A veteran journalist on writing the autobiography of one of Bollywood’s most mercurial heroes
Meena Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 8, 2017)

In my 37-year-old association with the temperamental star, an ammusing moment while working on this autobiography stands out. Rishi Kapoor and I were taking our Q&A sessions at a coffee shop outside his Bandra home and as he ordered stir-fried veggies for me, he asked, utterly baffled, “How can anyone be vegetarian?” I laughed heartily, because this was quintessential Rishi Kapoor for you. Honest, brazen, unapologetic. “Honestly what do vegetarians eat? Ghaaspoos?”. He then joked that once a year, during Navarati, he did succumb to his herbivorous instincts and even that was a “hard and boring period for him”.

Many of my colleagues wondered if I had, out of some subconscious masochism, willingly walked into the lion’s den by choosing to work with one of Bollywood’s most eccentric stars. To be honest, I had done exactly that in the mid-80s, so his fits and rages were like old hat to me. I was then working with Star & Style and our columnist, the feisty Devyani Chaubal, had written a singularly nasty piece about him. He was livid. Since I was the greenhorn and the only unsuspecting one, my colleagues sent me to “break the ice” with Rishi Kapoor. And boy, oh boy, did I get a dressing down. I was quaking like a leaf when I returned to office; I was, suffice to say, altered. However, a week later, I was pleasantly surprised when he called me and gave me a no holds-barrred interview. Now, three decades later, here I was writing his life story.

Whether jovial or cranky, Rishi Kapoor’s hospitality never fails you. Food and beverages are served based on the hour of the day (or night). So if you’re there at 11 am, you are offered chaas, but if you’ve overstayed your welcome until 7.30pm, then it has to be Black Label. Some things never change in Bollywood, one might add. It also helps that Rishi Kapoor suffers from OCD and is meticulous about everything, down to his puja ritual, during which he will always light only naag champa agarbatis in front of the deity and listen to bhajans for the better part of the morning. On the other hand, a radio has to play continuously in his bathroom or bedroom, and his own repertoire of 350 odd songs, which dominate playlists even today, continue to exhilarate him. So it had become perfectly routine for me to be deep in conversation with the actor when he would suddenly jump up and go, “That’s my song!’’

Did I extract enough juice from a rather controversial innings in B-town? He was clear from the start that he didn’t want any ‘muck’. “If someone is looking for salacious details of my life, they will be disappointed,” he maintained all through. “I’m not about to give anyone vicarious pleasure by writing rubbish. But I will be as upfront as I can,” he said.

His 37-year-old marriage to Neetu Singh, for one, did have its share of fights, but about that he was not willing to get into. “When we got married, Neetu, who was at the peak of her career, quit to stay home. Before we tied the knot, we had decided that one of us would be the homemaker and the other would be the bread-winner. I was bowled over and I am totally indebted to Neetu for choosing to stay home, raise kids and hold the fort. And I was very sure, I would not give her any reason to complain.”

But then, just as I was about to give up, just when I thought that his very own claim that “this book is not to be a hagiography” was merely lip service, I was taken aback with his candour. Because when Rishi talks, he talks: he opened up about his father Raj Kapoor’s tempestuous life, his long silences with Neetu, his formal relationship with his superstar-son Ranbir, his tryst with Dawood Ibrahim, fisticuffs and fiery outbursts with colleagues back in the day. Over many cups of coffee and servings of stir-fried veggies, emerged a man who was funny, sad and honest — all at the same time. Contrary to his recently acquired brash and boisterous Twitter personality, Rishi Kapoor is as vulnerable and fragile as his porcelain-like visage from Bobby.

Speaking of Bobby, he spoke utterly honestly about being possessive about his first co-star, Dimple Kapadia, and how, despite that, they both overcame this to remain friends. He spoke of his shaky but steady relationship with Amitabh Bachchan. And most importantly, he also spoke about fighting clinical depression soon after his marriage. In a milieu where so much of our preoccupation with celebrity culture is about what goes on between a celebrity’s legs, working on this book taught me that it can indeed be refreshing to figure out what goes on between a celebrity’s ears for a change.

That dressing down from my Star & Style days finally seemed worth it, after all.

Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored
by Rishi Kapoor and Meena Iyer, published by Harper Collins, releases next week