Remembering the actor who went from a teen heartthrob to one of Hindi cinema’s finest
Pritish Nandy (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 1, 2020)

Rishi Kapoor was a clever, witty man always ready to discover a repartee even when there was no reason for one. He enjoyed the art of one-upmanship, particularly when it came to conversations. And yet bonhomie was not just part of his craft as an actor, it was second nature for him.

Rishi entered movies a decade before I came to this city. It was 1973 and his father, the legendary Raj Kapoor, launched him opposite a stunningly beautiful Dimple Kapadia in a teenage romance called Bobby which he directed on the basis of a flimsy K A Abbas story that went on to become the year’s biggest hit-- and the second biggest hit of the seventies. Adjusted for inflation, Bobby is still one of the twenty biggest hits of Hindi cinema.

In the same year, another young man who also started his career with a K A Abbas film, found his defining role in a Salim-Javed scripted actioner called Zanjeer that went on to become a big hit. Though Zanjeer collected much less at the box office than Bobby, it launched a new trend for action movies that made Amitabh Bachchan the popular star he soon became. So, 1973 was the year when both the hottest teenage romance and the Angry Young Man hit the ground running. A decade later, when I took charge of Filmfare, they were both at the top of their careers. The critics swore by Rishi. But Amitabh had an unparalleled fan club that ensured the focus never shifted from him.

They worked together in quite a few films, most famously in Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony, Naseeb and Coolie. And then 36 years later, I watched them together in 102 Not Out. It wasn’t much of a film but the two of them were a riot together. Curiously, over the years while Amitabh got embroiled in controversies, in movies as much as in politics, Rishi stayed away from the limelight and continued to build his repertoire of remarkable roles. He chose few and he chose wisely, and his reputation as an amazing actor kept growing.

The last film of his that I watched and loved was Mulk. It was about a Muslim family trying desperately hard to reclaim its lost honour when one of its members is accused of being involved in terrorism. Rishi’s was a compelling act and, as I watched the film mesmerised by his performance, I wondered why he won the Filmfare award for Best Actor only once and that too for his debut film 46 years ago. He was an actor who deserved many more. But then, as Rishi once asked me over a long phone conversation, are all Best Actor Awards really meant for best actors or only big stars who get their fan clubs to vote en masse? I really had no answer for him then. I still don’t have one today. But yes, I would have loved him to win the Filmfare Best Actor Award for Mulk.

He was always one for the ages. The romantic teenager who stole our hearts eventually turned into one of our finest actors, one who will be forever remembered for the roles he made so memorable. There are some things that even the Grim Reaper cannot take away from us.

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; February 27, 2014)

Pritish Nandy, 63, is a proud Bengali and Indian. He is proud to be a filmmaker who encourages new talent. He is agnostic for whom his father is his only God. His greatest strength is his audacity and his biggest weakness is his youngest daughter Ishita. Ahead of his upcoming film Shaadi Ke Side Effects, which he has co-produced with Ekta Kapoor, he talks to Bombay Times about his belief in love, his non-belief in godmen and why he loved his father the most in the world. Excerpts:
 
You were a part of the Times group for almost a decade. How did you become a full time journalist? 
I was born in Bhagalpur as my mother was on a maternity break there, but was brought up in Kolkata, where I lived till the age of 27 when I came to Mumbai. I studied at La Martiniere and with school, felt that one chapter of my life which included smoking, drinking and taking drugs got over. That was a renaissance period where there was great cinema, theatre and music. Ravi Shankar was on the world stage, Satyajit Ray was the star of cinema, Badal Sarkar had discovered the street play, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was composing music for the movies. I entered Presidency College with contemporaries like Aparna Sen. I won an election in college and was appointed their publication secretary. But the most interesting part of college was that, the year I walked in, we were in the middle of the Naxalite movement where lots of the best students were leaving college to go to their villages to fight for the call of the people. That environment was violent, tempestuous, angry and everyone felt they had a task to do. I, too, decided that it was no time for study. My brothers had long passed out and gone out of Kolkata. I must have been 17. This was when I wrote my first book of poems. I came from a family that could not afford their children to not study. So I picked up a job. My first job was to make tea and serve it in a shop. My first book became a huge hit and was widely acclaimed. A couple of books down the line, I almost became the poet, not only of the city, but of everywhere. My books would get translated and published from different cities. Then the unthinkable happened. One of my books Lonesong Street sold a million copies. Films were made on it, HMV brought out an album so people started singing them. Then my friend M J Akbar asked me to write a cover story for him for Sunday that became a huge rage, he then asked me to do another one and another one. One day when Akhbar was not there, his team asked me to again write and I wrote a 16 page story on ‘loneliness’ and it became a record selling issue. At 25, I won a Padma Shri. I earned my money being an occasional journalist, freelancer photographer, designer and copywriter till I decided that I wanted to take a break and applied for the Homi Bhabha fellowship where they give you money and the freedom to do what you want provided you clear their interview. My plan was to take a sabatical, make a boat and sail down from Lisbon to Calicut and go via the Cape of Good Hope where all the storms are. I had spoken to ship makers and studied the journey. I was interviewed and selected. I was returning to Kolkata on a flight when I sat next to a gentleman called Mr. Ashok Jain. He was familiar with my writing and invited me to his house at Alipore for breakfast. His card only carried his name and address but did not say that he was the owner of the Times of India group. I was not from the corporate world so could not recognise him and I decided not to go till three days later when I was walking past his house and decided to take his offer for breakfast. I had written about 40 books till then, had earned my Padma Shri and was feeling restless in Kolkata. Mr. Jain made me the publishing director of his company and I came to Mumbai. It was not easy as the average age of a journalist at that time was very high. Everyone would throw their weight around saying how they knew Mrs. Gandhi and would meet her for breakfast. And here I was, a 27-yearold in jeans and a white shirt with his top buttons open. Even though I was not a journalist, Mr. Jain had put me in the top editorial job. I re-started the Illustrated Weekly of India to make it the most discussed magazine of the country. Mr. Jain was an incredible charmer. He was a courageous man who believed deeply in allowing editors to be free. He asked the right questions and then he allowed you to do your work.
 
What made you write against godmen? 
I am not religious. I have no faith and am agnostic who is a disbeliever and that gives me the freedom to look at the world differently from a whole lot of other people with a degree of objectivity. I don’t look at the world either as a worshiper nor as a secularist. But I have faith in people. The more ritualised a godman is, the more he will protect the structure around him to protect him and you know the more he has to hide. The other defining thing is that anything that is inexplicable by normal common intelligence is untrue. I start with that premise and it has seen me through life very safely.
 
Let’s talk about your childhood in Kolkata? 
My parents were school teachers. My childhood was lonely without my brothers but was fun. I loved my father more than anybody I loved in this world. I was a father’s son. I discovered life on my own terms and first married a girl from my neighbourhood at the age of 18. I made 225 and somehow managed with that, which meant that we lived in a one bed room place and there were days on which we could not afford to eat a meal. But those were informal days when a Satyajit Ray would visit our place to have a chat with me. My wife was two years older to me, but in about seven years my marriage broke and it did not last well. I have a son from her. I then lived in with someone and then married my now wife Rina from whom I have three daughters.
 
Talk about your father? 
I remember him to be a thin, tall, upright man with a noble face who could never do any wrong. He was compassionate and he gifted generously enough, even though we could not manage our own needs. My mother would get angry at him but he felt that the needs of the person he was giving to were higher than his own. I learnt all my lessons of life from him. He was a little disappointed when I gave up college but he had three dreams for me. 1) he wanted me to become a writer 2) he wanted me to do good for my country and told me, if you get a chance to go to Parliament you must and 3) he wanted me to write for his favourite magazine — the Illustrated Weekly of India. While he saw me become a writer, he had died by the time I became a member of parliament and not only wrote but became the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India. He had gone to visit his sister in Jabalpur when he had a prostrate complication. He showed himself to a local doctor who happened to be a student of his and the operation went wrong. He did not want to inform me but I came to know from a friend of mine in Kolkata who knew the doctor who was operating him. I dropped everything and jumped into a train without a booking to go to Jabalpur. By the time I reached, my father had already slipped into a coma. The man I loved the most in my life and whose every word I treasured was in front of me strapped into bed in coma. From my childhood, I had been a disbeliever but for the next 10 days, I went down on my knees and prayed to every possible god to save his life and take my life instead. But, of course, no one listened and that affirmed my conviction that there is no god. I did not cry but broke down when I came back home and saw Rina. His picture is the picture on my wall in my bedroom. Every morning when I wake up I say a prayer to him. I owe everything I am to him. Every night before I go to bed, I pray to him. For me he is my god.
 
How did you become a producer? 
I did two very successful television shows one on Doordarshan called the Pritish Nandy Show and a business show on Zee. There was once a minister on my show who spoke about how the cabinet had been corrupted but it was edited out by DD. Six months later, the full text of that interview was waived out by a member of parliament and that person was Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The government almost toppled and they had to find a scapegoat and so I became the scapegoat and that was the end of the show. It was after that I formed the Pritish Nandy Communications and produced my first film.
 
Do you have friends in the industry? 
Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Mahesh Bhatt and Yash Chopra. I like Amitabh for his endurability. I am deeply fond of Mahesh’s creative insights. Anupam came into my life as a young man from Shimla, very gifted and I have seen him grow from a nobody to a consummate actor and that impresses me. Yash came to me in his life when he was at his lowest, after having several consecutive flops. He wanted the permission to shoot Mashaal in the Times of India building. I gave him the permission, but that film too did not do well. And then he invited me to launch Chandni and that became his turnaround film. I found him a down to earth and easy man who always wore his success and failure on his shoulder.
 
Do you have the Bengali intellectual arrogance? 
I would imagine that I have the Bengali intellectual arrogance and am very proud of being a Bengali and an Indian. I am a great believer in the power of love, be it sexual love or parental love. I am emotional and comfortable in my own skin. My friendships and relationships are strong and durable as I don’t waste time and energy on disliking people. I am proud of what I do and don’t suffer fools. My greatest asset is audacity.