It was at the ‘Festival of Three Continents’ in Nantes, France, in 1984, that I first met Raj Kapoor. He had been invited to present the first of the two retrospectives that Nantes has so far devoted to Kapoor (1984, 2024), and I was there as a young journalist of Libération, to do a write-up on him. Although Awaara (1951) was shown in competition at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1953, nobody in France was familiar with the name Raj Kapoor. I remember mentioning his name to a learned French colleague, his answer was: “Who is he? Never heard of him.”
It was early evening and I had dozed off in my hotel room after watching three back-to-back films. I was awakened by a rumbling sound just outside my door. I first tried to ignore it, but when it became louder and louder, I had no option but to give up on any prospect of catching a wink. Annoyed, I got up and half-opened the door — and saw an immaculately dressed couple from the back, pulling and pushing heavy bags up the stairs. The man said to the lady, sarcastically: “Krishnaji, what have you brought in these — stones? “Just clothes and shoes,” she answered gingerly. The couple had their back towards me. As I offered to help with the bags, the man turned around and extended his hand: “Hi, they call me Raj Kapoor.”
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Next day, we saw Awaara together. Off and on during the screening, Kapoor would whisper to me some personals details about the film. For instance, a shot in which you see the three generations of the Kapoor family actors together. It must have been something that I, too, remarked, that when the screening was over and we were ambling out of the cinema, Kapoor put his hand on my shoulder and said: “You seem like someone who has suffered the pain of love. Come, join me for a drink.” We walked across to the brasserie opposite — La Cigale. Since Kapoor and Krishnaji did not speak any French, I picked up the drinks carte and shared with him my modest knowledge of French wines. Kapoor listened to me and then gently motioned his hand to say leave it to me. He waved to the waiter and suddenly broke into a short snippet of a theatre acting class.
With twirled lips, a sparkle in the eye and dance-like hand gestures, he had won the heart of the waiter in a second, who just stood there mesmerised, smiling before his client. “Champagne, champagne,” intoned Kapoor. The waiter rattled out the list of bubbles he had on offer. “Moët & Chandon,” ordered the actor. Kapoor did not need any French to communicate, he was blessed with better gifts.
Champagne bubbles paved the way to a more personal exchange on the film Awaara and, more essentially, its lead actress, Nargis. Noticing a hint of nostalgia in Kapoor at one point, I recited to him two lines from a poem by André Breton, the founder and principal theorist of surrealism: “I have discovered the secret of loving you, always for the first time.” That set Kapoor off, and he entered a reverie about the mysterious bond between destiny and love. There was something about the number six he kept on repeating, that it was six months before the meeting with her, six months after the film, six months again for something else… Kapoor then paused in reverie: “Six, six, six… These were well-timed and well-planned things. They had come from there (pointing heavenwards) and they’ll return there…”
Champagne and the “pain of love” had forged a short, sweet bond between us. Over the course of a few meetings in Nantes and Paris, Raj Kapoor had now become Raj ji for me.
Raj Kapoor’s wife Krishna looks at his Padma Bhushan medal.
A few months later, in 1986, I was in Bombay for work. Being familiar with the manner and the crazy schedules of Indian film stars, I knew that Kapoor in France would not be the same person as in India, so I refrained from contacting him for the first few days. One day, I picked up the courage and called his residence. Expectedly, I had some difficulty in getting through to him initially, but when he did finally come on the line, he asked: “Where are you staying?” I answered: “With a friend.” His voice now had the command of an elder in it: “Pack your bags and my car is coming to pick you up. You’ll be staying with us. This time and every time you are in this city.”
Kapoor’s hospitality and generosity towards me had just started. Once I reached his house, I was promptly introduced to Daboo, Chimpu and Reema and shown a sumptuously appointed room at the iconic Deonar Cottage. “As you are here on work,” Raj ji added, “you will have a car at your disposal. And there’s a phone in your room with an international line, call any of your girlfriends from it. And if you want to bring them over, feel free!”
There was something so very welcoming about the man, and I’m not sure if generosity is the word for it. Generosity of heart or the heart of generosity — or just the madness of heart. In his presence, it felt as though you were sitting under the shade of a big tree, something I had also felt with another man called Jean-Claude Carrière, the great Oscar-winning screenplay writer. Raj ji and Jean-Claude both had the art of sharing their generosity and knowledge with a disarming naturality. It is difficult to put it in words but it is my strong belief that this madness of heart, this awaarapan, this spontaneous and reckless outpouring of empathy and social concern, was an element that played a defining role in the shaping of Kapoor’s films.
One night, I was about to go to sleep, slightly groggy after a couple of whiskeys. It was about 1 am. Someone knocked at the door and said: “Saheb would like to see you.” I went down to Raj ji’s room. He was reclining in bed, a whiskey glass standing upright on a table by his side, like a faithful sentinel of his treacherous love-beaten nights. He looked like a Greek god in deep contemplation. He was watching excerpts of his films —scenes, song sequences. He asked me to take a seat close to him, and we both started watching the classics with a whiff of nostalgia.
Being an adept of arthouse cinema, I asked him at one point: “What do you think of Satyajit Ray?” Kapoor’s response was spontaneous: “He’s a wonderful filmmaker.” After a longish silence, he added with a tinge of disappointment and critique: “But he’s watched only in Bengal — and maybe by some abroad.” I insisted on asserting that mass consumption of his art could not be the criterion of judging his greatness. Kapoor reiterated that Ray was indeed a wonderful filmmaker and he had even offered to produce one of his films. I asked him if he had ever had the desire to make an arthouse film. “I do what I do — make films.” As for the rest of our discussion, I remember only the gist of it, impressions and sensations that words leave behind on memory.
Raj Kapoor receiving the City of Nantes medal Le médaille d’honneur at the Three Continents Festival. (Courtesy: Christian Leray)
Kapoor was convinced that cinema is first and foremost a popular art. It is a popular medium, it is meant to address multitudes. It is our weapon to intervene in the destiny of humankind, to set right the wrongs of history, to bring a smile on the faces of people where wrinkles have been. He felt arthouse cinema focussed, in a very personal and conceptualised way, too much on the tragedies of history, whereas there was more to life. There was humour, there was romance, there were songs and dances, and people had the right to seek entertainment after a hard day at work. In a nutshell, Kapoor felt that the hardest thing in cinema is to be able to make a good popular film.
This was the introspective side of Kapoor — personal, humble, contemplative. But he has also been known as the Greatest Showman of Indian cinema.
One day I was at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi to attend the International Film Festival of India, 1985, in New Delhi. Kapoor’s film was to be showcased at the Siri Fort auditorium. I noticed some commotion in the lobby, but this was nothing exceptional as all festivals exude some energy. Slowly, the commotion started to build up and I wondered if some dignitary was expected at the hotel. I then noticed Kapoor’s well-known children, all film stars, in the lobby, pacing up and down, ordering the hotel staff about. A few minutes later, the Kapoor family stars took their positions in the porch of the hotel. And then, all of a sudden, the elevator opened and out came Kapoor, surrounded by a jostling crowd of admirers.
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Timed to perfection, an impressive cavalcade of cars then drove in — one, two, three, four, five, one after the other. Sons, actors and actresses got into their respective cars, with Raj Kapoor in the one in the middle, and the cavalcade drove off to the official screening. What a show! It was no less than the cortège of a head of the state.
Many years ago, in 1991, thanks to the French Villa Médicis Hors Les Murs Award for arts and culture, I undertook a long overland journey in the footsteps of Marco Polo. It took me through thousands of kilometres of deserted regions, at a time when there were no international tourists there, neither in Central Asia (they were still emerging from the clasp of the Soviet Union) nor in China. Wherever I would go, people would wonder where I was from, and communication between us became even more difficult because neither of us spoke the other’s language. I was in Turfan one day, in the Gobi Desert in China, when I met a Chinese lady who was curious to find out which country I was from. I tried every trick in the book to explain but nothing seemed to work. I then tried something which had worked in Central Asia. I sang to her Awaara hoon from Kapoor’s film and she immediately exclaimed: “Ah! Indou, Indou!” Kapoor’s song worked better than my passport on
that journey!
Vijay Singh is a writer and filmmaker based in Paris. He recently contributed a preface to the first ever book to appear in French on the legendary Indian: Raj Kapoor, le maître de Bollywood, written by Jitka de Préval.
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