Anil Kapoor completes 25 years as a star with a high his latest, Slumdog Millionaire, is cresting on a wave of hype. Anil's secret he has reinvented himself every few years
Anil Kapoor completes 25 years as a star with a high his latest, Slumdog Millionaire, is cresting on a wave of hype. Anil's secret he has reinvented himself every few years I HAD a Manmohan Desai moment when I went to interview Gandhi My Father director Feroz Khan at his producer Anil Kapoor's office last year. I bumped into Anil after eons (well, five-six years). Unlike some other stars I have known, Anil doesn't wait to be greeted before he greets you; and he met me effusively like a long lost-and-found friend.
His first reaction was, "You haven't changed at all. Except that you have added some weight." Embarrassed by the attention, I said, "And some grey in my hair. But you are the same." He brought a smile to my face as he shot back with characteristic Anil bombast, "But then I have to maintain myself. I am in showbiz!" It was the perfect moment to pin down this bigger marquee name for an interview but inertia got the better of me. I felt I had interviewed Anil so many times, I knew all there was to know about his public persona.
I was wrong.
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Anil never tires of surprising himself or others, me included. He is in the news once again. His first international film, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire is attracting a blizzard of buzz, and has been nominated for a clutch of international awards including the Golden Globes. Though his is not the title role, Anil has won excellent notices for his role of a sneering, ego-fuelled TV game show host. Anil's acting is not some throwback; he acts in the contemporary international idiom. Whoever thought that the actor, who was once the first choice for 'tapori' roles (Munna of Tezaab and Lakhan of Ram Lakhan) and who had once been dismissed by renowned columnist Devyani as 'You find hundred Anil Kapoor look-alikes in a Churchgate local', would go international one day?
Strikingly, Anil has also just completed 25 years as a star in Bollywood too; and is experiencing a revival because, like a Microsoft product, Anil reinvents himself as a new version every few years. In the last 14 months, he has appeared in five big ticket productions Welcome, Race, Tashan, Black And White and Yuvvraaj and played a crucial role in each. A 25-year journey as a star from Woh Saat Din (1983) to Race and Yuvvraaj (2008) is unusual for most Bollywood heroes (only a select few like Dev, Dilip, Dharmendra, Raaj Kumar, Amitabh) have managed it. Remarkably, Anil has done so with no endorsements and no scandals.u00a0u00a0
I did not know about going international but, from the time we were both rookies in the mid-1980s, I knew Anil would make it big one day despite his caterpillar moustache (that he kept admiring in a mirror while tweezing any errant hair), scrunchy eyes, slim physique and brash ways.
At our very first meeting at the mahurat of Love Marriage (co-starring Meenakshi) at Filmistan, he struck me as nakedly earnest, gung-ho and very confident. Yash Chopra (Mashaal) and Subhash Ghai (Meri Jung) were already backing this newcomer. I was a cub reporter and byte-hungry. I bluntly asked Anil if the dismal fate of Rachna (with Bina, now a long-time screen mother, as his heroine, would you believe) had disheartened him. He kept the mirror aside, looked me straight in the eye and said, "No. Rachna was a superhit. It broke all box-office records. I am very happy." The voice was dripping with sarcasm, the eyes flashing ire. We had begun on a bad note.
But he held no grudges, neither did I. A lot of water has flown below the bridges since then and I don't recall the exact chronology of how we broke the ice thereafter. But I liked the grit he had risen from blink-and-you-miss him roles in Hamare Tumhare and Ek Baar Kaho to being the hero. And he was reliably quotable. When I did a piece on Anil's pre-stardom days, he candidly told me of living in Chembur's Tilak Nagar where the flats had common bathrooms. Anil's dad Surindernath was Shammi Kapoor's business manager and he remembered the star buying him his first mouth organ while Geeta Bali taught him to dance.
Raj Kapoor's daughter Rima, studied with Anil in Xavier's college and he would hitch a ride in her car from Chembur to town. He told me how he saw the gorgeous Dimple for the first time at Raj Kapoor's house when she would come to play cards after packup on Bobby's sets. He saw the cream of '60s heroines, Asha Parekh, Saira Banu, Sadhana, with bedazzled eyes at Raj Kapoor's parties. Thereafter, I have met him over lunch at his plush Juhu bungalow and seen him enjoy star perks; but he always staunchly averred that he remains at heart the Chembur boy.
I recall being a regular on the sets of Rajiv Rai's Yudh at Seth studios. Tina Munim looked gorgeous but I didn't know her at all. Jackie and Anil, on the other hand, had open-door make-up rooms and Anil and I would often be in Jackie's make-up room. Jackie was handsome personified with great silky hair. Anil would forewarn him with the confidence of a crystal ball gazer, "Don't shampoo your hair so often, baal jhad jaayenge." The Anil-Jackie rivalry was over hyped but the competitive undertones were present in their friendship.
I recall accompanying Jackie to a dubbing where the supervisor repeatedly requested, "One more please. You can do better." After some time, Jackie's patience ran out and he retorted, "Arre yaar, main Anil Kapoor nahin hoon."
Yes, Anil was a perfectionist. But it soon got him places. A string of hits Karma (1986), Mr India (1987), Tezaab and Ram Lakhan (the last two were released within three months of each other in 1988-89) put him one footstool away from coronation as a superstar.
Even if he did corny films like Hifazat where he exulted about batatawadas to Madhuri or Pratikaar or a Mr Azaad to generate money for his home productions, he wanted the best, and was always pushing himself and others, which often raised heckles. His passion for the films doesn't end on the sets. It continues to the editing table (no, Akshay Kumar, you were not the first), the preview theatre, up to the release and even thereafter. At a preview of K Vishwanath's Eeshwar, I was about to leave the packed theatre when Anil saw me retreating. He seized me by the arm, and both of us sat down on the carpet in the aisle and watched the film.
I am happy I stayed back, because with his from-the-soul simplicity as Eeshwar, Anil modelled himself on his idol Raj Kapoor and burnished another version of himself the accomplished actor. This helped him tide over his '90s megaflops like Lamhe and Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja. His strong performance as the disbelieving new-age outsider who becomes the definitive traditionalist insider in Virasat brought him back into the reckoning. And Pukaar won him the National Award for Best Actor. Subsequently, Anil metamorphosed once again when he realised that it was not always necessary to have a star vehicle to be able to drive away with your share of the hosannas Taal, Biwi No 1, No Entry, Welcome and Race saw him making his presence felt in ensemble pieces.
In the mid-'80s, for a piece on who will prove to be the lambi race ka ghoda between then-megastars Anil, Jackie and Sunny, I tried to get Anil and Jackie together for a magazine cover. Despite racing on my bike in lashing rains, back and forth between Juhu's Sumeet studios, where Anil was dubbing, and Chandivili Studios, where Jackie was shooting, I was unable to bring the two friends together for a cover.u00a0u00a0
Today, Anil has indeed proved to be the lambi race ka ghoda. He has kept himself fit. And, most importantly, he has kept reinventing himself. The boy from the Bombay 'burbs is today speaking immaculate English in an international film.
His daughter, Sonam, Anil told me, chided him that he should do only off-beat films. But Anil, always pragmatic, says he has to run his house and his production concern. At the risk of being labelled a manipulator, he strategises for every Slumdog, he is likely to do a Welcome.
All the interviews that I have done with Anil Kapoor were interspersed with, "Tu samajh raha hai na, Dinesh?" (You are understanding what I am saying, Dinesh?) One day, I couldn't resist iterating, "Haan Anil, main samajh raha hoon."
If I am truly samajhdar, I guess I have to realise it is time to put Anil Kapoor in the hot seat. After the newsmaking Slumdog Millionaire, we exchanged messages; but I should have asked for an interview. I have a whole new set of questions to ask him.
