Rishi Kapoor death anniversary: Why we would never stop missing the charismatic persona of the legendary actor

Two years since we lost one of India’s finest actors. Rishi Kapoor remains as alive today as he was when he was still with us. His cinema is ever-young. His screen presence is infectiously ebullient. He could be so many things to so many people. But to those who knew him firsthand, Rishi was unpredictable and volatile. He would hold forth candidly and liberally on men and matters and then next day when the spirits had flown, he would accuse me of misquoting him. “Subhash, you will lose me!” he would threaten every time something came out sounding not quite the way he wanted it to be. Little did I know that this was not a threat. It was a prophecy. When Rishi had a relapse in 2020, he refused to accept that the cancer had come back. Rishi’s best friend and cancer survivor Rakesh Roshan blames Rishi Kapoor’s trip to Delhi in February 2020 for his health relapse. Rakesh was aware of how infection-prone cancer patients are. So when Chintu told him about his plans to go to Delhi, Rakesh advised Rishi against it. But he still went and had a relapse. Rakesh firmly believes the relapse happened due to that Delhi trip. Admitting his mistakes came easily to Rishi. Many times he would be snappy and snarky, and then the next morning he would apologize. He was short-tempered and impulsive and often regretted what he said. Says Roshan, “Do I miss him? Oh hell, I do. I do. We would meet almost every day. If not then we would talk on the phone. Chintu used to speak his mind. I don’t know of anyone as honest as him. He would say whatever came to his mind. Normally we think. Then we filter our thoughts then we speak. Chintu would blurt out whatever he wanted to. As an actor I’ve worked with him in films like Khel Khel Mein and Aap Ke Deewane. I have never seen a more effortless actor. While I had to slog and sweat to get my expressions and dialogues right, Chintu would just breeze in and breeze out. ‘Tu kaise aise kar leta hai?’ I’d ask him. Seriously, a complete natural.” Another very close friend singer Nitin Mukesh breaks down on being reminded that it is Rishi Kapoor’s death anniversary. “Is it already two years? Not a day has gone by when I haven’t missed my dear dear friend. Rishi’s father, Raj Uncle to me, was my father(the great singer Mukesh)’s closest friend. And the tradition continued with us. We were so close, Chintu and I, that we got our respective daughters married at the same venue. It was our way of sealing our bonding. Chintu wouldn’t miss a single Ganpati festival in my home. The last one he attended was in 2019 when he was out of town. He landed in Mumbai and drove straight to my home. ‘Do you think I’d ever miss Ganpati in your home?” Chintu had asked. Just thinking of his last conversation with him makes me teary-eyed. Why do decent lovable kind people like my father and Chintu have to go so early?” A loving friend and a very possessive boyfriend-husband, Neetu Singh Kapoor once told me Rishi would get upset if she spoke to another man on the set when they were doing film after film together just to get to spend time together. After marriage she stopped her weekly movie outing with her girl gang: her possessive husband would call her so many times Neetu would be embarrassed in front of her friends.

Now she misses that mercurial man. We all do. His farewell film _Sharmaji Namkeen_ where Rishi played a closet chef, and which he left half-finished, was completed by Paresh Rawal . With due respect to Paresh, he couldn’t even dream of filling Rishi’s apron. And Paresh was the first to admit it. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.