Shashi Kapoor Was God's Good Man & A Beautiful Human Being: Shyam Benegal

Director Shyam Benegal said that Shashi Kapoor was God's good man and was a beautiful human being.

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With those copybook good looks and that rakish smile, he was the stuff of teen crushes that evolved into wistful nostalgia as the years rolled by.

Shashi Kapoor, 79, when he passed away in Mumbai after a prolonged illness today, will be remembered for his many commercial films, his commitment to quality cinema when he turned filmmaker but also as the man who embodied ageless elegance.

Shashi Was A Beautiful Human Being

Shashi Was A Beautiful Human Being

"He was god's good man. He was such a beautiful human being beyond anything else," director Shyam Benegal, who worked with the late actor in Kalyug and Junoon, told PTI.

Early Life

Early Life

He was born an unprepossessing Balbirraj on March 18, 1938 in what was then Calcutta to Rama Devi and Prithviraj Kapoor, the son of a legendary actor who went on to complete the famed Kapoor trinity with his older brothers Raj and Shammi.

The tryst with cinema started in 1961 with Yash Chopras "Dharmputra". The next two-and-half decades saw a dizzying line-up of films, some good, like "Kabhi Kabhie" and "New Delhi Times", others like "Fakira" and "Ghar Ek Mandir" eminently forgettable, even embarrassing.

Not Just A Star

Not Just A Star

But Shashi Kapoor was not just a star, one more in an ensemble cast in the multi-starrers that were the vogue in the 1980s or another face in a brain dead Bollywood melodrama.

He straddled two worlds with his partnership with James Ivory and Ismail Merchant resulting in films like "The Householder", "Shakespearewallah" and "Heat and Dust" early in his career.
When He Started His Own Company

When He Started His Own Company

The real turnaround came in 1980 when he started his own company Film Vala, diverting some of the money he had made in Bollywood into making films with the likes of Benegal and Aparna Sen.

The partnership resulted in gems like "36 Chowringhee Lane", which saw his wife, veteran theatre actor Jennifer Kendal, as an aging teacher in a changing world, "Junoon", "Vijeta", "Utsav" and "Kalyug".
A Loyal Husband

A Loyal Husband

He was the star with no starry airs, the man who stayed steadfastly loyal to his wife through more than 25 years of marriage with scarcely a hint of scandal and the ultimate hero who always had a kind word for his fans.

He stood apart from his peers, part of the rat race and yet not part of it. And then, with his wifes death in 1984 it was as if the very life had begun ebbing away from him too. The weight started piling and the roles started dwindling.
His Ill Health

His Ill Health

Shashi Kapoor began fading away from the headlines. He appeared in few films, as the corpulent Urdu poet Noor in Ismail Merchants "In Custody" in 1993 and as a narrator in "Jinnah" some years after that.

Ill health felled Shashi Kapoor and when he was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 2015, he was too unwell to travel to New Delhi to get it. It was 17 years after he retired into the quiet shadows. Union minister Arun Jaitley went to Mumbai to honour him.

But the old charm still lingered, the silver hair that refused to be dyed adding to that grace and somewhere still that old charisma.

Bollywoods ultimate charmer has gone, leaving a legacy of decency and elegance that may find few followers in the film industry of today.

Read more about: shashi kapoor shyam benegal

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