Shashi Kapoor, the veteran actor of yesteryear’s, was always passionate about city of Kolkata and its culture. It is where he was born in a small house in Hazra Road. It is where that he met his wife Jennifer Kendal in a hotel. He had excellent relations with some intellectuals, filmmakers and artists. In his passing away we have lost a versatile actor of not only commercial cinema but also of parallel and meaningful cinema. Have we lost the perfect human being in Shashi Kapoor?
It seems that an honest, hardworking and willing to help others, Shashi Kapoor is not with us today. He acted in many films and won accolades for his versatile acting. He played to the gallery and made his presence in multi-starrer film also. He won Dadasaheb Phalke award in the year 2015.He would be most remembered for The Householder (1963) and Shakespeare Wallah (1965). Those are his international films. As well as Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), which were praised a lot by the Western critics, he would also be remembered for all the films in the 60s and 70s where he played the romantic hero with Sharmila Tagore, or movies like Sharmeelee (1971) or Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965). He will be remembered as the beautiful, sensitive actor we all fell in love with.
The best of the best of his dialogue was in Deewar when he enacted the role of a police inspector and challenges the No.1 hero and his brother in the film saying Mere Paas Maa hai; now we can sadly say Hamare Paas Shashi Thaa —R.I.P. Shashi Kapoor.
Born on March 18, 1938, to the illustrious and formidable theatre and film actor Prithviraj Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor hit the spotlight at the age of four, acting in plays directed and produced by his father. He started acting in films as a child artist in the late ‘40s. His best known performances as a child actor were in Aag (1948) and Awaara (1951), where he played the younger version of the character played by Raj Kapoor. Shashi Kapoor also worked as an assistant director in the ‘50s.
He made his debut as a leading man in the 1961 film Dharmputra and went on to appear in more than 116 films during ‘70s and until the mid ‘80s. Some of his memorable films include Deewar, Kabhie Kabhie, Namak Halal, Kaala Pathar and others. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 2011. He is indeed a farewell champion in his filmdom and death.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
