My strange relationship with my father Raj Kapoor

I am not entirely sure when I stopped fearing my father. It may have happened with my own rising stardom. My father and I had a strange relationship. One day, I remember, soon after I had become a star in my own right, we inadvertently shared a bedroom. I was quite high and wanted to go to the bathroom. On my way back, in my drunken stupor, I turned right instead of left. Without realising it, I ended up sleeping next to my father. When I woke up I was in the tiger’s den. After all those years of fearing him, I ended up sharing a bed with him!

When I finally got over the fear of my father, it was replaced by an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing, especially after I had the opportunity to work closely with him. For me, Raj Kapoor was both father and guru, the person who taught me everything I know about my craft. I worked with him in three movies (Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Prem Rog),the most for any actor after Nargisji.

As an adult, I shared a few drinks with Papa, but I never smoked in front of him. It was just something that came from a deep sense of respect – he knew by then that I smoked. Papa was also a smoker and even after he was told to kick the habit, he’d cheat. He even smoked on the sly in the hospital when he was seriously ill with chronic asthma.

I was very young when my father had an affair with Nargisji, and so was not affected by it. I don’t remember feeling anything was amiss at home either. But I do remember moving into the Natraj Hotel on Marine Drive with my mom during the time Papa was involved with Vyjayanthimala. My mother had decided to put her foot down this time. From the hotel, we shifted for two months into an apartment in Chitrakoot (the building still stands on the curve of Altamount Road). My father had bought the apartment for mom and us. He did all he could to woo her back, but my mother wouldn’t give in until he had ended that chapter of his life.

In an interview published a few years ago, Vyjayanthimala denied ever having an affair with my father. She claimed that he had manufactured the romance because of his hunger for publicity. I was livid. How could she be so blasé and pretend the affair never happened? She had no right to distort facts just because he was no longer around to defend the truth. When her book hit the stands, several friends in the media contacted me for my reaction and I told them exactly what I thought. With time though, my anger has ebbed. I’ve come to accept that people tend to gloss over uncomfortable facts for reasons of their own. But I can say with absolute certainty that if Papa had been alive, she wouldn’t have denied the affair so blatantly or called him publicity hungry.

My father lived large and, most of the time, on his own terms. Apart from his birthday celebration, the Ganesh Chaturthi and Holi parties in Raj Kapoor’s house were well known. The family started bringing Ganpati home in 1952, the year I was born, and it’s a tradition that we follow with great reverence to this day. Holi, too, was a spirited annual affair. Sadly, we had to discontinue it after Papa passed away because we couldn’t control the gate crashers. In so many ways, with Papa’s passing, a lot of the revelry stopped too.

My father loved his cinema, his booze, his leading ladies and his work. But for a man legendary for his hospitality, he was very possessive of his whisky. When we started drinking together, for him it was always Johnny Walker Black Label bought in London, while we were served locally procured whisky. When he passed away, we found heaps of unopened Black Label bottles stashed away in his cupboards.

With time, I find that I have acquired some of my father’s quirks and habits. After a shower in the evening, Papa would light an agarbatti. I do that too. My favourite fragrance is Naag Champa and I carry it everywhere I go. Neetu points out that whenever we stay at a hotel, the entire corridor smells good, courtesy my agarbattis. It is a dead giveaway to where Rishi Kapoor’s suite is in a hotel!

My father was a devotee of Lord Shiva, and performed Shiv aarti every day. I continue the practice. Many years ago, the legendary singer Asha Bhosle had given my father a pendant of Lord Shiva on one of his birthdays because he was such a great believer. When my father passed away, my mother gave me the pendant. In fact, my mom gave away all his little things. Someone got a watch, another got a pen. My father loved piggy banks, and all the loose change collected from different parts of the world would go into them. There was one that he had with him all through the making of Bobby. After his death, Dimple started chasing me for it, which I thought was rather sweet and sentimental. But I said, "No way." In the end, Dabboo trumped both of us and said that it belonged to him.

I don’t remember who got Papa’s hip flask. He always carried one, though he never drank from it. He also had several high-end watches. Dabboo and Chimpu (my brother Rajeev) got one each. He also had two or three very rare guns. My mother had one too, bought during the making of Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (1960). Today, each of those guns must be worth a fortune. I inherited one of them and it needs special care and cleaning. During every election, the local police take it away and keep it in their custody. The law of the land says you can’t keep weapons at home during an election.

One major difference between Papa and me is in our attitude towards America. I have always loved the US. Ranbir, like me, loves America too. I need only the slightest of excuses to go there. The fascination goes far beyond the shopping. It is the whole American experience. I can’t wait to go to Broadway to watch a play, to walk the streets of Manhattan, to go restaurant hopping. Papa, on the other hand, was never very fond of America. For him, it was always Russia.

And Russia loved him back. He was a huge star in India but he was a demigod there. I witnessed this craze for him whenI accompanied him to the Tashkent and Moscow film festivals in '74, ’76, ’78 and ’80. The Russians treated him like royalty. Elderly women were so overwhelmed to see him in flesh and blood that they wept and kissed his hand. Young men emulated the Raj Kapoor look. Thousands of people lined the street outside his hotel, waiting for a glimpse of him.

(Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins)