As told to Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 1, 2020)

Rishi Kapoor's professionalism was inspiring. I remember he was as charged up as a debutant before the shoot of our film, Sharmaji Namkeen. The Delhi schedule was to start on January 15, 2020. Ritesh (Sidhwani, Producer) and I requested him to come two days early so we could take him through the set-up and character graph. He landed and the following day, his sister (Ritu Nanda) passed away. We were looking to reschedule but in answer to my condolence message he asked, “What is the call time tomorrow?” I told him to take it easy for a few days to which he retorted, “Bakwas maat karo, what happened is personal, but work is my profession. I am equally responsible for both. The show must go on.” On January 15, he was on the set at 8.45 am.

Our film is a light-hearted coming-of-age story of a lovable 60-year-old man and he was Sharmaji personified. Unbelievable, but that’s why these people are so special.

He was looking forward to doing a film with Deepika Padukone (The official adaptation of the Hollywood film, The Intern) and a comedy with Sanjay Dutt (Pandit Galli Ka Ali). In the latter, he was to play a pandit and excited about going completely bald.

Before the lockdown, I called to check on his health and asked if I could meet him in the morning. He insisted I come after 8 pm so we could have a drink together. Mornings were for serious conversations while evenings were for spending time together. He was very particular about time, so if you were delayed even by five minutes, it was imperative you inform him.

It’s sad that ours will be his last film. I would definitely have wanted to see a lot more of him.