Rishi Kapoor, the eternal youthful lover of the ’70s

He entered fair and smiling, with sleek sideburns, wearing bell-bottoms and serenading the pretty Dimple Kapadia in the 1973 blockbuster, Bobby. Overnight, Rishi Kapoor, the younger son of showman Raj Kapoor, became the face of the youthful lover of the ’70s.

The chocolate hero had arrived and summing up his career, politician and writer Shashi Tharoor tweeted a fond tribute to his mate of Mumbai’s Campion School whom he saw evolve remarkably into a mature character actor of his later films.

But for those of us who had just joined college, Rishi was the eternal youthful lover on screen, casting a greater magic than even his father in the RK films with Nargis. Rishi had already played the clumsy, plump boy as the young Raj in the grand Mera Naam Joker that failed at the box office.

Bobby proved to be topgrossing hit of the year and the second top-grosser of the ’70s. The hugely hyped film with plenty of pre-publicity would pay off all debts of Raj Kapoor and more, besides a new hero was born in Rishi who gained as much fan-following in the Soviet Union as his father had with the 1951 film, Awara.

Bobby was released in Chandigarh’s

Jagat cinema hall and it became a phenomenon with youngsters watching it scores of times to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Dimple at sweet 16. As the fable went, one of the boys who saw it far too many times landed up in the psychiatry ward of a city hospital wailing: “Where is Bobby? Take me to her.”

Ironically, Bobby had taken the startling decision of forgetting films and marrying super star Rajesh Khanna eight months before the film was released. Many felt she had wronged the hero of her reel life to marry a man much older in real life. However, the marriage had no impact on the film that remains an ode to the young love of the ’70s.

Raj Kapoor had interwoven a romantic scene on how he went to meet Jaddan Bai at her home to ask her daughter Nargis to act in his 1948 film, Aag. Nargis, then a teenager, came to open the door and since she was frying pakodas, she had besan on her hands. While pushing her hair back, some of the batter got stuck to her forehead and the very gesture made Raj fall in love with her. So, in a way director Raj Kapoor was invoking the tried and tested charisma of Awara, in which Nargis co-starred with him, against the experimental failure of Mera Naam Joker.

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, a favourite with Raj, wrote the story, and lilting love songs were strung together by Laxmikant-Pyare Lal and are re-mixed till date with ‘Hum tum ek kamre mein band ho aur chabi kho jay’, popular on memes in this season of lockdown, too.

The pre-publicity rumour mill was working overtime as the showman was risking nothing for he had supposedly borrowed money from a notorious gangster to make Bobby. One of the stories doing the rounds was that Dimple was actually the daughter of a celebrated heroine of Raj’s. Not just the young ones, even older people were speculating if this was true and thus going to watch the film.

Yes, Bobby was a trendsetter in many ways and Rishi was the romantic hero of the decade with Neetu Singh replacing Dimple in his reel life. Neetu and Rishi went on to become partners in real life, and the rest, as they say, is history.

MANY FELT BOBBY HAD WRONGED THE HERO OF HER REEL LIFE TO MARRY A MAN MUCH OLDER IN REAL LIFE