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
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
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
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
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
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.