Romance in India died a little with the going of Rishi Kapoor and Irrfan Khan. Female fans of the actors are left heartbroken.
Rishi stood for the aspirational romantic – every woman of that era wanted a boyfriend just like him. Handsome, emotional, matching dance steps with heroine, he was the ultimate suitor. He was also Bollywood royalty, spelling class, bank balance and holidays abroad. His wooing would always be flamboyant, aimed at reducing us to estrogen puddles. The One who will come rushing through the airport after our flight is announced to stop us from leaving the country. He mutates, in cinematic terms, into other lover boys, culminating in Imran Khan of Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na. Full of sweet gestures, soulful eyes, and uncontrolled passion.
Irrfan came in from nowhere superimposing our clichéd notions of love with some down to earth brooding. Suddenly we wanted that grounded guy, who would pause rather than make promises that we now know can never be kept by a mere man. He is the quintessential prodigal returning to catalogue his human failures; he will never brag, his idea of romance being to call us when he is dying in a hospital faraway just to say a quiet hi, like in Namesake.
To female moviegoers, these two represented two ends of the male arc. The man you covet and the man you end up with. There is also the small matter of both actors occupying the same mould briefly, with Rishi breaking away from the chocolate boy image and essaying serious opinionated roles towards the end. And there are moments one reminds us of the other; Rishi singing main shayar to nahi could well be an introverted Irrfan trying to reconcile himself to his loneliness and sudden attraction to a house-help. But by and large their time frames and appeal to the opposite sex remain polar opposites.
The Irrfan of Lunchbox was who the modern woman understood from her vantage view of long-running marriages, no rose-tinted glasses in sight. He came in unobtrusively, typically low profile, with all the gravitas of a good listener. He did not make you feel foolish or giddy, radiating instead the realness of meaningful connections. With him it was always one on one, even if you were sitting in an audience of two hundred watching him on screen.
Rishi called out to the Laila in you, the Juliet. He swept you off your feet. He was Prince Charming holding the shoe you left behind at the ball. He drove a magic carpet, his eyes never left yours for a second. You knew your mother would no longer call you a loser if you took him home.
Rishi would always be your first love, that crush you mooned over, who’d take you away from drudgery and keep you in a palace. Irrfan is the man who asks you to split the cafe bill while dating and the house rent post-marriage. Rishi is who you fantasize about while quietly bringing up kids with Irrfan.
Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is the co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
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