A walk down Shashi's bahar ke din

Veteran actor Shashi Kapoor has been conferred the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2014 this week in appreciation of his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema, refreshing among the people of Uttarakhand the many ways in which this State has been a part of Kapoor’s life.  The Kapoor family’s connection with Dehradun dated back to the colonial times when they had shifted from Peshawar. In the 1930s, Shashi’s elder brother, actor Raj Kapoor had studied in Colonel Brown Cambridge School.

later in 1964-65, Shashi visited Nainital for the shooting of the famous song, Din Hain Bahar Ke of his super-hit movie Waqt. This song featured Shashi romancing Sharmila Tagore at the Naini lake. Around the same time, film-maker Prakash Mehra directed his first film Hasina Maan Jayegi starring Shashi. Released in 1968, this movie portrayed Dehradun as one of the settings and was thus shot partly here. 

“Not many know that the super-hit film Kabhie Kabhie that saw an amazing chemistry between Shashi and Amitabh Bachhan was shot at Harshil in Uttarakhand too,” said local researcher Manoj Panjani.

In 1978, Shashi opened ‘Prithvi Theatre’ and produced his first film based on  A Flight of Pigeons — a novella by Mussoorie based author Ruskin Bond. Titled Junoon, the film was directed by Shyam Benegal and won much acclaim.  In his active years in Prithvi Theatre, Shashi visited scenic locales of Uttarakhand including Dehradun, Nainital and Mussoorie on several occasions. 

Celebrated for brilliant performances in hit films like Deewar and Kabhi Kabhi, he in a sense is among the first international stars from Indian cinema, having acted in several films of Merchant Ivory Productions. His last film as an actor yet is Merchant Ivory’s ‘Side Streets’ and he produced six films during 1978-91. 

“I am now enjoying a retired life reading Ruskin Bond stories to my grandchildren,” Kapoor had told Panjani at the office of Yashraj films in Mumbai in 1996. Panjani recalled, Jab Jab Phool Khiley was his first successful film at a time when his movies were not doing well. 

However, earlier when he was told of the script, Shashi had refused to do it saying that he was not made for roles that had him singing and dancing around trees. To this, his wife who was also present at the meeting had quipped, “Just remember that you have not paid the house rent for 11 months.” And that is how his first box-office success happened.”