An extract from Faction: 'Short Stories by 22 Film Personalities'. This is a collection of untold stories from Bollywood film personalities, including Shyam Benegal, Shekhar Kapur, Rahul Bose, Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Om Puri, Sonam Kapoor, Juhi Chawla and many others. Here’s the short story by Rishi Kapoor.
Romance was another kind of Olympian sport, not like today when it is easier than falling off a log. Today you can pick up a cellphone, call, SMS or email. Letters I could never write; did not have the talent or the patience. Forget thinking or writing, I could not sit still at a desk. An RK boy was like the roles scripted for him, madly in love, no second thoughts. Automatically I lived on my impulses.
I come from the 1970s generation which had to deal with “trunk” calls. Even if I booked a lightning, urgent phone call, the line would be foggy. I would be screaming at the top of my lungs for an extension of time. Not two minutes “five minutes, make that ten… did you hear me?” The operator — an indifferent lady nine times out of ten — would butt in constantly and grumble, “Two minutes over… five minutes over…” as if I wasn’t aware of that. “Yes ma’am, please ma’am, continue the call.”
There would be abrupt disconnections, misunderstandings with the girl I was speaking to who would grumble later, “You went off without listening to what I had to say.” The calls would cost a bomb, leave me fretful. Not the cost, just the desperation of it all. The alternative was to send off telegrams. These I could manage. 'TWO WORDS STOP I AM MISSING YOU STOP I LOVE YOU STOP KISSES STOP KISSES KISSES STOP LOTS OF KISSES STOP'. I once sent off a telegram which ran into the size of a book — 15 sheets actually — with its stop stop stops. That was irritating, cost 15 bombs but then it was great if and when I received a reply. 'MISSING YOU TOO STOP LOVE STOP KISSES STOP'. Not as enthusiastic as I was but then I would have been satisfied even with 'MISSING YOU STOP'.
Frankly, I can’t remember the short forms: Missing would be Msng, Kisses ksses, love lv, a precursor to sms lingo.
Romance via telegrams was a minority sport. Otherwise they foreboded doom — a death or serious illness, or they were glad tidings — birth of a child, arrival of relatives during vacations (glad tidings?), passing examinations with flying colours. There would be silly telegram jokes, too, on the lines of a mamma’s boy who after a train journey telegrammed home, 'HAD SAFE JOURNEY. STOP. GAVE BERTH TO OLD LADY'.
A white or pink folded sheet of paper, delivered by a postal staff, which specialised in such missives, meant bad as well as good news. For me, it was a substitute for a valentine. Not that Valentine’s Day was celebrated or even mentioned those days. As for that early 19th-century form of correspondence, said to be delivered by carrier pigeons, were they fact or fiction? Never saw one of those, except in the movies.
A telegram, 100 telegrams didn’t sort out my romance with a girl, who was just a day older than me. I loved her insanely. Let me call her Zarine. It just wouldn’t be correct to mention her real name. That would be very uncouth of me. Zarine belonged to a — what’s the word — a landed family? No, an aristocratic family would be more correct. She lived in this spacious, very spacious home on Mumbai’s Malabar Hill, with her parents and equally beautiful sister. Unlike today, back in the ’70s, there would be a certain amount of snobbery against Hindi movies. Making movies or acting in them wasn’t the most respectable thing to do. Zarine and her family were not impressed that I was an actor. Bobby, my first film in an adult role, made me a huge star. So what if the story was heroine-centric? From a child actor in 'Mera Naam Joker' to a hero, no one expected the transition to be as smooth as it was. In hindsight, I think I must be the only actor who has been a child actor, a hero and then a character actor, like Shirley Temple was. I missed out on life on a college campus. I will never know how it feels to hang out in a college canteen. Instead of adolescence, I experienced stardom.
I am not complaining. It was just that the roulette of life had turned for me. The euphoria was tremendous. Raj Kapoor recovered from his heavy debts. I was a star. I sought to remain grounded, I had not changed at all, especially for Zarine. We would go out on dates to the movies, watching Camelot and 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' at the Sterling cinema. I guess I was unlike the other boys. I had found popularity. Nothing seemed to matter though because I had become a star, and I was in love. Till a magazine’s gossip story threw my life off-balance. I haven’t ever told Shobhaa De this but if Stardust — she was the editor of that magazine — hadn’t carried a story that I was having an affair with Dimple Kapadia, my life would have been entirely different today.
Zarine had seen the story. She was outraged; she didn’t want anything more to do with me. If memory serves me right, I was shooting for 'Zehreelay Insaan' in Karnataka, in the fort town of Chitradurg. I went hyper; I kept sending Zarine telegram after telegram to ignore the gossip item. Rumours happen in show business, I tried to convince her, in so many pages and pages of telegrams. Neetu, my co-star, whom I would eventually marry, even helped me to write them. She tried to calm me down, saying that all would be fine once I met her back in Bombay.
Once I was back home, Zarine would not respond to my calls. Accustomed by now, I kept sending more telegrams. The Postmaster General must have been shocked by my obsession for those telegrams. And then I saw her with another guy at the Apollo Bar, the place to go to in those days, at the Taj Mahal Hotel. I was with two friends. I entered the elevator to see her with another guy whom I knew vaguely. She looked through me. I was shattered. They occupied a table. I insisted on one diagonally across hers. I downed the lord-alone-knows how many drinks. I was in a fog. I sent a bottle of champagne across to her table. My mind was spinning out of control. “I won’t let you go,” I kept telling myself. “If need be, I’ll buy this motherf*****g hotel right now. I won’t let you leave me. I’ll kill that guy with you.” The champagne bottle was returned. My friends prevented me from going berserk. She quickly left the place, knowing that I would end up creating a scene.
That was the last I saw of Zarine. I lost her, and it all happened as fast as a telegram. Neetu and I acted in a series of films after that — 'Zinda Dil, Raffoochakkar', 'Khel Khel Mein'. We would be at the studios always. When we weren’t, I missed her. She understood me. She understood that I’d gone through rejection in love. She was my shoulder to cry on. She understood that I was a spoilt brat who could spend hundreds and thousands of rupees — a princely sum then — but couldn’t tolerate the very idea that someone had actually left me. I would talk my heart out to Neetu, send her flowers and notes for being there for me. We would hang out at the Supper Club, Rendezvous, the Cellar. It was possible to fall in love again. Of course, my father did not approve of my heart pangs, reminding me, “Is this the age for you to go crazy in love? Look after your career first, your heart can wait.”
I waited till Neetu and I were sure we couldn’t wait any longer. I married Neetu when I was 29. Earlier I would have given a peace sign ring to the girl I adored. Neetu, the pukki Sikhni that is, was happier with a gold pendant. Neither Neetu nor I have forgotten my first love story. There’s a little footnote to that: Zarine’s mother never gave her the telegrams which I would send day after day. She married one of my classmates; they were happy, contented I am sure.
Zarine was beautiful; she still is within my heart and soul. She is no more… she died a few years ago of a terminal illness. Sometimes I wonder — what if she had read those telegrams?
