Lover boy Rishi Kapoor goes rogue

Have you come to interview me, or grill me about my son,” asks Rishi Kapoor, this time, irritated. It had been raining non-stop for the past two days in Mumbai and he found the humidity oppressive. On top of that, I had posed way too many questions on Ranbir, so the retort wasn’t altogether unexpected. He understands the media’s obsession with his son, but wouldn’t allow it to dominate the hour-long chat in the sprawling drawing room of his Pali Hill bungalow.

The junior Kapoor has been in the news for a while now, and not solely for his acting skills or success at the box office. The senior Kapoor, an old hat in dealing with gossip-hungry journos, knows how to stop wagging tongues. “If he doesn’t have affairs now, when will he romance, at my age? Thank God, he doesn’t date men.” Like most Indian fathers, he is relieved that his son is “normal”. And like some fathers, while he doesn’t interfere with the son’s career moves, he would like to guide Ranbir on financial matters. Theirs is a close-knit family. The 31-year-old star son still lives with his parents.

In fact, this curiosity about the father-son relationship is a bit unwarranted here. There is a lot happening for Rishi at this point in his professional life. The quintessential romantic hero of the ’70s and ’80s who courted pretty girls on screen, and frequently played second fiddle to macho heroes like Amitabh Bachchan has long retired. It is now the turn of the actor to show his stuff. In 1998, tired of being typecast for years, when he decided to call it quits, he was still bankable. His fans could digest the fact that a middle-aged man with ample girth could romance girls half his age — Divya Bharati and Juhi Chawla.

In his second innings as a character artiste, Rishi has shed both his artistic baggage and inhibitions. As the character inspired by the Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in Nikhil Advani’s D-Day, he looked every bit convincing, alternating between being a doting father and a ruthless, manipulative man dealing in terror. “Did you like my performance,” was his first question when I sought an appointment immediately after watching the film.

(After all these years, he still takes the audience seriously). I did, I said, but I found him more compelling as Rauf Lala, the drug lord, in the Agneepath remake, though the character lacked shades. Kapoor was spine-chillingly delightful, exuding menace through kohl-rimmed eyes. The other extreme, perhaps, was his role of a middle-class schoolteacher in Habib Faisal’s Do Dooni Chaar where he teamed up with wife Neetu after 30 years.

The family is coming together on screen for the first time in Abhinav Singh Kashyap’s Besharam. The husband-wife play Haryanvi cops while the son is, er, the ‘Besharam’ hero. Kashyap, the director of the stupendous hit Dabangg, is a self-confessed Rishi Kapoor fan. “I was the one to offer him the role of a cop for the first time in his career, but Aurangzeb came out first,” says Kashyap. He found working with the family surprisingly easy. “They are thorough professionals. All three used to come to the sets in separate cars. Rishiji would get ready in 15 minutes flat. He prefers to wrap up work by 7.30pm since he is particular about his morning walk.”

The evening is usually devoted to a few of pegs of whiskey, for which the morning walk is necessary. His bulk has been dogging him for a while. In Besharam, the son makes fun of it — the trailer has a scene where Ranbir overpowers him, wraps him up in a blanket and says: “Khudko toh chhoda leh pehle, mote. Sirf Chulbul naam rakhne se koi dabbangg nahin ban jata.”

Even without a six-pack, Rishi Kapoor still gets to enjoy the good life in Subhash Ghai’s Kaanchi. “He is a business magnate in love with guns, girls and guitar. It’s a negative character who is highly unpredictable but, nonetheless endearing,” says Ghai. Thirty-two years after Karz, the two friends have come together again. The role calls for a bit of Kapoor’s real-self as well. “Rishi is temperamental, sensitive, unpredictable and hot-headed, but he has a golden heart, and childlike innocence,” says the director whose association with the family dates back to the Raj Kapoor days.

Another long association is being revived in Sudhir Mishra’s love story Mehrunnisa that casts Amitabh and Rishi as estranged friends. The last time he shared screen space with Bachchan was 21 years ago in Ajooba, a superhero film which tanked at the box office. But what people fondly remember are the two hits — Naseeb and Amar Akbar Anthony — based on the lost-and-found formula of Manmohan Desai .

“Mehrunnisa is about two old men who haven’t spoken to each other for 40 years following a fight over a girl whom they both loved,” says Rishi who doesn’t want to be pushed to divulge more details. A couple of days after the interview he had to leave for Lucknow for the film’s shooting.

What works for Rishi is spontaneity. He doesn’t believe in preparing for a role for days. “I would stand in front of the camera and do what I think works for the role. It has clicked all these years, so I don’t think I need to change my style,” says the veteran actor who compares himself to a fixed-price shop. “The director and producer will buy what pleases them. No haggling, no discounts, please.” This is typical Rishi Kapoor no-nonsense style, what some people often mistake as arrogance. He will patiently pose for a shoot but only till a point. “Why do you have to take so many photographs when you need barely one or two?” Seconds later, he will smile, indulgently: “They don’t have to buy film rolls these days. Now it’s just click and delete. What freedom, huh?”

Yes, times have changed, and Rishi too is enjoying a freedom he earlier couldn’t afford. It’s a freedom from the clichés that he had once come to symbolise.