Here’s saluting the most successful Kapoor on her birthday

For an actor who claimed she had no real interest in stardom Babita Kapoor sure had a windfall of a career with nearly 90 per cent of her films becoming box office successes. In her career of seven years, Babita did just nineteen films, most of them successes to varying degrees. In her time she came to be known as a lucky mascot with every leading man of her time desirous of being paired with her at least once, and that included her future uncles-in-law Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor . With Shammi, she did the average-success Tumse Achha Kaun Hai. With Shashi, Babita co-starred in Prakash Mehra’s Haseena Maan Jayegi, a rare blockbuster in Shashi’s career. Babita, who is a cousin to the legendary Sadhana, started her career in 1966 with the superhit Dus Lakh where her co-star was Sanjay Khan . The film propelled Babita into instant stardom. “I was flooded with offers. But I was never interested in my career. Not that I was disinterested in my work. I gave my hundred per cent to my career until I married Daboo ( Randhir Kapoor ) and quit to never look back. After my daughters ( Karisma and Kareena ) were born they were my only interest,” Babita told me over lunch once when I had gone to meet Kareena. Dus Lakh was followed by Raaz, which introduced Rajesh Khanna to the screen. This film didn’t do well. But Babita’s very next release Farz was a blockbuster opening up the floodgates for the spy thriller in Hindi cinema. The film contained the chartbuster Baar baar din yeh aaye …Happy Birthday to Sunita. The ‘Sunita’ in the song was played by none other than Babita. How did she feel about being iconized in a song? “That’s Sunita, not me,” Babita had laughed throatily. She went on to do three other hit films with Jeetendra: Aulad, Ban Phool and Anmol Moti, the last-mentioned marketing itself as India’s first underwater film, and one flop Bikhre Moti. 1968 was a particularly productive year for Babita. All her three releases Aulad, Haseena Maan Jayegi and Kismat were super-hits. Manmohan Desai’s Kismat, a spy thriller had Babita singing the evergreen O.P.Nayyar tune Kajra mohabbat wala to Biswajeet(in drag). Doli in 1969, a remake of the Tamil superhit Thene Manasulu, was the film that set Rajesh Khanna on the trail to superstardom. Babita was always considered lucky for her leading men. When Rajendra Kumar’s stardom began to fade he did his last hit Anjana with Babita. The film is remembered to this day for Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi’s ultra-romantic Rimjhim ke geet saawan gaye . With Randhir Kapoor, Babita did his family film Kal Aaj Aur Kal: a revolutionary step for the Kapoors who did not “allow” their womenfolk to be actors. Technically Babita was not a Kapoor Bahu when she did Kal Aaj Aur Kal. She later did Jeet with Randhir then married him and quit films, never to look back. Befittingly her last film was the long-delayed Sone Ke Haath with her first co-star Sanjay Khan. Ironically, it was a rare flop in the ‘hit girl’ Babita’s career.