitting Gita's description had been taken away in an ambulance
Ambulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
the night before. They went to the hospital and saw Gita with a newborn baby in her arms. She explained that she had fallen pregnant after a one-night stand and had run away instead of facing Sanjay; then the father had abandoned her (them). Sanjay was furious, but after much soul-searching he decided he could be a loving father to this innocent new child, Arjun, and to give their marriage another chance. Unable to forgive her daughter-in-law's infidelity, Neelam decided to return to India; she disowned Sanjay on her way out.
Sanjay and Gita were happy for the short while until local reporter Polly Becker
Polly Becker
Polly Becker is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Victoria Gould from April 1997 to September 1998.-Storylines:...
discovered their recent scandal. After secretly taping confessions from Sanjay and Ruth, she wrote their shocking story and it was published in the Walford Gazette. Suddenly all of Walford knew what had transpired in Gita's absence. From then on, Sanjay and Gita were hounded by reporters and Sharmilla was bullied at school. The Kapoors decided that their only option was to leave Walford forever. Their last appearance was in September 1998.
Development
In 1998, EastEnders acquired a new executive producer, Matthew Robinson. Robinson was dubbed "the axeman" in the British press, after a large proportion of the EastEnders cast either quit, or were culled, shortly after Robinson's introduction. It was reported that Robinson hoped the changes would attract more viewers and "spice up [the soap's fictional setting of] WalfordWalford
Walford is a fictional borough of east London in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where one of the series' creators, Tony Holland, lived and a blend of Walthamstow, where Holland was born, and Stratford. The suffix 'ford' is also found throughout East...
".
Among the departing characters were longrunning Asian family the Kapoors, including Sanjay, Gita
Gita Kapoor
Gita Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Shobu Kapoor.Gita had a fierce temper, which was needed to keep her troublesome husband in check. Any success they achieved was down to her...
and Neelam Kapoor. As they were the only Asian characters in the show, EastEnders received criticism for axing them from angry black and Asian MPs, including Oona King
Oona King
Oona Tamsyn King, Baroness King of Bow is a Baroness and Member of the House of Lords, and former Chief Diversity Officer of Channel 4. She previously had served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 until 2005, when she was defeated by Respect candidate George...
, MP for East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
constituency Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
and Dr Ashok Kumar.