Once Upon A Cinema: The Making of Anil Kapoor

Once Upon a Cinema is series which will illuminate the dark, unexplored crevices of Indian cinema. In it, the writer will showcase stories and faces long forgotten, share uncommon perspectives about stars and filmmakers, and recount tales that have never been told.

Prithviraj Kapoor was not called ‘Papaji’ for nothing. He was the quintessential patriarch. His house in Matunga had a perpetual flow of visitors and guests who came and stayed back. In fact, there was an instance where many years later the family realised one of the hangers-on was not related to anyone, he had just come in one fine day and stayed back because of the unquestioning hospitality. Prithviraj himself actively encouraged other extended members of the family from distant Peshawar to come and try their luck in Bombay.

Back in Peshawar, Surinder Kapoor, one of Papaji’s cousins, used to work for a newspaper called ‘Janta Weekly’, a mouthpiece of the Socialist Party. The job was of a sales representative, and it bored him no end. He spoke to Papaji and on his insistence, came to Bombay around the early 1950s via Frontier Mail. Surinder had no inclination to join films in any capacity, but Prithviraj wanted him to be offered a job almost as soon he set foot in Bombay. He was taken to K. Asif who hired him as an assistant director for his magnum opus Mughal E Azam.

The checkered history of the making of Mughal E Azam is well known. Asif had been trying to make a film on the legend of Salim and Anarkali since as early as the 1940s. Chandramohan and Nargis were part of the original cast, but it fell through, partly owing to the turbulent political atmosphere at the time. He started in the early 1950s with renewed vigour, and this is the period when Surinder Kapoor joined the fray. But in the ten long years that the film was under production, Surinder quit and started looking for other opportunities. He had developed a camaraderie with Papaji’s son Shamsher Kapoor aka Shammi. Shammi had just had a whirlwind romance and a spur-of-the-moment wedding with the winsome Geeta Bali.

Surinder Kapoor was hired as Geeta’s manager, a job that he diligently carried out for years. In the meanwhile, he married Nirmal Kapoor and raised a family. They stayed briefly in Sion, then shifted to Tilak Nagar, near Chembur. His two elder sons Boney and Anil Kapoor grew up there. This is also when Surinder Kapoor dabbled with film production. By 1978, he had made seven not very successful films. The last one, Phool Khilein Hain Gulshan Gulshan which starred Moushumi Chatterjee and Rishi Kapoor, also sank without a trace. The boys, which now included Sanjay Kapoor, were growing up in the decidedly middle-class neighbourhood of Tilak Nagar. But despite being away from the razzmatazz of big bad Bollywood, Anil and Boney both wanted to be actors.

Anil’s first acting job came to him when he was in the seventh standard. A film called Tu Payal Main Geet was made, and Anil was cast as Sashi Kapoor’s younger self. Little Anil was so excited that he didn’t even take off his makeup when he went back to school, much to the fascination of his classmates. Anil was over the moon. But the film was ultimately shelved, and never saw the light of the day. As the boys grew up and Surinder got older, they realised one of them had to take over the gauntlet. Though both Anil and Boney wanted to be actors, the production business had to be handled by someone. The brothers took over, and along the way, Boney realised that he was enjoying the job more than he thought he would.

By this time, acting wasn’t just an idle daydream for Anil. He and Mazhar Khan studied in the same college, St. Xaviers. Both went head to head in college plays, but it was Anil who almost always walked away with the best actor prize. He also gave FTII a shot but failed the entrance test. Ultimately Mazhar and Anil joined Roshan Tarneja’s acting classes, where they were joined by another passionate youngster by the name of Gulshan Grover. The three of them were so obsessive about their love for acting that they often kept rehearsing till late evening. Due to their long-drawn performances and rehearsals, even their trainer Roshan Tarneja couldn’t get home before 9 PM.

Around this time, producer F.C. Mehra’s son Umesh Mehra was mulling over making a film inspired by Hollywood’s Yours, Mine and Ours (1968). Both Mehra and Basu Chatterjee had seen the film at a festival and decided to make their takes on the story. It was about a widower and a widow who fall in love and decide to get married. Only thing is, they both have grown-up children, and there is no way they will ever get along. Basu Chatterjee made Khatta Meetha (1978) based on the story, and Mehra was planning to make Hamare Tumhare (1979). This film gave Anil Kapoor his debut. He played Vipin, son of the widow (Rakhee). Interestingly, another young man who was trying his hand at acting around the same time, and played one of the widower’s (Sanjeev Kumar) sons in Hamare Tumhare was Lucky Ali. Mehmood’s son Lucky had earlier appeared in films like Yehi Hai Zindagi (1977) and Ek Baap Chhe Bete (1978). Lucky Ali and Anil Kapoor appeared together in the delightful romp Jadu daar gayo re, one of the most vibrant songs in the film.

Though Hamare Tumhare was officially Anil Kapoor’s first film, the role was not so significant and the film didn’t exactly set the box office on fire. Meanwhile, Boney was pulling up his socks for his first independent film as a producer, Hum Paanch (1980). Anil was actively involved in the making of the film. It was home turf and no job was too small. He performed the duties of a production assistant. One of his daily errands was to provide the eggs that the villain Kanhaiya Lal craved for breakfast, and they were shooting in a village in south India where pretty much everyone was a vegetarian. He was also tasked with waking up a new, rising star who was in the film, Mithun Chakraborty.

The director of Hum Paanch was a veteran of Telugu cinema Sattiraju Lakshmi Narayana, who the world reverently called Bapu. Before the actors stepped in, someone had to be placed on the marker to prepare for the shot. More often than not, that someone was Anil Kapoor. His body language, energy and sheer drive had made it clear to Bapu how talented this boy was. Fully aware of this, Anil used to gesticulate and make animated gestures to attract the director’s attention. But he didn’t need to. Bapu had already decided to cast Anil as a hero in his next project. It was a Telugu film called Vamsa Vruksham (1980).

Anil had been launched in the south but his career as a leading man in Bollywood was still a long way off. The hunger for work, the drive in him was just as strong then as now. As soon as he heard of a decent role - big or small - under a reputed banner, he would be there queuing up for auditions. He played cameos in Lekha Tandon’s Ek Baar Kaho (1980) and Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti (1982).

In a year’s time, Anil Kapoor got the opportunity to play the lead in Mani Ratnam’s directorial debut, a Kannada film called Pallavi Anu Pallavi (1983). In the same year, he featured in his first lead role in a Hindi film. It was an ill-advised project called Rachna, where he starred opposite veteran actor Pradeep Kumar’s daughter Beena - who later made a name for herself playing mothers and sisters in law. The film is best forgotten, and that’s precisely what everyone did, including the hero of Rachna himself. 1983 was also the year when Bapu directed a Hindi remake of K. Bhagyaraj’s Tamil superhit Andha 7 Natkal. Anil played the bumbling protagonist, Prem Pratap Singh Patialawale. He finally had the opportunity to show off his acting chops in a Hindi film. The film was widely loved and acclaimed. Anil Kapoor, the star, was finally coming into his own.

Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian.

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