A TRIBUTE TO SHASHI KAPOOR BOLLYWOOD'S FIRST& BEST CROSSOVER STAR!l

a TRIBUTE TO THE MOST HANDSOME ELEGANT and talented Kapoor ,who produced and acted in the best BOLLY crossover cinema to date , Shashi might not be the director his brother RAJ was but in acting he is the best of the Kapoor men , from heat and dust to junoon ,and kabhi kabhi to muhafiz , he called the shots , his best were his own productions JUNOON and KALYUG with BENEGAL , BUT he made bombay talkies and householder in 60s with ivory merchant and siddhatha in 70 with ROOKS ,all for Hollywood and European cinema , just as heat and dust , he will be remembered for all these achievements by cine goers who are connoisseurs and like classy cinema , he was extremely suave and sophisticated , enough to marry Jennifer kendall , daughter of sir Geoffrey kendall , but sharmila and shabana made sure they used him every inch despite his somewhat happy marriage ,he was rather unfortunate at box office , loads of flops finally gave way to few hits with Amitabh after deewar and trishul , but it was short lived , after shaan and silsila , the flop curse struck again , Shashi despite being immensely handsome , talented and suave was too westernised and indian audience never accepted him in the top three stars bracket like dharm ,rajesh and Amitabh ,yet TIME magazine contacted him for their bolly cover story in 1977 , he recommended parveen babi for cover shot and TIME agreed and he gave an extremely candid view of Bollywood as the brainless bullshit it was to them , it was a revelation and not many were pleased but he did not care ,he was rumoured to have signed 130 movies at that time , most never went to even the shooting stage, but he succeeded in making JUNOON ,KALYUG AND 36 CHOWRINGHEE LANE , all are great cinema and will be remembered , IN HINDI , mostly he worked in social dramas and action formula comedy potboilers with Amitabh , and their pair was successful initially , but latter they made huge flops together and ended up on tethers , AJOOBA was a disaster that was produced by Shashi and led to him retiring ,it bankrupted him and his sons were both unable to become stars in bolly , his movies with rekha , vijeta and a period drama about ancient india flopped too ,and finally it called for the curtain to fall but he has enough ART to be remembered for with his merchant ivory and benegal movies alone ---RIP ! the movie JUNOON ,KENDALL CLAN IN A GREAT CLASSIQUE-This exquisitely penned and shot movie about a love affair between an english beauty and a muslim nawab desperately in love with her is appropriately titled -obsession. Indeed it is a labor of love for both Shashi Kapoor and Shyam benegal who produced ,acted ,scripted and directed it as a magnificent duo. The pristine Urdu dialogue and the ambience of the arsticratic Pathans from Oudh is mesmerising and the period details are fascinating as well as accurate . The 1857 revolt is violently depicted and the repercussions and causes discussed fluidly in everyday life rather than politically as they effect the common people. The interaction between muslims ,hindus and the english is brilliantly captured and the community shown in turmoil and torn apart in a truly turbulent moment . But what makes this a great classic is the haunting love between a married man and a girl who can only understand the way he looks at her and his love which becomes more than lust and almost spiritual as the story evolves and concludes to a great final act . The music is truly great classic indian folk and qawwali and the poetry is from Khusro and Jigar moradabadi composed in a creative frenzy by the genius of Vanraj bhatia . The dialogues are in perfect Urdu and penned by Ismat Chughtai and the hindi portion by Pundit dubey ,the novel by ruskin bond is truly brought to life in an almost origonal script by benegal with a great cast. Shabana plays the first muslim wife who hates the english because her husband wants to marry a white girl ,Shashi is the heart and soul as the dashing nawab javed who is bound between tradition ,honour and his duty but totally lost in his obsession . Naseer plays a zealous muslim revolutionary and Smita patil is an ordinary household maid in a memorable cameo along with Jennifer kendall who plays mrs.labadoor with a great finesse as the mother of ruth ,the girl played memorably by Nafisa Ali who is at the centre of this whole controversy . The religious and political issues are so easily discussed as are the racial differences and the negative feelings that exist between the anglos and indians . the movie becomes a beautiful truth by remaining true to itself and is true art without trying to become artistic as it is a very engrossing human drama in it's own right as great cinema .