A requiem for Shashi Kapoor

Raju Korti

The Shashi Kapoor I saw and would like to remember.

My first meeting with Shashi Kapoor, way back in 1982, was at the most oddest of venues. He had been invited to inaugurate the Great Golden Circus, which in those throwback days, was a popular draw. I was particularly curious to know how he could handle three shifts in a day with the ebullience that was his hallmark. Only a few days before I had asked Dev Anand how actors like Shashi Kapoor could handle such crazy work schedules and he had diplomatically said: "I sleep at 10. May be Shashi has fine tuned that craft."
I recall Shashi, the youngest of the film industry's first dynasty, was dressed in white pyjamas and kurta which he told me later was his favorite attire. After cutting the ribbon, he came and sat next to me in the front row. Within a flash, I whipped out my visiting card and flashed it before him. "Meet me around 9 once I reach home", he told me with that impish smile that could have been saved for posterity in any museum. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law Charni Siyal who also extended me an invitation with a smile that one reserves as protocol.
As it happened, I got tied up with my work and reached his place at 10. He himself opened the door in the same clothes. His eyes were blood-shot and it was obvious to me that he had downed a few pegs. The fault was, of course mine. He seemed to have given up on me and now I had broken his binge. I could see he was struggling with his indignation but the suave person that he was, he let me in. The first thing he told me: "Yaar tum patrakar log raat 10 ke baad mat mila karo, sab utar jaati hai,."  I apologized but stayed put.
He opened up right away. "You know we in the Kapoor khaandaan have two weak points -- eating and drinking" he said helping himself to a plateful of deep fried pakodas. I am better. (Brother) Shammi doesn't wait until dark. He gets cracking the moment shoot is over," he said with the same toothy smile that film critic Baburao Patel unfairly described as 'dog's fangs'.
Seeing that the conversation was going completely off track, I just transported him to his Dharamputra, Prem Patra and Char Deewari days of the 60s. The smile became even radiant on his handsome face and then he was rattling away in that casual, breezy style that seemed to be tailor-made for his persona.
The child artiste that one saw in Shree 420 and Awaara was very much in evidence as he took a dip into nostalgia with the same child-like innocence and spoke at length how the cinematic expression had undergone a ferment in the decades that followed. " I adapted to those changes well", he said and seemed to be proud of it. He wasn't far from the truth. The innocent charm of Shashi Kapoor of the 60s had given way to the kind of dudes that one sees today. However, all through this transition, he retained his trade-mark smile, although a string of inanities like Chori Mera Kaam, Gautam Govinda, Shankar Dada, Apna Khoon and Maan Gaye Ustaad, Phaansi, Salaakhen, Chakkar Pe Chakkar, Raahu Ketu films that he acted in the 70s were eminently forgettable. A few big banners like Trishul, Kala Patthar, Deewar, Kabhie Kabhie and Namak Halaal ensured he was neither out of sight, nor out of mind.
He was very much kicked up about his in-house productions Junoon and 36 Chowringhee Lane and described them as "great films" even if that sounded like patting his own back. He was also fiercely possessive of Merchant Ivory Productions and his own Prithvi Theatres which according to him were his robust attempts to keep the Prithviraj Kapoor torch alive. He recalled Rajesh Khanna and Sanjeev Kumar as the most versatile contemporaries, singled out Mohammed Rafi for lip syncing some of the most memorable songs for him and his pairing with Nanda as the best thing that happened to his acting career.
I met him again in 2001 when the first question I threw at him was "You were such a handsome man once. Why did you allow yourself to bloat like this?" "That's the characteristic of the clan", he replied, with absolutely no regrets. As my mind went back to that old meeting, I felt he probably had a few more pegs just because my interaction with him had sobered him down.
The only faint element of pain that I saw on his face was at the mention of his wife Jennifer Kendal.
I have forgotten much of the casual conversation I had with him then but for someone who "died" a couple of times following rumors, Kapoor held forte for long. So it took time to sink in that the handsome man with that mischievous smile is no more.
Shashi Kapoor is dead. Long live Shashi Kapoor.