Bollywood's First Family

We are the Corleones of the The Godfather,' says Randhir Kapoor rather grandly about his clan.

Madhu Jain, who spent seven years researching the first family of India's cinema, discovered that there was no tribe quite like the Kapoors in the history of motion picture, world over. For four generations this colourful khandaan has dominated Hindi films. And they still do. Jain, in her biography The Kapoors, traces the life and times of some of the most successful stars of the family. The Socialist from Peshawar: Prithviraj Kapoor It was one of those muggy, post-monsoon days when the quiet of the Arabian Sea and the heavy, still air over Bombay could dampen the spirits of even the most optimistic. Prithviraj Kapoor, not quite 23, and fresh despite two days and nights (third class) on the Frontier Mail from Peshawar, stepped off the train at the terminal in Colaba, which was located next to the Cooperage playground at the time, and hailed a Victoria. 'Mujhe samundar dekhna hai,' he told the Victoriawalla in that booming, stagey voice of his. He had never seen the sea, and could not wait to get to the Gateway of India. Once there, he looked up at the sky and pledged: 'God, I have come here to become an actor. If you don't make me one here, I will cross the seven seas and go to Hollywood.' God listened. But he didn't make it easy. All Prithviraj Kapoor had with him that day in 1928 was a hockey stick, a small trunk, a felt cap and Rs 75 in his pocket. Had it not been for a generous and adoring aunt his pockets would have been empty. His father, Bashesharnath, a ruddy bon vivant Pathan with a walrus moustaches and an ample girth, had become purple with rage when his son had told him about his plans to become an actor. 'Kanjar -- is that what you want to become?' he exploded. Bashesharnath was in the police. Prithviraj's grandfather, the rather stately Dewan Keshavmal Kapoor, had been the tehsildar of Samundari in Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan). Young Prithviraj had already received his bachelor of arts degree from King Edward's College in Peshawar and was studying to be a lawyer at the College of Law in Lahore. For this Hindu Pathan family, actors belonged to the 'debauched' world of wandering street performers and nautanki groups, people outside the pale of society. After Prithviraj Kapoor made his pact with god at the Gateway of India, he asked the Victoriawalla to take him to a hotel. He did not know a soul in this city, nor did he have a single address. The driver left him at Kashmir Hotel, opposite Metro cinema, where he got a room for five rupees a night. The next morning he asked the manager of the hotel where the nearest film studio was. Aware by now that his Rs 75 would not last very long, he walked to Imperial Studios on Kennedy Bridge, near the Royal Opera House. The studio belonged to the legendary Ardeshir Irani, who made India's first talkie Alam Ara in 1931. The imposing gates of the studio would have deterred a lesser mortal. Prithviraj just stood there. He might have had to stand a long time had the gateman of the studio not been a Pathan. Prithvi spoke to him in Pashto. The guard, Behramshah, happy to discover a fellow Pathan, let him in and advised him to stand in line with the extras. Prithvi returned there every morning. He worked as an extra for the first few days in the silent film Challenge (1929). On the third day, Ermeline, a Jewess star-heroine, passing by the line of extras, stopped in her tracks when she saw Prithviraj. She was immediately struck by the extraordinary looks of this tall, fair, strapping man with the head of a Greek god, a Roman nose and good legs. The gamine actress was the leading lady of Cinema Girl, a film then being made by the Imperial Film Company. And like a princess inspecting a line-up of men to choose a husband during a swyamvara, she picked Prithviraj to play the male lead opposite her in the film. So, thanks to Ermeline, this charismatic Pathan from Peshawar never had to stand in line as an extra again. And this was the beginning of a career in films which spanned more than four decades -- from the silent era to Technicolor and 70mm.

Excerpted from The Kapoors: The First Family Of Indian Cinema by Madhu Jain, published by Penguin Books India, with the publisher's permission, Rs 595.

The second segment of an exclusive excerpt from Madhu Jain's biography, The Kapoors:

The Showman and the Joker: Raj Kapoor Raj may not have been a good student. But he enrolled early on in the school of the street. As a teenager, he used to observe the middle and lower middle classes in Matunga: he was a habitu of the jhoparpatties (shantytowns) there. Actor Prayag Raaj says: 'He used to sit with the sabziwali outside his home in Matunga, or the one near his school in Byculla. There was a woman who was quite similar to the banana seller character in Awara which was played by Lalita Pawar.' Having learnt Marathi in school, Raj was later to use his fluency with the language to communicate with Maharashtrians both in the film industry, as well as with the farmers and workers on his farm in Loni. The farmers became his friends; they spent a lot of time cooking and eating together. Raj was quite at home in the world of those who worked for him -- as dependent if not as close to them as he was with many in his family. His driver, Gopal, was more than just somebody who drove him around. He was more like his caretaker, always watching over him, often after a late night out drinking. ' Sometimes he would sit with the driver and put his head in his lap,' says B J Panchal, Raj Kapoor's photographer. Gopal's job was to make sure no harm came to his boss. Raj had a unique way of saying thank you: he uses the name Gopal in many of his films. In Sangam, Rajendra Kumar (Raj's best friend in the movie) is called Gopal. He was equally dependent on John (the cook) in his cottage and on Revati (his personal assistant) at home. Similarly, Raj was quite close to the people who worked in the dhabas and restaurants like Geeta Bhavan and Ranjit Caf near RK Films. No wonder he had the pulse of the common man. Perhaps the father and son had a volatile relationship because they were very similar: Prithviraj used to sit with fisherman in their kholis in Juhu during the last decade of his life, talking to them for long hours. Prithviraj's other sons did not mingle with the man on the street in the same way. Both father and his first-born were a curious mixture of the traditional -- caught up in the customs and rituals of the Kapoor khandaan -- and the bohemian. Essentially, they were wanderers whose circle of friends extended to those outside the furthest ripples of their social orbits. Ironically enough, Bollywood's greatest showman -- there hasn't been another worthy of this mantle yet -- had very simple needs. He never slept on a bed, but on the floor. Wherever he went, he pulled the mattress on to the floor-even in his suite at the George V hotel in Paris. Sometimes this got him into trouble. His wife recounts an interesting incident. 'Rajji was a simple man. He always slept on the floor. In London, at the Hilton, he was ticked off for pulling the mattress down and when he did it the second time, he was fined. He paid the fine every day till he left the hotel.' To paraphrase what they said about the Mahatma -- it took a lot to keep Raj Kapoor in simplicity. The showman in him insisted that his table have everything possible. There had to be several kinds of chicken and mutton, and, of course, yakhni in all its avatars. But the man himself ate quite selectively, and simply. Raj Kapoor could whip up a perfect biryani and chicken curry but preferred to eat the common man's food. His favourite staple was idlis and street food. In her account of her husband's eating habits in Ritu's book, Krishna Kapoor says: 'The great cook was a poor eater! He could not bear to see a poorly-laid table, it had to overflow, but he himself merely nibbled at the food and then settled for his usual pao and eggs and a little daal. For years he ate no lunch, only dinner. At parties he merely pretended to eat. When he got home -- sometimes in the early hours of the morning -- he promptly had his fried eggs.'

Raj Kapoor was very happy with the Ambassador car he bought much later in his life: the fancy cars of his youth no longer thrilled him. The Mercedes was for his wife. 'He tasted life at a basic level,' says Bina Ramani. Raj stayed with Bina and her former husband Andy Ramani in New York for nearly two months when his father was being treated at Sloane-Kettering in the early seventies. This was a particularly painful time for him because Mera Naam Joker had been a box-office disaster and both his parents were terminally ill. 'He was down and depressed and hurting from the loss. We had a very small apartment. He used to pull the mattress to the floor. Rajji used to take the bus to the hospital, changing two buses to get there. Black Label became Red Label in New York: it was all we could afford. He wanted to fit into our life,' recalls Bina. Interestingly, Shammi Kapoor stayed in the suburbs and cabbed it to the hospital in Manhattan.