Manoj Kumar and Shashi Kapoor at Purab Aur Pashchim premiere

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 20, 2020)

Their friendship dated back to their struggling days. Even though Shashi Kapoor was the son of Prithviraj Kapoor and the younger brother of Raj and Shammi, he was determined to make it on his own. He found kindred souls in Manoj Kumar and Dharmendra, who were also chasing the celluloid dream. The trio would often land up at auditions together, hoping one of them would go home smiling. Such was the camaraderie that once, when Manoj saab ran into Shashi saab at cousin Lekhraj Bhakri’s office in Ranjit Studio, where he had dropped by on the invitation of top filmmakers Kuldeep Sehgal and Lekhraj ji, Shashi saab assured him that he wasn’t there to take away his work.

Such generosity of spirit might seem implausible today, but those were simpler times and the actor-filmmaker has fond memories of them sitting on a road roller outside Tardeo’s Central Studio where they were both shooting, weaving rainbows. “I told Shashi that if I ever made a film, I’d take him as the actor and he promised me the same,” reminisces Manoj saab.

He kept his word and approached his friend for his 1967 directorial, Upkar. “I met Shashi at Kalyanji’s (one-half of music director-duo Kalyanji-Anandji) to offer him the role of my younger brother Puran in the film. He accepted without even asking about the story or his character. He never did, such was his trust in me,” Manoj saab recounts.

However, in retrospect, Manoj saab realised that he might be betraying his friend’s trust, as Puran goes against his war-veteran brother Bharat and even his own country and the actor-filmmaker feared these shades of grey might tarnish his friend’s image of a romantic hero. “So, we met at Kalyanji’s place again where I told Shashi this role was not for him as it could cause damage. Again, without questions, he nodded, ‘As you say.’ I took it to Prem Chopra with whom I’d done Shaheed earlier and it was a turning point in his career. Shashi attended the film’s premiere. He and Jennifer (Kendal) were also there for the premiere of Purab Aur Paschim,” he narrates.

A few years later, Manoj saab went back to his friend with the 1974 social, Roti Kapda Aur Makaan. Once again, Shashi saab unquestioningly accepted the role of Mohan Babu, a rich businessman whose act of sacrifice in the end makes him a bigger hero than any quintessential lover boy. “When I tried to discuss money with him, knowing I was on a tight budget, Shashi told me, 'Jo mujhe chahiye woh tum nahin de sakte, so why don’t you just keep paying me in instalments. When you stop paying me, I’ll know that’s it'. That was Shashi Kapoor!” exults Mr Bharat, remembering fondly how during a two-month schedule in Titwala, every morning, he would leave his bungalow in Juhu, pick up Amitabh Bachchan on the way, and head for the location. Around the same time, Shashi saab would drive from his home in SoBo. “Every day, his car would overtake mine on Thane bridge, and he’d reach the set before us. Shashi was a stickler for punctuality and this quickly became a friendly race between us.”

He goes on to relate that his friend even cut short his Christmas and New Year vacation in Goa with Jennifer and his kids, to shoot for the film’s climax. “That was an annual ritual with him. It was the one time in the year when he was strictly off duty. But that one year, Shashi returned from Goa and brought in the new year working with me,” Manoj saab shares.

After he completed the film, as was a ritual with him, he wanted to take the cans of film to Haji Malang’s shrine for Baba’s blessings. But having injured his back, he knew it would be impossible to trek three miles up the hill. “When I told Shashi this, he offered to take the cans to the shrine for me. What’s more, he even hauled up the cans of Kranti. Both films were superhits, Shashi was a true friend,” says the gratified actor-producer.

During Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, Manoj saab had gone to meet his friend at Filmalaya Studio, and as he drove through the gates, he was surprised to find the usually gentlemanly Shashi Kapoor speaking in a loud, irritable voice. On enquiring, he learnt that the actor who was filming N N Sippy’s 1974 caper, Chor Machaye Shor, there was not happy with the song they were to shoot. “Bogus hai yeh gaana,” he groused, and insisted Manoj saab listen to it. Reluctant and embarrassed, Manoj saab had them rewind the Ravindra Jain’s composition for him. “As soon as the last notes died away, I told Shashi, ‘Yaar, gaana superhit hai!’ Immediately, he turned to the director (Ashok Roy) and said, ‘Since my friend likes it, let’s shoot.’”

“Le Jayenge, Le Jayenge Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ was one of Shashi Kapoor’s biggest chartbusters and the film was the second biggest grosser of the year. The title of Shah Rukh and Kajol’s evergreen love story, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, also has its genesis in this song.

In later years, the two dosts would meet at the hospital, when Shashi saab came for dialysis and Manoj saab for physiotherapy for his ailing back. “Then, one late evening, around 10.30 pm, I got a call. ‘O Bhagat Singh, tune maar dala.’ It was Shashi and he was watching Shaheed,” he flashbacks. “That was our last conversation. He is gone today… But his talent and his memories live on,” he says. Shashi saab would have turned 82 on March 18.

The Motley family: Jairaj Patil, Akash Khurana, Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani with Ratna Pathak Shah. Pic/Shadab Khan

Four decades after Waiting for Godot's debut at Prithvi Theatre, Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani's theatre group shows no signs of slowing down. As they get ready to revisit five of their plays at Prithvi next month, they revisit their first act
Ekta Mohta (MID-DAY; June 30, 2019)

Naseeruddin Shah, looking like Einstein, and Benjamin Gilani, now sporting a wig, are discussing cricket and women like 40 years haven't passed. In the hippie decade, the two became college buddies at FTII, Pune; then co-actors in Shyam Benegal's Junoon, 1978; and then co-founders of the theatre group, Motley, in quick scene-changes. Gilani, who had been part of The Shakespeare Society in St Stephen's College, recalls, "He asked me, 'How come you haven't done any theatre in Bombay in the last five years?' I said I can't afford it." So, they started with a play that was easy on the pocket: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Since then, Motley has done 44 productions, including The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1990), Dear Liar (1994), Ismat Apa Ke Naam (2000) and The Father (2017). They celebrate 40 years next month, the party for which includes reviving five of their plays at Prithvi Theatre. Along their journey, the twosome also became a family, with producer Jairaj Patil, and actors Ratna Pathak Shah and Akash Khurana onboard. When we sit with them to trace their early days, they've just gone over the same questions and memories with another journalist. But Shah says, in theatre parlance, "Once more with feeling."


Julius Caesar

'What Was The Cheapest Classic We Could Do?'

In July 1979, when Motley's Waiting for Godot debuted at Prithvi Theatre, Shah played Didi and Gilani played Gogo, the two clowns. Khurana says, "That was the cheapest classic we could do. It had a huge budget by those standards: Rs 5,000. But, that was the only play that had one dirty tree, with a leaf sometimes, and tattered costumes. I did four shows as Didi, and I wore the same costume."

Naseeruddin Shah: I'm not the only one in the world who did not understand Waiting for Godot. I wrote an essay [in NSD, Delhi] that this play is absolute nonsense. The writer is making a fool of everybody. I got thoroughly blasted for writing such a thing. But, when we started working on it, and concentrated on the words and not worry so much about the meaning, it began to make sense. Like in any great poetry, it states things in a very simple, recognisable and brief way.

Benjamin Gilani: Didi and Gogo have been together for 50 years. When you think of 50 years, that play should have been as thick as the Bible. Prithvi Theatre was being built at that time. During the shooting of Junoon, I asked Jennifer Kendal Kapoor, "What are you going to do with this theatre?" She said, "I don't know. Take it. It's yours." Three sentences. So, we started off and Godot fell into place, by chance, not so much by design. When people actually came to see the play, we hadn't hit a goldmine, but we started doing short plays: Chekhov, Pinter, Genet, Mortimer. There was something as difficult as The Lesson [by Eugène Ionesco]; and on the other hand, we had Chekhov's The Bear.

Ratna Pathak Shah: But frankly, we were just blundering. We all learnt on the job. There was nobody to tell you how to do anything. We were all lucky that we at least got Satyadev Dubey, in terms of his ideas and not letting poverty get in the way of perfection. There were times when there was nobody backstage. Everyone was either onstage or in the light booth.

Shah: Nothing lonelier than the backstage of Godot.


The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

'Naseer Wanted To Do Julius Caesar In Jeans And T-Shirts'

The group performed The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial by Herman Wouk and Julius Caesar by Shakespeare in 1990 and 1992 respectively. When asked about their favourite plays, Khurana says, "I think if you take a consensus from the older lot, you will find Godot and Caine emerging as winners." Julius Caesar was an important milestone as well, but for entirely different reasons.

Shah: I bought a copy of Caine Mutiny for Rs 5 on the pavement at Churchgate station. It was a tattered paperback, and it lay around with me for years, like the Einstein script [by Gabriel Emanuel], like A Walk in the Woods [by Lee Blessing]. One day, I picked it up and I was electrified.

Gilani: It involved a large number of people — at least by Motley's standards — 17 people. And, there were 70 people in Julius Caesar. The youngest was 4, the oldest was 74. There were three generations [of one family]. The logistics was the biggest challenge.

Pathak Shah: How many sandwiches do I order today? Starting from there to: how do you get everyone dressed backstage in Sophia Bhabha Hall, in Roman costumes with shields, swords and banners? Where do you store that stuff?

Gilani: Originally, Naseer wanted to do it in jeans and T-shirts. But, Julius Caesar was on the course of 13 schools, and they didn't want to see Brutus in jeans.

Shah: I was muddled as a director, I have to admit. I had [NSD director Ebrahim] Alkazi on my mind. Alkazi did these grand productions with 30 people carrying flaming torches onstage. Meanwhile, I got introduced to Dubey's method. And, I was torn between the two. It didn't really work, and I had edited the play, changed a few things, which appalled a lot of the teachers. One teacher said, "What about reference to context? If you have given Cassius's speech to Brutus, students will get confused." I said, "You've been teaching this play for one year and your students will get confused with one performance? What kind of a teacher are you?"


Waiting for Godot

'We Had No Message, No Political Agenda'

In the last two decades, Motley's focus has shifted to storytelling theatre, and also, plays in Hindustani. Starting with Ismat Apa Ke Naam (2000), they have interpreted the works of Ismat Chughtai and Manto extensively, and also opened up the platform for more roles for women.

Gilani: There were no Hindi plays. Even now there are very few. As Naseer had pointed out then, and I agree 100 per cent, if you're going to translate from one language to another, you need to know both languages like a grammarian.

Shah: The translator must be of the same level. How many times can you do Aadhe Adhure and Andha Yug, which are the only two worthwhile original plays in Hindi? Ghashiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder are in Marathi. Tughlaq is in Kannada and so on. The plays we wanted to do happened to be in English. Then we started feeling limited. That's why I felt the need to perform in Hindustani. But, shortage of plays is still there.

Gilani: It's a matter of economics. Where does a writer earn money, unless you happen to be Chetan Bhagat? And, that's not really writing of any calibre, that's promotion.

Pathak Shah: The playwriting issue is a big one in our country. And now, with the invasion of your personal equipment with all kinds of information and entertainment, it's going to be very hard for live arts to stay around. [Regarding the lack of roles for women], it wasn't a deliberate attempt to keep women out. I was the only girl around, and I don't think I was much liked as an actress. And rightly so, because my skills in early Motley days were very, very basic. I have also grown since then, and fortunately, Dubey trusted me. He found plays for me. We were making do with whatever we had around us. And there were no other girls around. Maybe they got scared of me and ran away.

Shah: You can only cast in a play somebody you can trust with your life. You cannot take a chance of a person not turning up or not delivering the goods.

Gilani: That's one word that operates very strongly: 'trust'. If we didn't trust each other implicitly, we wouldn't have stuck around, and we're going back 45 years.

Shah: I think a strong reason for me [to start Motley] was to be able to spend time with people I enjoyed spending time with and produce something creative. Instead of sitting in a party or chatting, you're sharing creative juices with people you like. What greater joy can there be? And it's really because of friends that we continue, the encouragement and support we receive, the belief they had in our work, which initially was shabby and amateurish. Dubey used to say, "I do theatre for the 10-15 people I love. I don't give a damn about the rest." And, it's really true to a large extent. We had no message, no political agenda, no profound reason for doing theatre. We were not exploring or trying to understand the nature of theatre. We were content with what we knew. And, we had great fun.

Gilani: [I remember], in Godot, we had this young boy, who is a very famous cinematographer now, Sameer Arya. The boy comes twice, and in the second act, we have started and Sameer went off to sleep. And, Naseer and I are waiting. Somehow we managed to get the play together. After that, Sameer was holding on to his mother, thinking he's gonna get a mouthful from Naseer. Though I had directed the play, Naseer was the one who would give mouthfuls at the time. Naseer didn't say a word. Now, this guy (audience member) comes and says, "I particularly liked your second act's interpretation. You didn't bring the boy. It was a touch of genius."

Khurana: This other time, we were in Bengaluru, and in the middle of an intense scene, this lady in sari and perfume says, "Yeh car number kiski hai? It's been parked there. Bataiye, aisa hota hai? Sorry, but we have to stop this show." And the curtain came down. In five minutes, we resumed, and something very interesting happened. The next few lines, whatever we said, coincided in context with what had happened. So, she became a star in absentia. She became Godot in a sense. It brought the house down.

The Influence Of Satyadev Dubey
Akash Khurana says, "For me, he was a bridge for Motley. At that time, Dubey was in his Renaissance phase. He cast me in Abe Bewakoof, and he hated my performance, because he was supposed to cast Amrish Puri. I had my wardrobe [ready], part of my wedding stuff, so that was great for Dubey because impoverished theatre: costume ke saath aaya hai. I tried to sound like Puri sahab and screwed my vocal chords. And Chhabildas Hall, that's another legend: you could hear hawkers shouting, TVs blaring, windows open, fans creaking, and I'm in a three-piece. But Naseer liked what I did. Cut to a few years later, theatre, struggle, job, house-hunting, which is another trauma, and we were homeless. I had a kid, a suitcase and no place to go. He called us over and I lived with him for 11 months. What happened there was not just the sharan (shelter) I got, but an exclusive gurukul. You sleep, wake up, read and drink rum with Dubey. I was getting an oral history of Bombay's theatre. Talk about influences."

Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 5, 2018)

It was a double celebration for the Kapoor clan on Saturday when Prithvi Theatre turned 40 alongside Prithviraj Kapoor’s 112th birth anniversary. The late patriarch’s grandsons, Randhir and Kunal, and great-grandson Ranbir, joined thespians and theatre loyalists — Rajit Kapur, Lillete Dubey, Lara Dutta, Shyam Benegal, Ila Arun, Divya Dutta, Gulshan Devaiah and Tinu Anand, among others — to mark the occasion.

The festival kicked off at Opera House with the staging of Prithviraj’s play Deewar, which had first premiered at the venue in 1945. “I am proud that the theatre re-enacted my grandfather’s play. It was a nostalgic moment for the family and festival regulars. Shashi Kapoor and (his late actress-wife) Jennifer had established the theatre and it’s going strong with (their son) Kunal,” Randhir told Mirror.

Rajit, a long-time associate of the theatre, informed that Deewar, which revolves around Partition, was co-written by Prithviraj and its new version is directed by Sunil Shanbag. “My father once told me that he had watched the original play as a child in Punjab. Now, it’s commendable that members of the Kapoor family make it a point to attend the opening night of the festival every year,” the actor-filmmaker added.

Rajit, who was recently seen in the Junglee Pictures production Raazi, traced his association with Prithvi theatre back to his college days. “As students, just being at the theatre was a privilege. We volunteered there just so we could watch some plays. I was in the third year of college during my first ever performance, Night of January 16. It was magical,” he signed off.

Meena Iyer (DNA; December 6, 2017)

Shashi Kapoor was a true blue Piscean.  He was charm personified one minute, tongue-in-cheek the next. But in the end, you usually warmed up to him because his charm outweighed his sarcasm.

I met him for the first time in the early ’80s at his office at Janki Kutir, near Prithvi Theatre. Seeing me dressed in a sari and a big bindi, he jested, “Are you sure you want a career in journalism? Or are you hoping to get noticed by Shyam (Benegal) and looking for a break in one of his movies? You are dressed for it.”

When I assured him I had no plans of facing the camera, he laughed and said, “I was just kidding.”

On another occasion, when I told him how flirtatious he was, he confessed that he could even romance a pole in a film. “Paint a pair of eyelashes and draw a mouth on a pole and I can even romance it,” he said. “But I’m not looking to do that with you because you are closer to Kunal’s (his elder son) age, than mine.” With Shashi, you could never have the last word. However, many of us from the media couldn’t get enough of him and were always looking for excuses to meet him.

Though he had a quirky sense of humour, he was an extremely professional actor. There were times when he was doing multiple shifts for different films on the same day. But he was very much like the English (his in-laws were British) when it came to punctuality and professionalism because he managed to pack in so much into his day. He preferred to meet journalists only during the lunch break.

The one thing that I often noticed was how frugal his food habits were. The meals that came from his home were supervised by his wife, Jennifer, who monitored his diet. Back in the day, Rishi Kapoor had once said, “Jennifer aunty had kept Shashi uncle on such a strict diet. Once she went away, he let himself go.’’

When we visited him at his home in Atlas Apartments in Mumbai, Shashi gave us a taste of the Kapoor hospitality.  Like the rest of his family, he pulled a face when I told him that I was vegetarian. “Is that any way to live?’’ he joked. Of course, his man Friday would ensure even the vegetarians were fed well.

The sight of Shashi settled in a chair in his drawing room dressed in a white kurta and a lungi still haunts me. He had put on loads of weight by the early ’90s and could not even bend to cut his toe nails. So, he had a man seated at his feet doing just that. Not that he enjoyed being ungainly, but he refused to apologise for his size!

When he teased a couple of journos and me by saying, “Oh, look, the baddies are here,’’ we would quip with “Look, fatty is here too.’’ And he always took it sportingly. How often do you see an actor allowing someone to take a jibe at him? But Shashi was different. He was real, he was fun.

And then one day everything changed. Shashi’s health started to fail. He suffered a slight memory loss. When we met him at Neetu Kapoor’s mother, Rajee Singh’s funeral, he smiled at us but there wasn’t any flicker of recognition in his eyes. Instead, there was a certain sadness in them.

In March this year, he attended the launch of his nephew Rishi Kapoor’s book Khullam Khulla at a five-star hotel in Bandra. The entire Kapoor clan was there. Though Shashi didn’t recognise most people barring his family, all of us walked up to greet him. And then something terrible happened. One of the organisers stamped on Shashi’s foot by mistake. He winced in pain and his eyes clouded with tears. Though he didn’t know who caused the pain, he looked around helplessly. In that moment, I realised that Shashi may not be able to recognise people but he was alert enough to recognise and feel the pain caused by some clumsy oaf.

That thought broke my heart...just like his demise has.


... with wife Jennifer Kendal

...In a still from Deewar (1975)

...In a still from Junoon (1978)

In a still from Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987)


Shashi Kapoor with daughter Sanjna and son Kunal

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 12, 2015)

Nafisa Ali who made her acting debut in 1979 with Shashi Kapoor's first production, Junoon, insists that she was destined to be launched by the Kapoors. Rishi Kapoor spotted the 16-year-old national swimming champ on the cover of a magazine and showed it to his father. Raj Kapoor was keen to cast them in his next film. But Nafisa's dad didn't want his school-going daughter getting into the movies.

"When Bobby premiered in Kolkata, Rishi invited my parents and me over and introduced us to his family," reminisces Nafisa, who on her next trip to Mumbai for a modelling assignment met Shashi Kapoor and his son Kunal at Raj Kapoor's birthday party. Soon, she was swimming with Shashi, his wife Jennifer Kendal and their children, Kunal and Karan, at the Breach Candy Club and she was admiring his long eyelashes which knotted when he swam.

"The day before I was to return to Kolkata, Kunal told me that Shyam Benegal who was directing a film for his dad, was looking for a new girl. He coaxed me to leave my photographs behind and showed them to him," she says.

Back in Kolkata, Nafisa got a call from Benegal and since it was her 21st birthday the next day— January 18—her dad told her to make her own decision. An interest in fashion and cinema brought her back to Mumbai where Shashi put her up at the Taj and the next day, she met Benegal over breakfast.

"I was the only one eating and chattering. He just kept looking at me till I told him it would give me a stomach ache," she laughs, recalling how the director invited her to his studio where she was given the famous white dress and told to turn left, then right. "That was my screen test. If he'd made me enact a scene, I'd have been a nervous wreck because I was an athlete, not an actress. Shyam understood that," she reasons.

Soon after, she was cast in Junoon, an adapation of Ruskin Bond's A Flight of the Pigeons, set against the background of the Mutiny of 1857. Shashi played Javed Khan, a feudal chieftain, who falls desperately in love with an English girl, Ruth Labadoor, played by Nafisa. "When I met Raj Kapoor he complained that I hadn't done his film. I pointed out that I was working with his brother, so my first film was still with the Kapoors," she laughs.

It wasn't easy working with several National Award winners but she found two acting gurus in Jennifer and Naseeruddin Shah. She recalls one scene where Jennifer, who played her mother, wakes up to see an Indian sepoy creeping up on her and stabs him. "When I wake up to see the dead man I turn hysterical and start screaming I had never screamed in my life and when I told Jennifer this she just opened her mouth and let out blood-curling cries, telling me it was as easy as that. I recalled those screams when filming and got a pat on the back from Shyam," she says, remembering how she'd jokingly dubbed herself a "one-take actress' because all Shyam wanted from her was to be herself.

Quiz her on Shashi, the producer, and she says he was wonderful, ensuring that his unit stayed in the same hotel, travelled in the same cars and ate together. "He and Jennifer appointed a cousin, Tiger Kapoor, who'd take me sightseeing or to a movie when we were not shooting, so I wasn't lonely," she says.

But she was still homesick for her dad who'd refused to speak to her after she'd signed the film. So they sent her home to Kolkata with some film stills to show him and convince him it'd be a movie to be proud of.

In Mumbai, when she was dubbing for the film, Nasir Husain signed her for a film opposite Rishi. But to their dismay she dropped out and went back to Kolkata because she didn't want to be lonely in Mumbai.

She wasn't alone for long. The battle scenes of Junoon had been shot in Jaipur and the officers had become good friends. In December, she met them at a polo match in Kolkata, along with R S Sodhi, the only bachelor who'd been posted in Delhi during the shoot. He accompanied her to Delhi in January for the premiere of Junoon. Love blossomed during earning morning rides and the couple married and raised three children-Armana, Pia and Ajit.

Today, Ajit is in Mumbai gearing up for a Bollywood debut opposite J P Dutta's daughter, Nidhi, in Jee Bhar Ke Jee Le. His doting mother insists that she will give him all the support he needs to live out the dreams his 'darpok little girl' mum gave up all those years ago.

Purvaja Sawant (BOMBAY TIMES; November 12, 2014)

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; November 7, 2014)

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; October 31, 2014)

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 31, 2013)

Christmas cheer and New Year revelry strangely brings back heartwrenching memories of Miss Violet Stoneham’s desperate attempts to become a part of the celebrations in 36 Chowringhee Lane. Jennifer Kendal’s class act in Aparna Sen’s directorial debut is one of the highpoints to be toasted in the centenary year of Indian cinema.

Kendal played an Anglo-Indian school teacher in the film whose lonely existence is enlivened by the presence of a young couple who she runs into while returning from church on Christmas. Nandita Roy, a former student, and Samaresh, her author-boyfriend, use Miss Stoneham’s empty apartment when she’s reading Shakespeare in school, to get some desperately needed privacy and keep her company when she returns home.

The arrangement works wonderfully for the trio till Nandita and Samaresh get married. Now they have their apartment and no longer need the elderly spinster's house or company. A year later, when she invites herself over for Christmas, they put her off saying they’re out of town. Miss Stoneham still comes over, to drop off the cake she has baked for them, to see them partying with a bunch of friends their age. She walks away with a broken heart and drooping shoulders, to recite King Lear to a stray dog.

Remembering that party at the end of the film, Dhritiman Chatterjee who played Samaresh informs that it was for real. “It was Christmas time in Kolkata and we were shooting at a friend’s place. Since it was Aparna’s first film, many of her friends were involved and we’d invited all of them over to fill in as the guests. Soon there was absolute chaos as we started to enjoy ourselves, may be a bit too much. Fortunately, we managed to get the portions canned to Aparna’s satisfaction. She’d done her homework well and knew what she wanted,” he laughs.

He has fond memories of Jennifer who was like a mother figure to many of them on the sets and held the unit together. “She and Shashi Kapoor, who produced the film, were staying at a five-star hotel and the film must have reminded them of their Shakespearewallah days,” Dhritiman reminisces.

He admits Miss Stoneham was a familiar figure to him because he had teachers like her at St. Xavier’s School. “Anglo-Indians, stern and loving at the same time,” he says.

He particularly remembers Miss Stoneham’s cat in the film. “It was a professional cat,” he chuckles. “It had flown down from Mumbai with its trainer and lorded over us.”