I can't say much about Kareena's love life: Shammi

Mumbai: Mumbai has always had this creative energy that compels you to make its own rules as you go along. Personifying this spirit in the 50's and the 60's was actor Shammi Kapoor. He swung into our consciousness with a series of films, which were a lot like each other. His films were almost always boisterous, almost always cut off from reality and always fun.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You just seemed as if you were not directed. I can't believe some of the expressions you had in scenes. In shorts, what you were doing with your body, what you were doing with your face… Was that what you were and that became all the characters you played?

Shammi Kapoor: Yes! I don’t have any pretensions. I have never had any pretensions at saying that I am a damn good actor. But I gave wonderful expressions to songs, to music. I lived with the music. Music was totally mine. Those expressions were mine. There is no director behind it or no choreography behind it. I did not know how to dance.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You were just doing your own thing?

Shammi Kapoor: All that Yahooo! and all that stuff that came out was mine. I did some wonderful songs. That is my way of expressing music. That is how I was and that came out nicely on the screen. People liked that kind of stuff I suppose.

I had never had any pretensions that I am an actor. I would not throw tantrums like walk around the block or tell my directors to wait till I get into the mood.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Your movie career…Was it work for you, was it a way of earning your livelihood? What was it for you?

Shammi Kapoor: For me work was being happy and to be able to create something that becomes a source of happiness for others as well. Joy, good vibrations, that is what you get from all my movies. We had a lot of energy and lovely music. It had the finest music in that period. Shankar Jai Kishan, OP Nayyar, RD in Teesri Manzil, they all gave brilliant music.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: An entire generation of people may not be familiar with the films that you have made. Though I have grown up with that kind of music. If I were to describe to them what Shammi Kapoor and his movies were like, would you agree if I said that he was like Twenty-Twenty cricket?

Shammi Kapoor: That is very popular these days (laughs). Isn’t it?

Anuradha Sen Gupta: And it created a mix of glamour, skill, instinct, which is such a cocktail that did not exist before?

Shammi Kapoor: I don’t know. I suppose. There is a period in my life starting from Tumsa Nahi Dekha, then I was very sure of myself. I knew what I wanted to do. And I knew that I’d do it. And I couldn’t care less of who was the director, or who was starring opposite me. I got new girls as a matter of fact. It didn’t make any difference to me as long as they acted well with me. I was so sure of myself.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: And you had the music.

Shammi Kapoor: Music was always there with me. Without music I could not move. Everyone was nice to me. For Kashmir Ki Kali, Shakti Sawant, Sharmila, and myself we all went to Nayyar's office in Mahalakshmi. Asha Bhonsle and Nayar's writer were also there. We opened our bottle and Shakti, Nayar and me had a drink. And then he opened his harmonium and he said that I am going to give you your music for Kashmir Ki Kali and I selected 12 songs in one sitting. That was it. He gave me 52 tunes, he played Diwana Hua Badal, and Tareef Karoon, all songs in one sitting at 12 in the night. We finished the bottle. We finished the music session and the music for Kashmir Ki Kali was decided.

My association with music was there from the inception of the situation that was created in the film. When the song was created, when the music was created, when the situation was decided as to which song comes when and when Rafi ji has to sing it at the recording hall, Shammi Kapoor was sitting all throughout. And I tell him what I want. That was the equation I had with Rafi ji. He knew what I wanted. And he sang it that way. So, right from the beginning till the song is recorded, I am there. The song is within me. I don’t need to hear it.

As a matter of fact, in Evening in Paris, I did a song from the helicopter.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Helicopter and a bathrobe.

Shammi Kapoor: Yes and a bathrobe. I look like Marilyn Monroe. There was no music available because I was up there. Music is down there. You can’t hear anything because of the chopper. So Shakti babu was doing hand movements with a handkerchief, and he was giving me the beat. And I sang the song Aasman Se Aaya Farishta in sync without any music. Why? It is because I had the song within me. And I used to spend nights listening to the same song and giving it expressions. And, it came out well.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: And when the song sequence was done, you were not interested?

Shammi Kapoor: No, I was there. I was interested, but that was part of the group and needed joining up.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Lets go back little bit to bathrobe, chopper, what were you doing Mr Kapoor in your movie?

Shammi Kapoor: I think that was superb. It is basically a character. That guy was a swimming instructor in the movie. He has to teach Sharmila Tagore how to swim. And it was nice. I had a nice time shooting for the song.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You brought us a lot of joy and you still do every time we watch the movies...

Shammi Kapoor: No one knows. I was so frightened going up on that chopper. I was joking when I told Shakti babu that in the song, the guy should come down from the helicopter. I thought it was a joke and he would forget about it. But when we landed up in Beirut to shoot the number, he said that tomorrow morning the chopper would be here. I swear I could not sleep the whole night.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: But you were a macho man. You went hunting and all of that?

Shammi Kapoor: Hunting is different from hanging from a helicopter. This is suicidal.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: But , you did it...

Shammi Kapoor: Yes, had to. And I enjoyed doing it.

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From a simple Hindu Pathan family, that moved from Peshawar to Mumbai because Prithvi Raj Kapoor waanted to act. The Kapoor’s went on to become the first family of Hindi cinema standing four generations.

Shammi Kapoor is quick to point out that the legend of the dynasty is built on rock solid pioneering work. And for it to thrive, its torchbearers need to be willing and able.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: It is important for you that the Kapoor’s remain in cinema?

Shammi Kapoor: It is not important for me. May be for Rishi Kapoor it is important because of his son. But now it is important for Ranvir Kapoor if he wishes to continue in this profession and he has taken a beautiful start. Now it is important for him to remain on a professional level. Otherwise we can all booze away to glory and put on weight and all of that.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Did you say the same thing for your grand niece Kareena?

Shammi Kapoor: She is doing a very good job. I don’t know about her love life but she is doing a good job at her profession.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Incorrigible!

Shammi Kapoor: Well, what she wants is what she wants. Whatever she wants, she has got it, so it is okay.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Out of the three brothers, Raj, Shammi, Shashi, who according to you is the most handsome?

Shammi Kapoor: Shashi Kapoor is the most handsome.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: And Shammi Kapoor. He had sex appeal.

Shammi Kapoor: I am okay.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: What is one of your sharpest and clearest memories as a child?

Shammi Kapoor: Seeing Varmala, when she starred with my father in Sikander. And she came home visiting one day, and I from behind my mothers sari looking at her and saying, ‘oh! She is so pretty’. And as she left, I said I want to marry her. I was about 12-years old then and I told my mother that ‘I want to marry her’.

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Though he ended up in the family profession, Shammi Kapoor wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. He did only a year of college and dropped out because he was bored and joined Prithvi theatres in 1948. In 1952, he signed his first film and at 24 he married the love of his life, actress Geeta Bali...

Anuradha Sen Gupta: The woman you fell in love with was not only a couple of years older but was definitely a lot more successful and established. Does that make Shammi Kapoor a liberated man?

Shammi Kapoor: I do not know whether he was a liberated man or not, but I was in love. As a matter of fact I remember going to Nagpur to my sisters place and at night, over a couple of drinks, discussing with my brother-in-law and the music was on. As soon as her song came, I forgot everything. And I started crying. My sister asked me what happened and I said that I love her. This is her song and I want to marry her. I don’t know if you call that liberated.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: There was no question of intellect here. It was pure emotion.

Shammi Kapoor: Absolutely. And we clicked and I wanted to get married to her. It took her a couple of months in making up her mind.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: Besides the love story, Geeta Bali did something for you that no one managed to do it for you till then. I hear and read that she helped you find your equilibrium and your place as far as your career was concerned.

Shammi Kapoor: She was a great girl and she was very mature and she pushed me a lot and she was the pillar behind me. She was confident that you are going to make it. In a period of five years, I did so many movies, which I haven’t even seen and I don’t even know where they are. But she had faith that I would make it.

I was doing Hum Sab Chor Hain in Delhi and we were sitting on the steps of Ambassador hotel, and I told her that there is a new film that is coming up and I may sign it. I told her that I want to do it because it is a different picture and a different role and that I will shave my moustache off and I have to look little jazzy and I am going to sing some songs and do a lot of things.

And I asked her if this does not work for me, ‘Do I do what I want to do?’ I always wanted to be a tea estate manager and go to Assam, ride on a horse back, checking upon the women picking up those tea leaves and have a whip with me, and have a flask of whiskey and then I come back home to my wife and sit beside my wife. I asked her then should we do that. And she said yes we will do that.

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Geeta Bali’s death in 1965 tore Shammi Kapoor apart. Bad knees stopped him from dancing and then weight and age rushed him out of the foreground. His marriage to Neela Devi in 1969 helped restore balance...

Shammi Kapoor: When I married Neela, it was a dire need to stabilise my life after Geeta's death. I had two children and she understood the situation. I was very sincere and honest with her. She readily agreed to marry me. I wouldn't say that I have not loved Neela but it is on a very different level.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You owe her?

Shammi Kapoor: I owe her.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You do dialysis every week, thrice a week?

Shammi Kapoor: I have been doing it for the last five years. I enjoy my dialysis. I have to go there thrice a week and flirt with all the nurses and be there for about four to five hours.

Anuradha Sen Gupta: You are not looking back all the time?

Shammi Kapoor: No. It’s not that. It’s nice to enjoy what you have done in your life when you look back. But it is stupid to say that it was the time ever and now I am so sad. Lot of my co-patients in the kidney hospital feel sad. I tell them that you got to smile and sing. I sing when I am there. I have not travelled. I want to travel now. I can’t move and look at this, I am thinking about travelling. I want to go to Paris. I have not been to Paris for 38 years.

I love to drive. Most times, I take on and drive to the highway and expressway and my wife calls asking, ‘where are you’. And I tell her that I am having a cup of coffee.