One of the famous stars, Shashi Kapoor is now confided to a wheel chair. Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan had ruled the Bollywood film industry in 1980′s. Amitabh is still in the field and receiving many awards. But, things have changed for Shashi Kapoor, who received the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award in a wheel chair. Amitabh Bachchan has expressed shock at the plight of the veteran actor, with few lines in his blog.
About his memories with Shashi, Amitabh in his blog stated as, “At the filmfare Awards, when Mumbai Mirror had not appeared, the affable editor Jitesh Pillai had asked me if I would give the Lifetime achievement Award to Shashi Kapoor and I had agreed. Seeing him confined to a wheel chair, was something I could never associate with Shashi ji. Shashi Kapoor, that handsome gentle man. A smile on his face forever. A considerate calling on each meeting, now in this condition? Never. He had pulled me out of a scene in his film where I, because I was hungry and did not have the money to feed myself, had taken the job of an ‘extra’ a junior artist, in the film where he played the hero. It was a James Ivoyr – Ismail Merchant film, ‘Shakespearewala’. A funeral scene was being picturised at the sea rocks off Bandra Band Stand. I took up an offer to be part of the crowd that had come to mourn the death of the ‘Hero’ Shashi Kapoor, part of the funeral party. He was not supposed to be there at the shoot – the scene was his funeral. But he was there and stopped me. Came up, pushed me out of the crowd, chided me with ‘Are you mad.! You have bigger things in store for you, don’t do this’ and walked away”.
And also he stated his relation with Shashi Kapoor, “Film after film we did together, Shashi ji and me, and shared some of my most memorable times together in the industry. He is now my relative. His elder brother, the great Raj Kapoor’s daughter Ritu’s son Nikhil is married to Shweta. I spoke to him on his birthday some days ago and then again when I wanted to invite him to the premier of ‘Paa’. He had sounded weak in voice and expressed his inability to come. ‘I’m not well’, he had whispered faintly and I told him I would arrange a special screening for him. But I had never expected him to be the way I saw him at the award function in the pictures a few days back.”
‘Shaan’, ‘Trishul’, ‘Deewar’, ‘Kala Patter’, ‘Kabhi Kabhi’, ‘Namakhalal’, etc., are the films that they had worked together.
