Around 27 years ago, if you had asked Ritu Nanda, daughter of the doyen of Hindi cinema Raj Kapoor, what her fondest memory of her father was, she would have said, "I didn't know him at all". That he was busy churning movie after movie when she was growing up, and her mother, Krishna, kept her away from the industry, meant that the two got little, if any time together. "If and when we communicated, it was through notes that I would place under his pillow before I went to sleep," Nanda tells us over the phone from Delhi. That's how Kapoor first learnt that his daughter was keen on playing the piano. "I kept sending him notes asking when my piano would come. Then, one day, it arrived," the 69-year-old remembers. This relationship suffered more neglect, as Nanda, who married early at the age of 20, got busy with her own life and children Nikhil and Nitasha.

With Rajendra Kumar, Dilip Kumar and Shammi Kapoor. Pics Courtesy/Ritu Nanda, Harpercollins India