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Shashi Kapoor: India’s First Crossover Actor

Shashi Kapoor was recently honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke award. Here’s a look at his life and times

The wheel chair-bound Shashi Kapoor surrounded by his family, the Kapoors of Bollywood — and actress
Rekha—at the award ceremony
His face spoke more than he did. Or could. Since Shashi Kapoor cannot say beyond a few words, his somewhat bemused look conveyed, “Oh, so I’m being honoured? Am I?”
For me, it was this visual which will be indelible at a recent Sunday morning ceremony to present the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to the 77-year-old actor, immobile in a wheelchair, and darting benign looks at the paparazzi.
Indian Union Minister Arun Jaitley had &jetted in from New Delhi to Mumbai’s progressive Prithvi Theatre, to hand over the award. The meticulously organised event exuded nostalgia, besides an outpouring &of unconditional respect for an actor-produ-cer-director who, during his heyday, was largely sidetracked.
Awards tend to be belated, but then that’s the way things are in the show world. If the morning function was sedate and elegant, it was in absolute contrast to the evening &at New Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium in 1988, where his elder brother, Raj Kapoor, lost his breath and had to be rushed for a chronic asthmatic attack to a New Delhi hospital from where he never returned.

Shashi Kapoor back in the day
I was witness to the emotionally poignant moment, in 1988, when Raj Kapoor could not walk a step towards the stage to receive the Phalke Award, the most prestigious &accolade given to a film personality by the government. Without standing on ceremony, the official dignitary had stepped down from the stage to hand over the award to a semi-conscious Raj Kapoor. The stalwart showman had just about managed to join his hands together into a namaskar to express his gratitude. He passed away at the age of 63.
So far, the nation’s first family of cinema — somewhat on the lines of the Barrymores in the US — have been at work indefatigably. Each one of the four generations, right down to Ranbir Kapoor, have contributed significantly to the world of entertainment, connecting with the masses as well as the cognoscenti. At the apex of this family tree, there was Prithviraj Kapoor, who, during the years of India’s independence struggle, acted in films including the first talkie Alam Ara (1931) and the epochal Sikandar (1941), besides establishing a theatre group which performed plays with &meagre resources.

His three sons, Raj, Shammi and Shashi, naturally gravitated towards showbiz, each with a distinct persona though, as if the brothers had resolved to wear different suits. Raj Kapoor’s films blended music into Chaplinesque themes, plots in which the underdog triumphed. Eventually, he moved on to making ostentatious blockbusters. Shammi Kapoor was the hyper-energetic ‘rebel’ slotted into colourful &romedies. As for Shashi, at the outset, he preferred to participate in Shakespeareana, the travelling troupe of &his father-in-law Geoffrey Kendal, &devoted to performing plays by the English bard. When Shashi opted to enter the mainstream, he appeared to be a reluctant hero, stymied by Bollywood clichés.
Of the three brothers, Shashi had a westernised streak in him; his house on Mumbai’s prime property, Malabar Hill,  being a virtual library of leather-bound books (Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy) and vinyl records of classical music (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, the works). Ind-ia’s first crossover actor, he has been most at home in the English language films of the Merchant-Ivory duo (ranging from The Householder and Heat and Dust to In Custody).
However, Bollywood was inescapable to the Bollywood manor born. At one point, he became such a staple of the escapist entertainers that Raj Kap-oor had described him as a “taxi who anyone can hire anytime, anywhere”.
Then came the twist in the plot. &Exasperated by the potboilers, Shashi Kapoor moved into to the realm of ‘indie’ cinema by producing Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane, Shyam Benegal’s Junoon, Govind Nihalani’s Vijeta and Girish Karnad’s Utsav. Sup-erior quality films, no doubt, but they also proved to be his undoing. Their commercial failure sunk him into debt. Moreover, he had felt abandoned, once saying, wistfully, “Do you know none of my directors have kept in touch? I have bumped into Shyam Benegal now and then at functions, but that’s it. No one cares.”

With his wife Jennifer Kendal
The premature death of his wife &Jennifer Kendal, of a terminal illness in 1984, saw a complete change in Shashi’s extroverted personality. He withdrew into a shell. He moved out of his bel-oved Malabar Hill apartment — where he would host English breakfasts — to another one in the suburbs, adjoining Prithvi theatre. His kids, Sanjana and Kunal, have kept the theatre going des-pite the financial odds. And although he is confined to a wheelchair, Shashi watches every new play from an inconspicuous corner.
It would have been a shame if &Shashi Kapoor hadn’t been saluted with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Frequently, he has refused to accept awards. When the National Award for Best Actress went to Rekha for Umrao Jaan, instead of Jennifer Kendal for 36 Chowringhee Lane, he had thumbed down awards. Gratifyingly, however, he did not reject the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
Today, with a light shawl over his shoulders and an unwavering gaze, Shashi Kapoor is the quintessential lion in winter. The award hoopla over, he’s back at the evening performances in Prithvi theatre, smiling faintly as he is told by numerous admirers, “Sir, I’m a big fan.”
wknd@khaleejtimes.com