Jab Pyar Kisise Se Hota Hai

When I was small, I remember my sister taking perverse pleasure in teasing me with “Bharat loves Bharti” and “Bharti loves Bharat”. It wouldn’t have been that annoying had I known that I would marry someone named Bharat, and make that statement come true, which would have been the ultimate revenge.

But the Bharat she was referring to was Bharat Bhushan. Ewww. Double ewww and ulti.

Every time she pushed my buttons, I would stomp my foot, throw a tantrum and cry. She would grab all the good-looking guys for herself - Shashi Kapoor, Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney ... and I was left scraping the bottom of the barrel: Pradeep Kumar, Joy Mukherjee and Biswajeet. Triple eww.

Except with Shammi Kapoor - a love affair which continues today. Crazy as a coot, and not as serious as his brother Raj or as handsome as the other brother Shashi, but oh so lovable with his manic energy and trademark wacky swagger. Salman Khan tried to do a pathetic imitation in the new Bollywood “Jab Pyar Kisise Se Hota Hai” and failed miserably. And ripping his shirt open wouldn’t have helped him either. What made Shammi Kapoor even more endearable was his impersonation of Elvis in "Dil Dekhe Dekho", singing Meri Neeta, a copy of Paul Anka’s Diana and the outright plagiarism of the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand (Dekho Abt To in “Janwar”).

My uncle was in the film business and he and my dad were on first name terms with the Who’s Who in the film world. We heard names like Mehboob Khan (his wife came every year to tie Rakhi on Dad) and the Chopra brothers (B.R and Yash) and Gulshan Rai, without knowing who they really were, and famous actors, who we occasionally ran into when we went to Film Centre, to see the color trial runs of the movies. My uncle had established the first color processing laboratory in Southeast Asia and till today, it is a thrill to see ‘Processed at Film Centre’ in the title credits of the old movies. We were never allowed to attend the glamorous parties given at White House, given our youth and the fact that Bollywood (although the term was coined in the 1970s) was portrayed as the Big Bad World out there.

Motakaka and Dad did let us, however, peek in at times, and sit in the foyer, as the celebrities traipsed in and out. One evening, I hit gold, as Shammi Kapoor passed by. Seeing me reading comics in the dim light, he patted me on the head and said, “Bacché! You will spoil your eyes!” I was pretty upset when Vishnu insisted I wash my hair the next day for school.

Raj Kapoor’s and the singer Mukesh’s daughters went to our school -Walsingham. I remember the driver and the ayah sitting with Dabbu and Chintu in the car, waiting for school to let out. How they drove all the way from Chembur to Nepean Sea Road every day boggles the mind. Were they to try that run today, it would take them a good two hours one way.

Snobbery ran deep in us. Dev Anand once rang the doorbell at our house and Varsha opened the door. Pretending she did not recognize him, she left him standing outside and yelled to Dad that ‘someone’ was here to see him. His ego now deflated like a punctured balloon, Dad said the actor did not talk to him for years.

When starstruck, out-of-town guests pressed Dad to arrange outings to film shootings, Dad forced us to accompany them and we went grudgingly. I remember having nightmares for days when we took in the shooting of Sadhana (actually a puppet stand-in) plunging to her death from a chandelier in “Woh Kaun Thi.”

There is only that much you could take of a Hindi melodrama. In my days, almost every movie had the same hackneyed, cloying plot: a romance between a rich boy and poor girl, or vice versa. Enter villain. Enter long-lost twin/father/mother ... with the staple “Ek andheri raat thi” flashback. Introduce twist in already complicated plot. Introduce innumerable songs sung in a variety of costumes in totally deserted gardens (where do you find a deserted garden in India?) and infinite number of coincidences, a long fight sequence (guess who always won?), a court scene (peppered with “Objection, Your Honor!”), the police chase (with Iftekar as the staple Inspector, rapping his baton on an open palm), and ending with a tearful, mawkish reunion. There were no sad endings, unless the producers wanted a flop on their hands. Intermissions gave you the opportunity to take a restroom break and a bag of salty, stale popcorn. Two and a half hours later, the lights would go on. Two and a half hours you would never get back of your life.

There was no kissing (nothing past first base if even that), but we knew exactly what went on when the couple ducked behind a bush/tree, and two butterflies/birds flew out. Things got really progressive and ooooh! so scandalous when the movie “Aradhana” showed a steamy love scene. It went through the whole sequence of the storm, the wet clothes, the crackling fire, the revealing towel, the open shirt (and hairy chest), and relentless necking which led to ... spoiler alert! ... a surprise nine months later. Rajesh Khanna seemed to have the gratifying (for himself and pubescent boys in the audience) habit of singing in the rain with his heroines in wet, clingy clothes - (Do Raaste, Shehzada, Apna Desh, Ajnabee, Roti, Prem Kahani), that I am surprised he didn’t catch pneumonia.

The most popular villain those days was portrayed by a thespian called Pran. Here’s a guy you never want to meet in a dark alley: the pencil-thin mustache, which he twirled incessantly with the trademark evil sneer and the beady eyes – one smaller than the other.

It was an odd coincidence that every time Pran made an on-screen appearance, my cousin had to take a bathroom break, especially during his attempts to rape the heroine. If he succeeded, the subtle inference was from the tears, the rent sari and the smudged bindi. It came as a shock to hear that Pran’s real-life persona was in total contrast to his screen image. Nevertheless, seeing him on the screen and in my nightmares was enough reason not to want to meet him in a dark alley or anywhere else.


By the way ... I got over being teased about Bharat Bhushan. But the “Bharti loves Bharat” still holds true.