IndiaPost.com - An afternoon with Kapoor family

India Post News Service

LOS ANGELES: "I was traveling in a taxi in Westwood, yesterday," said Rishi Kapoor, "when the cabbie suddenly asked- India?" I said, "Yes." He smiled and said immediately, "Ah! Raj Kapoor?" I said, "I am Raj Kapoor's son." Rishi continues, "The cab driver was stunned.

He was from Armenia, idolized Raj Kapoor and here he was in a cab in Los Angeles with the son of his screen idol." Only in Los Angeles I thought as I clapped delightedly at the story, sitting in the Billy Wilder Theatre, Hammer Museum along with a hundred other film aficionados listening to movie star Rishi Kapoor recounting the life and times of his father Raj Kapoor.

The audience had just seen a 13 minute documentary part of a two hour film Kehta Hai Joker directed by Bobby Bedi. I was fifteen years old, decades ago when I fell deeply and hopelessly in love.

I had seen my first Hindi film Awara and I was smitten by the romantic, Raj Kapoor. The deep feelings lingered on with me through the teen years as I saw Barsaat, Jagte Raho, Shri 420, Aah, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Mera Naam Joker, Boot Polish, and Sangam.

Of course I fell in love again, this time with my husband but the connection with Raj Kapoor still exists. Over the years I have watched his movies many times, as a reviewer, a columnist, an analyst, a different individual experience.

A wisp of a song, a mention of any Kapoor name, a passing comment on any of his leading ladies, Nargis, Nimmi, Zeenat, Vyjayantimala drenched me with emotion. Of a man who honored love, challenged injustice, created a blend of narrative, song and smoldering intensity manifesting it into a demarcated film experience.

Now as part of the film festival, India Splendor hosted in Los Angeles by McGlobal Trust (Dr Modi) we went back in time to enter the world that Raj Kapoor created. Dr M introduced Raj Kapoor as-'the first global artist'.

Dean Rosen defined Raj Kapoor as an actor/film maker who represented the best of Indian cinema. It was a wonderful and touching homecoming as Raj Kapoor had prior to his death had visited the US for a retrospective of his films in University of California, Los Angeles.

The fascinating documentary showed a montage of excerpts from many of his films as he portrayed the actor, director, producer and studio chief of almost four decades. Prior to his death due to complications of asthma at the age of 63, Raj Kapoor said, "When I die take me to the studio so I might get up, spring forward and say, Action."

Brother Shammi Kapoor when interviewed remembered, "Raj smoked, drank and slept with films." Later, son Rishi Kapoor reaffirmed the statement when he told us, "My family, his wife, mother, children…nothing was important to him. Only the making of a film. We did not exist when he was involved with a film. It was a passion, an obsession.

His family was a world apart." Film directors paid tribute as they remembered him as the Indian Charlie Chaplin giving a shape and character to the Chaplinesque brilliance he so admired. The second of the Great Showman's sons, Rishi Kapoor accompanied by wife Neetu and son Ranbir, came on stage with Mira Advani Honeycutt, film curator and author for an informal discussion with the audience.

Rishi who first starred in Mera Naam Joker has been India's heartthrob for 25 years. He made his debut as a teenager and became a top star with leading lady Dimple Kapadia in Bobby which became a rage overnight. "Raj Kapoor started young. He made Barsaat when he was 21 years old. I was always in awe of him.

When I worked on a film with him, I never called him Dad, only Raj Saab," recalled Rishi Kapoor. Asked if the Kapoor family believed in the tradition of not letting their wives to work in films, Neetu responded immediately, "I chose not to work after marriage as I was busy with the children. Maybe now if there is an opportunity I might be cast as a mother."

"My father loved Archie comics," Rishi told us and "he wanted to make a film about teenage romance, the kind of crushes one comes across in Archies." Articulate, intelligent and ready with a repartee, Rishi wittily and honestly captured the spirit of his father as he related anecdote after anecdote with astonishing zest.

Unique emotions coursed through the audience as one person recalled a violin lesson with the young Raj, another shared with fond remembrance a particular film that evoked a deep recollection, some spoke of scenes that resonated with the spirit of the times, and all acknowledged with sadness, the absence of the Master of cinema Raj Kapoor.

Raj was aggressively adventurous, yet totally accessible to the common man. There was no label or category to the man. The diversity of the roles was enriching. Ranbir Kapoor, son of Rishi Kapoor, is being launched this year in a film Saavariya by Sanjay Leela Bhansali - Director of Devdas, and Black.

A winsome, handsome and savvy young man, he spoke of his years in New York studying visual arts and in the Lee Strasberg school of acting and his dreams of following in the steps of his father Rishi and grandfather Raj Kapoor. "And what was the relationship between your father and you, Rishi?" was the final question from the audience.

To which Rishi Kapoor replied, "I was the biological son of my father. Raj Kapoor belongs to the world and to you…"