{"id":5824,"date":"2020-08-14T19:53:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T14:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=5824"},"modified":"2020-08-14T19:55:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T14:25:24","slug":"the-prince-shammi-kapoor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/the-prince-shammi-kapoor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prince"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shammi

An autographed picture of the iconic Shammi Kapoor (Pic: Lakshmi Priya Pakanati)<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing up in the late seventies and early eighties in a middle-class Bengali family infested with academicians had its own share of misfortunes. One for sure was the lack of permission to watch television. Forget the mugging of TV channels on today\u2019s kids, back then, we had to rely on Mickey Mouse, occasional Kolkata league football match and yes, the Wednesday 8 PM Chitrahar<\/em>. Rangoli<\/em> was the other attraction a little later but at 7:30 AM on Sunday mornings it was never within our reach. We didn’t have a TV of our own till the late eighties. In those momentous waits from one half hour programme of Hindi song snippets to the next, sometime I happened to see a jumping man and a bewildered frenzied shout \u201cYahhooo\u201d<\/em>. No, I didn’t take it to my liking initially. But soon the voice became familiar and repetitive, that of the greatest Hindi playback singer to me – Mohd. Rafi. Rafi\u2019s voice lingered then, and now, with so much pathos, brushes on my beaten soul with tender caress and leaves me wanting for more, even today. I could no longer accept anyone else \u2013 except quite a few of Mukesh\u2019s glorious renditions of Raj Kapoor primarily, a handful of the mellifluous Hemant Kumar\u00a0and only a few of the otherwise versatile Kishore Kumar. However, my love and faith for the hero swayed\u00a0from Raj Kapoor to Dev Anand and even Guru Dutt, till it more or less steadied on that lanky jumping man with a breath-taking \u2018ruup\u2019. How can a man be so shamelessly handsome, I asked myself every time I looked at him. In those pre-teen\/teen age of stupidity and innocence, in falling in love and falling apart, Shammi Kapoor with his wild, beastly submission was just what I could never become.<\/p>\n

\"Aiy

Aiy yai ya karoon main kya suku suku (Junglee)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I was growing up in strict Bengaliness, reading Tagore and the other great literary works of geniuses. Hindi cinema was a strict taboo officially, the only film that we saw in a theatre as a child was Tapan Sinha\u2019s\u00a0Safed Hathi<\/i>. So I had a flirting relationship with Shammi Kapoor \u2013 the Wednesday nights or the occasional Sunday mornings. My mates in school had taken onto the towering Amitabh Bachchan by then \u2013 reciting his famous lines from Zanjeer<\/em> to Deewar<\/em> and laughing at my rather feminine prescription of the middle Kapoor. In Bengali cinema the options were limited to Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee and I was heavily in for the latter in those days. Much later I was fortunate enough to discover and fathom the versatile actor in Uttam Kumar, not merely a matinee idol. “How can you like that joker \u2013 who cannot stay still and yet like Soumitra Chatterjee\u2019s Methodist acting and Satyajit Ray\u2019s films?”, asked friends or seniors who took it upon them to ‘educate’ me.\u00a0The timidity in me would take over then and my liking for Kapoor remained a deep secret which I cherished and refused to open up with. Looking back now I thank myself not to pursue academics to the corridors of restrictive film schools, I can at least confess my impish ga-ga over the ‘not-so-artistic’ aspects of motion pictures.\u00a0\u00a0That saved some self-pity and abomination too!<\/p>\n

I was amazed to find so many people, friends and acquaintances on Facebook sharing Shammi Kapoor\u2019s famous songs on their pages and walls after his demise. Wasn\u2019t he a star half a century back who is done with and packed up for good, for long? Probably yes. But in grief when there is need to be nostalgic to dig up finer moments and sunlight in one\u2019s life I find people who were born decades after Shammi Kapoor gave his last box-office hit rake up the unforgettable Dil Dekhe Dekho<\/em> or a Teesri Manzil<\/em> number or even the lyrical Rafi version of Zindagi ek safar<\/em> which soothes the soul so much even now. Does it mean there are certain things which are evergreen as they say? Or, may be classic, testing the sands of time?<\/p>\n