With Annu Kapoor what you see is what you get. “Achcha khana achcha lagta hai,” says the seasoned actor who is often known to be blunt with the media. “I don’t know diplomacy. Recently I tried and when the reporter said that I am trying to be diplomatic I replied yes I am being diplomatic. Sahi pehechana apne,” he relates with a wide grin. He doesn’t hold himself back even when it comes to analysing his own film. Talking about Dharam Sankat Mein , he says the director didn’t show the sincerity that was required for the subject. “After a point he started playing to the gallery.” Next week he will be seen in yet another satire Jai Ho Democracy, directed by noted theatre personality and his elder brother Ranjeet Kapoor but he reserves his judgement on the dramatic integrity of the film. “Sometimes theatre people are not able to translate the humour on big screen. I have to watch the film in entirety before commenting on it,” says the trained actor, who ironically, won his first National Award as a director for children’s film Abhay .
We are at Tamra, the new all-day dining restaurant of Shangri-La’s-Eros, and Kapoor in the city to promote Jai Ho Democracy, looks hungry. He rushes to the buffet to pick some simple vegetarian fare. “Lauki chane ki daal aur baigan ki sabzi, keep it simple,” he tells the chef before heading for the table. The hotel’s location takes this graduate of National School of Drama back in time.
“Food is something that is enjoyed in the youth. I can no longer eat rice and chapatti together. As the age increases the ability to digest decreases but the greed for good food remains. At AIFACS there used to be a dhaba. I used to have food there in Rs.1.25 in 1975. All these Bhawans that you now see in Delhi were coming up when I was at NSD and as always dhabas cropped up in their vicinity to feed the labourers. And students like us, who were always short on money, benefitted.” Alok Nath, Dolly Ahluwalia and Nina Gupta were his batch mates. “I still remember a birthday where they bought me a shirt and chappals and then took me to Majnu Ka Tila for a treat. Nina bought the chappals from Janpath.”
He reminisces there was a time when he had to go without a meal for 48 hours. “NSD was shut for holidays but we managed to stay back on the sly. There was no money to buy food. One day we survived on ‘udhar ki chai’ from the benevolent tea shop owner outside NSD. But by the next day we were famished. Suddenly we got a call from a senior lady who invited us to have food with her in Punjab Bhawan. I asked my friend to clarify the time. She said dinner and it meant it was going to be a long day. We reached early and you won’t believe that day I ate 17 chapatis at Punjab Bhawan. That is what you call hunger.”
And he has retained it all through the career without getting satiated. From Kabir and Sardar to Raincoat and Vicky Donor , Kapoor has left a stamp irrespective of the length of the character. I remind him of a one-scene performance in Gulzar’s Libaas where he stole the limelight from Naseeruddin Shah. Kapoor doesn’t remember it. All that he could recall was those were days when even Rs.3000 were paid to him in instalments. “Whom should I complain, my destiny? It gave me immense potential but not many opportunities to translate into fame and money. It also gave me a point of view that made me differentiate between right and wrong. That here you are doing dishonesty with your craft.” Despite being a favourite of directors like Shyam Benegal, who cast him in Mandi after seeing his performance in Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, Kapoor became a household name only when he hosted Antakshari on television. These days he is reaching out to the young generation with his popular radio show Suhana Safar on BIG FM. “I am glad that the channel allowed me to do it in chaste Hindi in an environment where purity of language is seen as some sort of limitation for RJs. It is a way to introduce this generation to the rich legacy of our film music. Recently, a listener from Jodhpur sent two songs of Gauri , a Guru Dutt film that never got made.”
Coming back to his early days, Kapoor took to cooking when he shifted to Curzon Road after his education at NSD. With lachcha parantha for company, Kapoor says “I learnt by observing my mother and developed some kind of proficiency in aloo matar but like most Indian families I miss the taste of my mother’s food. Indian men usually look for that taste in their wives’cooking but seldom find it. My mother passed on her skills to my sister and still when I eat something prepared by her I could feel my mother’s presence around me.” Kapoor’s mother was a teacher and he owes his proficiency in Urdu to her. “I wanted to be in Civil Services but had to join my father’s business of mobile folk theatre because of financial constraints. He was a law graduate but somehow at the insistence of his friend he put all his money into a business that he had no idea of. I had to leave my education when I was 15.” A natural from the beginning, he says even at 16 he participated in a procession after the Bangladesh War and played the role of an attorney who charges General Niazi with genocide. “I didn’t have to memorise my lines even then.”
One has to remind him that the signature Tamra chocolate has arrived and Kapoor, for once, falls for the temptation of melting chocolate.
