Showing posts with label Rajiv Gandhi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rajiv Gandhi. Show all posts
When Rajiv Gandhi asked Rahi Masoom Raza "Do the dialogues in Mahabharat about janm and karm refer to me?"
11:09 AM
A century after Rahi Masoom Raza’s birth, Mahabharat remains his most widely remembered work. But the novelist, poet and screenwriter left behind a far richer legacy, shaped by the Ganga, Aligarh and a plural India, writes Mohammed Wajihuddin
Mohammed Wajihuddin (THE TIMES OF INDIA; September 16, 2026)
In the late 1980s, when Mahabharat brought India to a standstill every Sunday morning, director B R Chopra told its dialogue writer, Rahi Masoom Raza, that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wanted to meet him.
“Do the dialogues in the serial about janm and karm — birth and deeds — refer to me?” Gandhi asked. “The entire Bhagavad Gita is about janm and karma,” Rahi replied. Then, with characteristic deadpan humour, he added: “If you can guarantee my safety, I will write another Gita for you.” Gandhi smiled.
The brief Rajiv-Rahi encounter features in a dastan (a long oral tale in Persian, Turkic, and Urdu traditions) about the legendary poet and writer that theatre director Mahmood Farooqui has mounted as part of Rahi’s birth-centenary celebrations, which began August 1.
Nearly 35 years after his death, Rahi — who left behind 11 novels, seven collections of poetry and scripts, screenplays or dialogues for around 200 films — risks becoming a name remembered principally for Mahabharat. The centenary is an occasion to revisit the many worlds that made him, and the work through which he helped shape India’s cultural imagination.
The Writer With ‘3 Mothers’
Born in Gangauli, a village on the banks of the Ganga in eastern UP’s Ghazipur district, Rahi grew up amid the layered cultures of the Gangetic plains. That inheritance ran through his poetry, fiction and screenwriting. “Rahi writes that he had three mothers — his mother Nafisa Begum; the Ganga; and Aligarh Muslim University. His sensibilities were shaped by all three,” says Darain Shahidi, who wrote the dastan and performs it with Rajesh Kumar.
It was to the Ganga that Rahi turned when he faced one of the biggest predicaments of his professional life. He had initially declined B R Chopra’s offer to write the screenplay and dialogues for Mahabharat. But after Chopra announced his name, he was flooded with letters from Hindu zealots objecting to a Muslim being chosen to script the epic. Rahi changed his mind.
“I am a son of the Ganga,” he declared — and insisted that he, and no one else, would write it. “If Rahi could defend Mahabharat so confidently as an epic embodying our civilizational values, it was because of the forces that had shaped him,” says Farooqui.
Man Who ‘Saw’ Kurukshetra
What made Rahi’s Mahabharat memorable was not merely the force of its plot or the cadence of its dialogues. Those who performed his words felt that he inhabited the epic’s world.
“When we were shooting the serial, it seemed as if Rahi sahab had written it while watching the Mahabharata war at Kurukshetra,” says actor Surendra Pal Singh, who played Dronacharya.
Singh says he was the only actor Chopra selected without a screen test. But at 24, he was reluctant to play a character he imagined as an old man, fearing it would damage his prospects in Bollywood. It was during a visit to Chopra’s Juhu office that he met Rahi. “Young man, Dronacharya is not an old man. He is an army general. You will not regret playing him,” Rahi told him.
The words proved prophetic. “Even today, people at airports recognize me as Dronacharya from Mahabharat,” Singh says with a smile.
Village That Shaped His World
If Mahabharat took Rahi into millions of Indian homes, it was Gangauli that gave him his most enduring fictional landscape. The village and the Ganga form the backdrop to ‘Aadha Gaon (Half a Village)’, his best-known novel. “To him, Ghazipur was not just another town, nor Gangauli just another village. They shaped his imagination, prose and poetry,” says Ather Farooqui, general secretary of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind).
With help from Rahi’s daughter, Maryam Moonis, the Delhi-based organisation has archived several of his original manuscripts, including those of ‘Aadha Gaon’ and Mahabharat. It now plans to publish his works, including Mahabharat, in Urdu.
Rahi’s native district is also joining in the centenary celebrations. Asif Azmi, director of the cultural organization Maati, plans to organise 100 programmes commemorating him. These include an event in Ghazipur that will bring together 100 prominent people from different fields. Jammu & Kashmir lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha, himself a Ghazipur native, is among those Azmi plans to invite.
An Urdu Writer’s Hindi Classic
Anjuman’s announcement that it will publish ‘Aadha Gaon’ in Urdu has revived an old debate. Rahi was essentially an Urdu writer, yet the novel first appeared in Devanagari, or Hindi, in 1966.
‘Aadha Gaon’ was a landmark work: it brought Bhojpuri into the literary world of Urdu fiction and offered a rare portrayal of Shia life in the 1940s. Why, then, was it not originally published in the Urdu script?
Farooqui traces the answer to the politics of AMU’s Urdu department in the 1960s — and to the hostility Rahi faced over his marriage to Nayyar Jahan, a granddaughter of Sahebzada Aftab Ahmad Khan. She had previously been married to Lt Col Sahebzada Muhammad Yunus Khan and had three children.
The marriage unsettled sections of the entrenched elite on the otherwise quiet AMU campus. It is believed that a senior Urdu professor, who had earlier worked at a college owned by the nawab of Rampur, ensured that Rahi’s position as a lecturer was not confirmed.
Professor Shafey Kidwai, director of AMU’s Sir Syed Academy, offers a qualification. “It is true that Rahi’s marriage to Nayyar Jahan earned him considerable hostility on campus. But, sensing that the lecturer’s post would go to someone else, Rahi did not apply for it,” he says.
The rupture did not diminish AMU’s influence on Rahi. He earned his MA and PhD there, and the university became one of the ‘three mothers’ to whom he acknowledged his intellectual debt.
From Aligarh To Bombay
Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali first encountered Rahi at Aligarh. “Rahi had a magnetic pull for us. He was our main attraction in the Urdu department, where I spent hours even though I studied geology,” recalls the ‘Umrao Jaan’ director.
By 1967, however, Aligarh had become too difficult for Rahi. He moved to Bombay, where cinema embraced the prolific writer. Yet, Ali says, Rahi continued to feel “underutilised”.
His literary ambitions always stretched beyond the screen. Among his works was a long epic poem on the uprising of 1857, celebrating the heroes and rebels who rose against British rule. Ali now wants to build a ballet around it.
Rahi died in Mumbai in 1992, two years after Mahabharat completed its enormously successful run. He had wished to be buried near the Ganga, but was laid to rest in the Santacruz graveyard, not far from the Arabian Sea.
Manthan did brilliantly in Gujarat because its largest audience was also the film’s producers-Shyam Benegal
10:43 PM
Shyam Benegal shares how Manthan was brought to life and how Dr Verghese Kurian made it happen
Shyam Benegal (THE ECONOMIC TIMES; September 10, 2012 | Republished in BOMBAY TIMES; April 26, 2024)
I used to work for an ad agency that advertised Amul products. And Amul launched its first product, milk food for babies. Dr Kurien had this idea to launch this baby food with buffalo milk, which nobody believed could be done. Of course, it worked wonderfully.
Then came the iconic butter which we used to advertise and I used to write for that. But the milk revolution was yet to take place in its entirety.
Now came NDDB, post the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s visit to Anand. Shastri asked Dr Kurien to replicate his model but he refused to move to Delhi saying, Delhi didn’t have farmers, only bureaucrats!
Around 1972-73, I got to make two of the three documentaries on Operation Flood, called Operation Flood I and II, which led to the White Revolution – all because of Dr Kurien and his rural marketing initiative IRMA, which was a pioneering institute. While doing these documentaries, I used to travel around the whole country and I came across many beautiful places. And I said to Dr Kurien that these documentaries will be seen largely by those who have already been converted to the cause. What about the larger public? He agreed with me but said that there was no money (for a large project). Dr Kurien never allowed anyone to spend any money that he didn’t get value from.
So he asked me, how much do you need? I said Rs. 10 lakh. He did a headcount and said, if I collect Rs. 2 from each member, we can make the film.
He did not take any money from the farmers. He told the collection centres that when they come for their daily morning and evening collection, ask them not to take Rs. 2 and instead they can all be producers of a film!
Then came Vijay Tendulkar who was blown away by the cooperative and wrote several scripts. I chose one and that’s how Manthan was made.
Dr Kurien released the film first in Gujarat before its all India release. The film did brilliantly because its largest audience was also the film’s producers! Everyday, we had this incredible sight of truckloads of people coming in from all over to see the film.
The film’s success gave Dr Kurien another idea. To use the film to woo other parts of the country into the movement. So prints of 16 mm would be used by spearhead teams to persuade farmers to create cooperatives of their own. Like in Manthan, a vet, a milk technician and a fodder specialist who can explain the value of cross breeding would go and help set up cooperatives. That is how this man made India the largest milk producing nation in the world. Quite an extraordinary man.
There are very few stories like him and the only other person I can think of like him is MS Swaminathan.
When Dr Kurien said: “I am a milkman, I am a servant of the farmers,” it was not just rhetoric. He meant it. He never suffered fools. He would never stand for any obtuse ways, if he could help it he never went to Delhi.
He was a delightful, marvellous man with a great sense of humour. I enjoyed his company and we had lots to talk about.
I am lucky to have met him because of Sylvester D’Cunha and Usha Kartak who were hands on. When I left for filmmaking, I made several other documentaries for him. Films for farmers.
A Movie Pure as Milk
Dr Kurien never complimented anyone! But I took the film to the UN that helped the UNDP to use the film for other countries, like a few in Latin America, to set up similar cooperatives.
Rajiv Gandhi asked Dr Kurien for a print of Manthan, which he gifted to the Soviet Union. Dr Kurien was both a leader and the backbone of the movement. I have never known someone with so much integrity like he said at an award function last year, "If I am proud of anything it’s my integrity."
He was a man who took people with him. He made money for the farmers. He took just Re 1 as salary from NDDB and took his salary from Amul right till the end. He should be the person every Indian wants to be like, especially in the material world we live in.
(As told to Nandini Raghavendra)
When boundaries between actors and politicians hadn’t blurred
8:46 AM
Ambarish Mishra (THE TIMES OF INDIA; September 20, 2020)
Mumbai: The Sushant Singh Rajput case has triggered a high-decibel debate on, among other issues, the tumultuous ties between politics and cinema.
In contrast, old-timers recall the days in the soft afterglow of the freedom struggle when actors and politicians coexisted harmoniously while maintaining a dignified distance from one another Politicians didn’t go beyond the ceremonious presence at special screenings of films once in a while. Back in 1936, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru attended a special screening of ‘Achhut Kanya’, a Bombay Talkies classic starring Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar, at Roxy, the iconic cinema hall.
For Nehru, though, Hindi cinema remained a distant land. During one of his visits to Mumbai, he agreed to meet a delegation of film producers and actors. Everyone present on the Raj Bhavan lawns were in for a shock when he declared with a wave of hand, “Come on, introduce yourselves.” The select gathering included several top-heavy stars of the time. Thespian Motilal, it is said, was too embarassed to utter his name, which he shared with the Prime Minister’s father, Motilal Nehru.
In 1962, the film industry leaders tried again for a brief meeting with Nehru in New Delhi, this time with an agenda: Concession on the raw stock tax. He refused to meet the delegates, even after Satyajit Ray put in a word. Instead, Nehru told them to hold talks with Morarji Desai, who then held the finance portfolio in the Union cabinet.
Vallabhbhai Patel would often send a word, through his emissary filmmaker Chandulal Shah, to cinema czars to help the Congress party raise funds for a national cause. “And money began to pour in like the Mumbai rains,” said cinema scholar Virchand Dharamsey. “But politicians, of whichever hue, never relied on glamour to win an election,” he added.
Lal Bahadur Shastri, it is said, was moved to tears when he saw ‘Shaheed’, actor-producer Manoj Kumar’s bio-pic on Bhagat Singh. Kumar once told an interviewer, “He asked me if I could translate on celluloid his famous ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ slogan, which had then taken the nation by storm amidst the 1965 India-Pakistan war.”
Atal Behari Vajpayee was a film connoisseur too. A Mumbai BJP MLA recalled how Vajpayee expressed his wish to see ‘Suraj Kaa Saatwaan Ghoda’, a 1992 Shyam Benegal film based on Dharmavir Bharati’s epic novel of the same name. “But he kept away from film people.”
Congress politicians from Maharashtra, said observers, generally shunned cinema, choosing rustic forms of entertainment: Tamasha, wrestling and elections to sugar cooperative mills. Balasaheb Thackeray, though, had a soft spot for filmdom and many stars would turn up at Shanmukhananda auditorium for Shiv Sena’s anniversary function every year. Sharad Pawar has “excellent equations” with Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar, though the Baramati strongman prefers the company of litterateurs.
The neta-abhineta (politician-actor) demarcation was by and large intact till the 1970s, said trade veterans. The first breach came when Rajiv Gandhi roped in Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Dutt and Vyjayantimala for the 1984 Lok Sabha elections.
Experts said the post-globalisation era saw the advent of a new middle-class that disliked politics mired in casteism and corruption. Alarmed over their dipping popularity, politicians turned to film folk to consolidate their vote bank. Cinema researcher Rafique Baghdadi said, “Filmstars and football players are hugely adored.”
Many more made a beeline to politics and the list reads like credit titles of a multi-starrer: Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Rajesh Khanna, Govinda, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan, Jayaprada, Rekha and Urmila Matondkar, to name a few.
Writer Rachana Shah, a niece of Lata Mangeshkar, has a word of advice: “Both politicians and film people should develop a brand of their own. No point in living off each other.”
Said Hindi cinema aficionado Deepali Mainkar, “Hema Malini and Jaya Bachchan often make a good point while speaking in the Parliament.” Without the luxury of retakes.
Amar Singh and Amitabh Bachchan: Story of 2 brothers
8:31 AM
The late politician was once so close to the Bachchans that he was considered part of the family. Then came the rift, which never healed
Rasheed Kidwai (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 3, 2020)
Up above, if Amar Singh gets to hear the many who are waxing lyrical about him, he would let out a rich, throaty chuckle.
During his chequered political and social life, spread over decades, Amar courted the high and mighty – Madhavrao Scindia, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej, Tina and Anil Ambani, Sanjay and Manyata Dutt, Sridevi and Boney Kapoor – and, most famously, the Bachchans. Yet virtually no one was with him in the end.
His close relationship with the Bachchans and their eventual falling out perhaps most drew the attention of the public. In February this year, he sought forgiveness from Amitabh and was said to have sent an emotional video. There are some friends of Amar who feel the gesture was unilateral and perhaps unwarranted. According to them, the Bachchans had dropped him long ago. Amar could not get over the fact that he was not invited for Big B’s 70th birthday bash a few years ago. “Even his [Amitabh’s] spot boys were called, but not me,” he told one interviewer.
Like many mortals, Amar had a weakness for wealth, power and celebrity. A manipulator par excellence, he loved flaunting his extraordinary skill in performing dubious arts. Early in his career, he was considered close to a ‘lottery king’ in the Northeast named Iqbal Chand Khurana. Amar used to say “paploo fit ho gaya” whenever he fixed something using dirty tricks.
Amar had been accused of many gory deeds – from preventing Sonia Gandhi from becoming prime minister in 1999 to mustering crucial support for the Manmohan Singh government in 2008, when the UPA regime appeared to be in danger over the India-US nuclear deal. He took great pride in owning up to them. But he always denied creating a wedge between Amitabh and Sonia. That was one charge he was wholly innocent of, he insisted. He would passionately argue that the Bachchan-Gandhi relationship dated back to a time before his birth. At one point he said: “I have no authority or competence to comment on the ties of two great families. Only they are competent to comment on each other. All I know about Amit ji is that he is a man of great dignity, depth and emotion, and he’s convinced that there’s respect only for utility and no place for emotion.” In private conversations, he would say the Gandhi-Bachchan fallout had been the result of human failings, ego clashes and one-upmanship.
EYES AND EARS
Amar appeared in Amitabh’s life after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1991, and soon became the star’s “brother” and virtual eyes and ears. For years Amar acted as a shadow of the actor and his family. When Amitabh was issued a flurry of tax notices during the UPA I tenure, he issued a veiled warning: The Samajwadi Party general secretary warned the Congress that his party could use the actor in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. Amitabh distanced himself from Amar’s statement that the actor could stage a political comeback. Amar clarified: “I did not say he will enter politics. I said if you continuously keep humiliating someone, he could be compelled to join politics.”
Amar was able to prevail upon Amitabh to let Jaya join politics, despite Amitabh’s deep misgivings, and even campaign for the Samajwadi Party. For many years he hovered around the family with Hanuman-like devotion.
Between 2010 and 2012, the Bachchans fell out with Amar. Delhi and Mumbai’s social circuits claimed that the fallout coincided with the politician’s own banishment from the capital’s durbar. The bitter spat began when Jaya Bachchan insisted on keeping her Rajya Sabha seat after Amar was shunted out of the Samajwadi Party. Jaya’s decision to ignore Amar’s advice reportedly had the support of Aishwarya. (Incidentally, Aradhya, Aishwarya and Abhishek’s daughter, called him ‘Dada Chacha’, which is actually Ajitabh Bachchan’s right.) It was then that Amitabh forced the two sides to retreat into dignified silence; he himself vowed never to speak anything about Amar in public or in private.
During that two-year period another controversy from the past – the 2008 cash-for-vote allegations made following the trust vote in Parliament – returned to haunt Amar, and he was arrested and sent to Tihar Jail. Although he was eventually acquitted, Amar remained bitter about the fact that none of his influential friends visited him in prison. He should have known better.
‘DON’T EXPECT ANYTHING’
Jaya once told Amar: “You will be very disappointed, as you are more giving than any one of us [the Bachchans]. If you expect any reciprocity, you will be a very sad person.” Amar may have understood the full import of Jaya’s remark in his last days. Had he pondered some more, he would have remembered another, older gem from Jaya, pronounced at Sidhaur in Barabanki District way back in October 2004. The occasion was an assembly by-election and Jaya was seeking votes for the Samajwadis. She said: “Mere devar Amar Singh sach mein Thakur hai. Jo kehte hain woh karte hain. Aap Samajwadi Party ko vote dijiye. Yeh log vaade aur rishte nibhana jaante hain.” (My brother-in-law is a real Thakur. He does what he says. Please vote for the Samajwadi Party because these people know how to keep promises and relations.) When she said this, Jaya had the Gandhis – once close friends of the Bachchans – in mind. Speaking bitterly of the past, Jaya remembered Rajiv and Sonia thusly: “Jin logon ne humko rajniti mein aage badhaya, unhone beech mein hi hamara saath chhod diya. Saath tab chhoda jab hum taqleef mein the. Yeh log hamesha dhokha dete hain.” (Those who brought us into politics left us midway. They left us when we were in a crisis. They are known to betray people.)
NO REGRETS
In May 2015, Amar had to vacate his 27, Lodhi Estate bungalow, once the hottest address in New Delhi, visited by the rich and the powerful, including the Bachchans. (In fact, Amitabh and a newly-engaged Abhishek and Aishwarya were said to have stayed there once.) “Mr Bachchan, according to me, is contrary to baghban (gardener), the role he played onscreen. Off-screen, he is bagh-ujar (someone who uproots a garden), at least emotionally. I am saying this on record,” Amar later complained.
There was more to follow. He told a newspaper: “Remorse is for human beings, not for the house. Families like the Bachchans, if there was a death in the house, they would have my and my wife’s names on the cards as family members. For the wedding of their sons and daughters, they used to print cards referring to us as family. I also treated them as family. I don’t regret doing anything for them. Whatever you do for the family, you don’t regret. I regret the way they treated me opportunistically. But I maintain that a good human being can be a bad actor and a good actor may not necessarily be a good human being.”
Towards the end, the man who had once been a king had been reduced to a pawn on the chessboard of life.
Attacking stars easiest way to get attention-Saif Ali Khan
8:47 AM
Basking in the success of Sacred Games, Saif Ali Khan opens up on censorship and how detractors create controversies to gain mileage
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 16, 2018)
"I wasn't expecting such an overwhelming response," smiles Saif Ali Khan, when we congratulate him on the success of Sacred Games. Based on Vikram Chandra's celebrated novel by the same name, the show has been winning accolades from all and sundry since it dropped online 10 days ago.
Though sold as a platform devoid of the censorship barriers that dominate the movies, the Netflix series, directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, ran into legal trouble last week. A plea was filed in the Delhi High Court seeking to remove certain sections that were allegedly derogatory to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
"Some people try and gain mileage. They watch like hawks for anyone to say anything that can be politically manipulated. For me, as an actor, it's important to be part of the creative journey without worrying too much about this. If the intention is correct — that of making entertaining content — then the idea of offending someone becomes secondary. If it has genuinely hurt people's sentiments, that's another story. But if a situation is motivated by someone trying to get mileage, that's lamentable. People are always looking for attention, and the easiest way to get that is to attack a movie or a movie star," says Khan.
Fully understanding of the dichotomous nature of freedom of speech, the actor emphasises that it is one's approach towards exercising it that makes all the difference. "People are demonstrating against [Donald] Trump in London, and all the mayor has asked of them is that they do it politely. Freedom of speech is great, but the talk about pulling a show off air is destructive. You can't make a movie adhering to the guidelines of how not to offend anyone."
Though Khan has been lauded for his restrained act as the morally upright cop Sartaj Singh, Nawazuddin Siddiqui has walked away with the lion's share of praise. Not one to be insecure, the Nawab of Pataudi says, "Mafia is always more dramatic, more romantic. Nawaz has done a fabulous job. But Sartaj is not monotoned. His addictions, his broken relationship, the lack of success — there was a lot to keep me happily occupied as an actor. I knew that Ganesh Gaitonde had more of the drama to play out. But it didn't stop me from wanting to be Sartaj."
Biopics of Rajiv Gandhi & Sanjay Gandhi in the pipeline?
3:11 PM
Subhash K Jha (DNA; July 5, 2015)
The Gandhi fixation continues in India — and we’re not
talking about the Mahatma here — but rather, the political dynasty that
stayed in power for several years.
We recently told you how director Manish Gupta has a script ready for an Indira Gandhi biopic starring Vidya Balan, but that the actress will only say yes once the necessary permissions from Sonia Gandhi are in place.
All the way from 2006 to the time of his death in 2011, director Jagmohan Mundhra struggled to bring out his biopic on Sonia Gandhi, but was served with a legal notice.
Then, in 2012 Bhavna Talwar announced a biopic on Sonia’s slain husband Rajiv, but the film never really took off after the scripting stage. While names like Abhishek Bachchan, Colin Firth and Riz Ahmed did the rounds for a while, we learn that Ranbir Kapoor’s name has also been cropping up of late and that the film will finally take shape soon and Abhishek is most likely to be picked.
Now, in 2015, filmmaker Hansal Mehta has just announced his project on Rajiv’s controversial younger brother, Sanjay Gandhi and is looking at names like Rajkummar Rao, Arjun Kapoor and Varun Dhawan. Only time will tell, who makes the cut for the role. Both films are expected to release mid-2016. Will we see a clash of the Gandhi brothers at the box- office?
I've never been friends with Ranbir and that is my biggest drawback-Rishi Kapoor
8:15 AM
Indu Mirani meets @chintskap off-line as he relishes some twitter spotlight
Indu Mirani (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 26, 2015)
Anyone who thinks that Rishi Kapoor can be cowed down after the recent brouhaha over his tweets on the beef ban has several rethinks coming.
In fact he's done with the controversy, having blocked over two hundred people who were "giving me maa bahen ki gaalis, refusing to listen to reason, saying anti-national or vulgar stuff or using cuss words. I have so many people (including some very prominent politicians) and young people following me. I can't have this sort of thing appearing on my timeline," he says.
An offshoot of the controversy was the threatened ban of his and son Ranbir Kapoor's films by strident religious bodies that could not stomach his declaration of being "a beef eating Hindu who did pooja twice a day and celebrated every festival". His reaction: he posted a picture that he had happened to click a few months ago at an outdoor shoot, of a dhaba called R K Chinese Fast Food, saying that after the ban his family was going to have to earn their living this way. When I tell him that this had been his most popular post, garnering 463 retweets and being favourited 719 times, he has no clue what that means but just knows it is amazingly popular.
With a strange naivete that is utterly endearing but not surprising considering he is such a recent entrant on Twitter, he confesses that he doesn't know all the features of the social media network but will learn in time; he isn't quite familiar with the practice of dispatching direct messages. At the moment he only knows how to tweet and how to block.
He affirms that he will poke fun at himself and his long-suffering but sporting wife Neetu but will never be mean to others.
His bio, which reads, 'Son of a famous father, father of a famous son. That leaves me nowhere', is what he wanted to name his biography, which is currently being written. "But the publishers were not too keen on it, so I put it up on Twitter instead."
He's thrilled to bits that he has been verified within a couple of months of joining the service. "Sometimes it takes a year," he says proudly, laughing uproariously at the huge hungama he created with his very candid observation about his younger co-stars wearing dark glasses even at night, at places where the media (read paparazzi) was going to be. "Are they expecting the sun to come out at night?" he asks. "Or have they suddenly realized that the lights are even harsher than those they face in studios? I suppose they're trying to be stylish, but do they realize how stupid they look?"
He has other equally damning observations up his sleeves. "Tell me, why do today's actors act with their hands in their pockets? They just don't know what to do with them. Do they not understand that their hands are as much a body part as their legs or their face and should also be hanging around?"
"I also want to ask the government why any prominent structure, like a bridge or an airport, is only named after politicians. Rajiv Gandhi died more than 20 years back. When the sea link was made, in fact when it was thought of, he was not even living, and yet it is named after him. Why is it not named after eminent citizens of the city? Why not after JRD Tata, or Lata Mangeshkar, or Dilip Kumar or Azim Premji among others? There is a John Wayne airport in the US; why do we only think of politicians, Indira Gandhi this, Rajiv Gandhi that...?"
That his uncle Shashi Kapoor was recently chosen for this year's Dadasaheb Phalke Award makes Rishi very happy. Completely poohpoohing criticism that it is a bit late he avers that it is never too late and can even be conferred posthumously. An honour he also thinks his other chacha Shammi Kapoor deserves equally. Elaborating on the subject of Shashi Kapoor's award he reminds us of his great contribution to alternate cinema like Junoon, Utsav, Vijayta, 36 Chowringee Lane, ruing that he lost his hard earned money on them. "He would earn from mainstream films to fund the films he really believed in. Ironically those films that flopped then would have done so well in today's age of multiplex and niche films. And let us also remember his continuing contribution to the world of theatre after my grandfather [Prithviraj Kapoor]."
Acknowledging that Shashi is probably the best looking Kapoor - though he admits it is a toss up between him and Prithviraj Kapoor - Rishi hopes to someday emulate his grandfather, father Raj Kapoor and Shashi; by receiving the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. He wishes the same for his son Ranbir and his nieces Kareena and Karisma and says nothing would make him happier than to have a Kapoor in every generation receive the honour.
Voice vibrating with emotion and wiping away a tear, Rishi shares some memories of his "very kind and gentle Shashi uncle and Jennifer's aunty's" Christmas lunches. "We kids used to get very excited because there would also be a treasure hunt with a prize of Rs 100, a huge amount in those days."
He recalls another anecdote, "This happened before I became an actor. I was on an Air India flight to London and we had stopped at Kuwait. At the same time, Shashi uncle was on his way back from London, also on an Air India flight, which had also halted at Kuwait. The airhostess of my flight told me about this and in those non-security-conscious days, I walked across the tarmac to meet him. Without letting anyone see, he slipped a 50 pound note into my pocket. For me, and for those days, this was a massive amount but that's the kind of person he is."
Regarding his own career Rishi is grateful that even at 63, he is being offered roles that vary from negative to gay to fatherly. He will soon be seen as a 90-year-old man in a Dharma film.
The subject inevitably turns to his son Ranbir and I ask him to compare their childhoods. Was he the same sort of father to Ranbir that his father, Raj Kapoor was to him? Once again I've touched on an emotional topic. "Out of respect I was always very scared of my father. I don't know about Ranbir; of course he respects me, but I've never been friends with him and that is my biggest drawback. It's also a deep regret but again, I don't know," he says. "Only time will tell if it is something that's good or not. I used to drink with my dad, though out of respect, I never smoked in front of him. Similarly I can share a drink with Ranbir, but he doesn't smoke in front of me though I know he smokes. I never made friends with Ranbir and though I regret it, I am also not one of those guys who would want to be on back-slapping terms with my son."
"I'm told, and I'm very proud of it, that Ranbir is very well behaved, polite, down to earth, decent, cultured, well spoken, warm, and respects his elders. The credit for all this goes entirely to Neetu. I was diametrically opposite when I was his age, being arrogant and brattish, but what the hell? It was 1974, I was being paid a salary of 5 lakh a month and half the world was crazy about me," he says. "But now I've mellowed."
"My father gave me space when I moved out after marriage and I give Ranbir his space too when he decided to move out and share a home with his girlfriend. In this house, he had one room: how could that be enough for a 33-year-old boy? He's a great son, he listens to me but I don't interfere in his career because my career is mine and his is his. I know I've screwed up my relationship with Ranbir even though my wife kept telling me about what I was doing. It's now too late to change it; both of us will not be able to adjust to the change. It's like there's this glass wall, we can see each other, we can talk, but that's it. He doesn't live with us anymore, which is also a very big setback to Neetu and me. We're building a new home where there will be a lot of place for him and his family. Till then, life goes on."
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