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If someone had asked how would you remember Shammi Kapoor when one was young, the question would have been lightly pushed aside. It was not fashionable to take him seriously then. He seemed to be only an extremely good looking, romantic presence on the screen.

It is a different thing that the same Shammi Kapoor’s love songs sung in playback by Mohammad Rafi were the ones on which one could have spent away a life. There have been no second ‘diwana hua badal’, or ‘tumne mujhe dekha’, or ‘’hum aur tum aur yeh sama’, or ‘’ai gulbadan’, or ‘aawaz de ke hamein tum bulao’, or ‘dekho kasam se’.

He was incomparable at acting as a singing star. One would find volumes written on his dancing style. Some of those would describe him as aping Elvis Presley. Some would talk of him as a spontaneous dancer whose body moved to the rhythm of music. Some called his dancing acrobatics. And, his dancing persona mostly overshadowed the seriousness he brought to some of the roles with not much scope for acting. These were flashes of brilliance hidden under the tomfoolery. He had a very expressive voice and a face, and he did not always dance.

As one got older, the discernment of his talent became obvious.  He aced himself in the old film ‘Professor’. Especially in the role of an older man. Not much has been written about how smoothly he transitioned from a young man to an older man, all in one film, even allowing for different shots for the two different roles. One could not find even a tiny fault with the actor playing the professor. Not that anyone in the Hindi film industry recognized the brilliant acting! Perhaps the industry was waiting till he became very old to give him a lifetime achievement award!

The light-hearted joyous character Shammi Kapoor represented on screen was a gift to him from his extremely talented wife, Gita Bali. It is known that Bali had to give up acting according to Kapoor family tradition. Earlier, Shammi Kapoor had aped the look of his father and brother, with a thin moustache portraying heavy and serious roles. But he did not succeed.

It is said that wife Gita Bali persuaded him to reinvent his screen image. Not just that, she designed the new image, his looks, his hair, his clothes, his style of walking and talking. And that new Shammi Kapoor went on to become a great success, remaining unparalleled in the spontaneity of body movement.

Through all that dancing and joy that he exuded, Shammi Kapoor, still impresses with some of the short pieces of real acting. Even in a film like ‘Kashmir ki Kali’, one can feel the love in his face for his mother, very unlike overplaying to which many actors of his time resorted to.

One wonders where did he get so much joy from? Although an actor, he was transparent in that one could see his joy was born within. He did not seem to have a troubled life. Acting was his life, and so was his family. Unfortunately, he did lose his joy pretty soon when he lost his wife. This pain could be seen in his face in films after. In ‘Brahmachari’, his portrayal of pain was so touchingly genuine. Even earlier, he had struck a chord of sadness within when one watched him sing ‘gham-e-hasti se bas begana hota, Khudaya, kash main diwana hota!’

Life goes on and so did Shammi Kapoor after his wife’s death. And, with luck, he found someone who had loved him for years. Life picked up again and he matured in his roles. After a break, he came up with directing ‘Manoranjan’, his version of ‘Irma La Douce’, a lovely musical with great performances by himself and Sanjeev Kumar. It was also a film in which even a sex-worker could look so charmingly innocent as played by Zeenat Aman.

With age, Shammi Kapoor turned to playing character roles, giving many memorable and impressive portrayals. Prithviraj Kapoor commanded respect with a roar of ‘Salim’ in ‘Mughal-e-Azam’. His son could command that respect with tenderness in Raj Kapoor’s ‘Prem Rog’.

Shammi Kapoor was known to have loved technological innovations in his later life and spent a lot of time learning them in spite of ill health. When he passed away, he left a very loving family behind. That is an achievement in filmdom.

So then, how would we remember Shammi Kapoor in the midst of a crowded fair of beautiful song performances? Perhaps  between the two extremes of ‘yahoo’ and ‘khudaya kash main diwana hota’. Somewhere in the midpoint, playful yet sober, singing yet philosophic! Like

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