PEOPLE WE LIKE: Rishi KapoorTO THE MANNER BORN
"Johnny Lever told me some time ago that I am perhaps the only actor apart from Balraj Sahni and Motilal who cannot be mimicked, because I'm a natural and don't have a set style." If I'd heard this statement from another star, it would have been dismissed as pompous and delusional. Most mainstream artistes think they're better than they're made out to be. Rishi Kapoor actually is! He wasn't bragging. He was merely trying to comprehend why nobody took his talent seriously, dismissing him as quintessential lover boy, when he is easily one of the best performers of his generation. "Not having a style isn’t necessarily an asset. Today, if you are not being copied, people tend to forget you."
This was over six years ago, soon after the release of Pyaar Mein Twist, with his Bobby co-star Dimple Kapadia. It was a mediocre film. Not the first such he has inhabited and made his own. Possibly the most gifted of the Kapoors (excluding his grandfather Prithviraj, whose work I'm not very familiar with and including his son Ranbir, the current hearthrob), Rishi Kapoor found himself centrestage in the worst possible decades––the '70s and '80s––with Amitabh Bachchan ruling the marquee and then sheer mediocrity of content taking over. "I feel very embarrassed when I see re-runs of some of my old films. In those days, that was the way Hindi cinema worked. Such were the dictates of the times––I was just doing my job."
Despite strong currents contrary to his youthful ebullience, he survived as leading man for two decades––from Bobby, the original teeny-bopper romance––to Deewana, with young Divya Bharati, the 20th-odd new face he was romancing on screen. There was a record of sorts in that statistic, but back then, nobody was counting or handing out trophies like Christmas-come-early. Rishi Kapoor just wore his patent knitted sweaters, white dancing shoes, fetching smile and went to work, widening girth and all.
That's all he's done all his life––starting his career at 16, barely out of school (education isn't a strong suit with the Kapoors). Earlier, he honed his skills in front of the mirror. Playing Raj Kapoor's younger self in Mera Naam Joker, he walked away with a National Award, albeit only in the 'child actor' category. It took some convincing for Kapoor Sr. to cast the podgy teen as lead in Bobby, but the young man was desperate enough to reduce to half his size for the part. "I was not a normal teenager. I did Bobby at 19 and then worked continuously for the next 25 years."
Till he couldn't play loverboy anymore––sadly, at an age where many actors in the West hit their peak, Indian stars have to resign themselves to poorly-etched character roles, something he wasn't prepared to do and hence took a longish hiatus.
In the interim you watched Rishi Kapoor on television re-runs of old hits like Khel Khel Mein with real-life sweetheart Neetu Singh, Karz, Sargam and my personal favourite, Saagar. Studying the contrasting approaches of the two male stars inSaagar illustrates why he never got enough recognition. Unlike Kamal Hassan's histrionics (and an author-backed role of the guy-with-a-golden-heart who loses his girl to a good-looking rich boy), Kapoor's performance is precise without being gimmicky. He's generous enough to let Hassan steal a march on him. "I always believed in putting in the right effort to make my performance look effortless. It's probably inborn because I haven’t laboured over getting under the skin of a character. All that’s nonsense––there's no room for method acting in Hindi cinema."
Rishi Kapoor was also the rare star who didn't let machismo get in the way of playing second fiddle to his leading ladies––be it Rakhee in Doosra Aadmi, Sridevi in Chandni or Meenakshi Seshadri in Damini. But you can't imagine any of these films without his effulgent presence. He was okay with being Amitabh Bachchan's side-kick too, yet he was a formidable solo hero, if not a major crowd-puller––watch Laila Majnu or Karz or Prem Rog to see how effortlessly he could tackle emotional moments.
For me, his most astonishing act came earlier this year at the ripe old age of 60, when he played kohl-eyed pimp, Rauf Lala in Agneepath. It's the most audacious, contrarian role he's accepted in his entire career, and one he was obviously skeptical about. With affluence and breeding flowing in his blood, Kapoor was rarely offered impoverished characters in his younger days. Similarly, his image as the charming, gentle, romantic hero diminished the possibility of playing grey––although he did essay a murderer in the Ramsay Brothers' Khoj, but with an unconvincing justification of his barbarity in the end taking the edge off the character.
Watching him as Duggal Sir in Habib Faisal's Do Dooni Chaar last year (with Neetu Singh making a comeback as his screen wife) brought renewed admiration and helped evaluate why Rishi Kapoor is such a personal favourite. There's a little bit of Duggal's self-effacement and rectitude-laced-with-latent-pride in him. He's an intuitive actor, but equally, trusting enough to show himself on screen.
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