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Remembering the legendary Rishi Kapoor

SANTOSH DESAI  4.5.2020

What a week for cinema. To lose two stalwarts on consecutive days at a time when the world is anyway a dark and hostile place feels like an overengineered tragedy. Two very different kind of performers, with a passion for the craft in common have left us with a sense of loss that feels deeply personal.

Some actors make an impact on because of their work, others also because of the role they played in our lives. If Irrfan Khan imprinted himself on one’s consciousness it was because of the authenticity he brought to his performances, the ability to cut to heart of the character he was playing with originality and economy. In the case of Rishi Kapoor, he perhaps more than any other actor of his era was someone one grew up with.

Kapoor’s filmography sent through four distinct phases. The early years of being a young heartthrob, the ensemble years when he was part of a multi-starrer cast, providing the softer counterpoint to the more macho heroes, the desultory middle years of wearing lurid sweaters stretched across an expanding midriff and the older years, where he enjoyed a renaissance as an actor, revelling in a diverse set of roles. While his largest body of work might well have been in the middle years, when film after film starring him in going through the motions in forgettable roles, and his best years as a performer were when he overcame the limitations of being an aging hero, the Rishi Kapoor that one resonates is with is the early foreveradolescent version.

One was a little younger than one needed to be to feel the hormonal surge that Bobby set off in many older cousins. Bobby was an intensely influential film, not only in a cinematic sense since it virtually created the-young-overs-fighting-the world theme, but the manner in which it did so struck a deep chord at the time. It showed romance in a way rarely seen before on the screen, and the combination and the vital freshness of the lead pair had an electric effect. I remember the effect a song like Hum Tum Ek Kamre Mein Band Ho had and the possibilities it unlocked in the heads of an entire generation that had thus far seen for the most part, college romances being depicted through furtive sidelong glances and accidental brushes of the hands. It triggered a really odd behaviour among the young in Baroda. A young boy would approach a girl he fancied, run his fingers through his hair, and mutter Bobby as he blushed past her. To Bobby someone was both the height of a swooning compliment as well as a sign of daring machismo.

The real connection with Rishi Kapoor happened through films like Khel Khel Mein, Karz, and Hum Kisise Kam Nahin. Khel Khel Mein was a memorable experience in more ways than one. My brother and I bunked school and snuck into a morning show in a neighbourhood theatre. At that time there was a rule that prohibited those under 18 from watching a morning unless accompanied by adults. We requested some random young men if they could pretend to be our brothers and watched the film, excited both by seeing the suspense unfold on the screen as well as thrill at the prospect of being caught for the terrible crime we were committing.

Kapoor came through best in fullbodied entertainers. Karz was a blockbuster both in terms of its boxoffice performance as well as its impact. It is a film that one still enjoys watching, given its combination music, dance, the freshness of the lead pair, the reincarnation motif dealt with in a new (if not original) way. My only, extremely short-lived foray into trying to play a musical instrument occurred as a result of this film, with one being able to eke out the signature riff in the film (the one that triggered all those memory flashes in the character played by Rishi Kapoor) on the guitar. When the era of the multi-starrers came, Rishi Kapoor found an easy slot to fit into — as a romantic foil to the more macho likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha. He continued to play the younger, and in some ways more relatable character in a cast of superheroes.

Unlike Amitabh Bachchan, the man who defined that era, Rishi Kapoor’s film persona in the early part of his career was not an emotionally substantial one. It did not speak to a deep repressed anxiety in society, but it had a freshness that carried an unmistakable ring of truth. In some senses he was India’s first modern hero, being among the first leading men born after independence. He was also among the first boy-heroes, in a world dominated by those who were unmistakably men. He avoided the self-pity of earlier romantic heroes; romance in the Rishi Kapoor world was hotblooded and more physical than seen otherwise. His persona was that of a brash, impulsive passionate young man, impatient to get what he desired. He might have had the looks of a chocolate hero, but there was nothing passive or beatific about the characters that he played. His heroines in this phase of his career looked and acted genuinely young. From Dimple in Bobby, Neetu Singh in so many films or Tina Munim in Karz, the chemistry felt very different from what was seen in cinema of an earlier era.

My own memory of Rishi Kapoor will always be that of someone who was urgently young and who helped define what being young could mean. The adolescent zest for life, the frankness with which he expressed and represented desire, not just on screen but throughout his life, and the essential honesty with which he played the roles that mattered, are what will remain. And of course, we always have his films.

santosh365@gmail.com

ICON IN HIS OWN WAY: Rishi Kapoor was an actor one grew up with, perhaps more than any other actor of his era

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