Two great film actors are no more. One was Irrfan Khan, whom I talked about in my last blog post, and the second was Rishi Kapoor. Even though Rishi had acted as a child artiste in some films, he debuted as a hero with Dimple Kapadia in “Bobby”. He was 21, she was 16. Bobby was iconic, I still remember that scene where a really, really young Dimple (she pays the titular character Bobby Braganza) opens the door to Raja (Rishi’s character) hand innocently going to push back hair from her face, smearing it with food.
Rishi was 67, had a career spanning 50 years in which he acted in more than 150 films. Here a few of my favorite Rishi Kapoor films:
– Kabhie Kabhie (1976)
Even though Rishi acted with most of the actresses of his heyday, his most successful pairing was with the peppy Neetu Singh who later became his wife. The two played romantic couples in Kabhie Kabhie, Khel Khel Main, Doosara Aadmi, Rafoo Chakkar and many others. Most of their films featured outstanding, evergreen music.
– Prem Rog (1982)
Prem Rog starred Rishi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure (who was then 17). Rishi played a poor man who falls in love with the rich Thakur’s daughter. She gets married off to another man but soon become a widow and suffers much ill-treatment because of the traditional stigma attached to widowhood.
– Chandni (1989)
Chandni stars Sridevi, Rishi and Vinod Khanna in a love triangle that only Bollywood can cook up and do so well. There was angsty love (class differences), twists and turns and this being a Yash Raj production – Switzerland, gorgeous locales and fields of flowers.
In Kapoor & Sons, Rishi played an aging patriarch who wants to see his fractured family come together before he dies. Rishi transformed into a wrinkly old man with some makeup magic, and played the feisty, young-at-heart geriatric with panache. This feel-good film also starred Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra and Fawad Khan.
– Mulk (2018)
Directed by Anubhav Sinha (of Article 15 fame), Mulk featured Rishi Kapoor as Murad Ali Mohammed a Varanasi-based lawyer. When Murad’s nephew Shahid (Prateik Babbar) gets involved with terrorists, the police come knocking at the joint family’s door. As the police attempt to implicate Murad and his family for Shahid’s doing, Murad must prove his love for his mulk (country).
