CHENNAI: It was the autumn of 1973 — the year the Bobby storm wreaked havoc on many a girl’s heart, wringing them but also making them sing and dance to the beats of love and longing. The red-checked A-line ‘Bobby frock’ became a rage with teenagers, who faintly hoped that they would one day answer the doorbell and find lover boy Rishi Kapoor standing with his trademark, large goggles.
Bobby was to romance what Sholay was to action in that period. The ‘shayar’ Rishi Kapoor wore the heart on his sleeve, literally! He wore shimmering shirts with red heart patterns and sang, bachna ae haseeno! Only he could carry himself off with those obnoxiously loud clothes with confidence, as he danced on a giant-sized vinyl spinning record. The rich lover boy always won every love triangle, be it Saagar, Jhoota Kahin Ka or Aap ke Deewane; he knew how to woo and win over his ladies. He was the star, whom one would like to see from afar, but could never reach. He was a Kapoor, was part of the legacy, and was all that was rich, glamorous and Bollywood.
In contrast was the man with bright, bulbous eyes, dreaming of finding the right mate, smeared with a little paste of lust as he answers the calls of his hormone. Irrfan Khan was the man, whose life in a metro is a lot like ours. He is the local travel cab owner, who reluctantly drives his regular customer’s senile father all the way from Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park to North Kolkata. Irrfan is the relative or friend we could have had. You could see him buying groceries, or eating street food. He is human, he has his dabba packed from a small eatery for his lunch, and he starts enjoying the food he gets delivered to his humble office table by mistake. He writes thank-you notes to the person whose palak paneer and koftas he has relished. He behaves like you and me, like people we meet on the road, on the bus, and in trains. He is not gloss. He is not glamour. He is you, and me.
This is a parallel tale of two actors, but pardon me if there is comparison. It then means I have done no justice to art because both were actors who adorned the silver screen. One was elusively reel, fortified by ivory gates, and the other, effortlessly real, and reachable. One was a star who became an actor. The other was an actor, who became a star. One was heart house, the other was art house. One wore the heart on his sleeve. The other rolled up his sleeve to work. While one was framed onto the silver screen, letting out a gleaming flicker of hope that a lover boy like him may probably exist, the other broke the myth, burst out of the frame and pleaded with us to get real. Certainly, one stirred our heart, the other stirred our soul.
It will be appropriate to add here that rich tributes poured in for both the actors, but a small statement from Irrfan’s wife made the cut. It said, “I want to assure everyone that this is not a loss, it is a gain. It’s a gain of the things he taught us, and now we shall finally begin to truly implement it and evolve.” What fine attitude to death. What a reassurance from the wife of the man who gave meaning to the word, Life.
Subhashini Dinesh