Hey hey hey Hey Re Sahibaan Pyar Mein Sauda Nahi

Rishi an dNeetu with Simi

Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor with ageless Simi Grewal at IFFM 2016
By Neena Badhwar
Indian Film Festival Melbourne (IFFM 2016) organised and presented by Mind Blowing Films brought Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh as its chief guests this year. And this 70s duo stole Melburnian’s hearts with their presence and class.

When Rishi Kapoor came on Bollywood scene introduced by his famous father Raj Kapoor this chubby boy was debuted in the movie ‘Mera Naam Joker’ who falls in love with his teacher, the eternal beauty of Indian cinema, Simi Grewal. She sang the song ‘teeter ke do aage teeter, teeter ke do peach teeter, bolo kitten teeter?’

And then Raj Kapoor looked for a young girl to pair with Rishi who was now a handsome young man, falls in love with the girl and must get her no matter what, who but no less, the most beautiful Dimple Kapadia as Bobby in the movie ‘Bobby’. It was early seventies then and ‘Bobby’ created box office records putting all the olympic medals in back waters. No wonder since India puts all its energies into either Bollywood or cricket, we a nation of 1.3 billion cannot even pick one olympic medal.
Coming back to Rishi Kapoor he represented the young emerging India, an India that falls in love and and gets it too. Raj Kapoor had shot the last scene  of the movie with two endings in mind. One where he killed the pair and the other where Rishi and Dimple finally get to unite.
He kept the second one.
Raj Kapoor opened up India to this new meaning of romance  where the hero or the heroine is not sacrificed in the name of love. No more of ‘Hum tujh se mohabbatt karake sanam rote hi rahe’ or ‘Aansoo bhari hai ye jeevan ki raahen’.
Raj Kapoor totally transformed the narrative of Indian love. No more the sad tragedy kings like Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar or Raj Kumar who died on the altar of love.
It was Rishi’s India and of Dimple’s who became famous as the ‘Bobby’ girl. I remember some of the young men and even women went and saw the movie in cinema halls seventeen times. There was no internet then. Dimple, by the way, had not turned even seventeen yet!
There was no stopping Rishi. He had lost bit of his chubbiness as the Kapoor features started to show and then Neetu Singh came on the scene. Surprisingly my mother-in-law always used to talk about that Neetu Singh’s mother was their neighbour in Delhi.
Rishi-Kapoor-and-Neetu-Sing
Dimple soon was carried off by Rajesh Khanna and Rishi was left high and dry with no match when Neetu Singh appeared on the scene. This buxom Punjaban filled the vacuum and the pair gave some good movies such as ‘Kabhi Kabhi’, ‘Rafoo Chakkar’, ‘Khel Khel Mein’ and many more when Neetu finally settled down with Rishi in happy matrimony. They produced one famous Kapoor in Ranbir who is ruling the roost, I mean Bollywood these days with movies such as ‘Barfi’, ‘Ye Jawani hai Dewani’, ‘Rocket Singh’, ‘PK’ and many more…
rishi and neetu and ranbir
Somehow Rishi and Neetu have been revived with now popular son Ranbir as they have done  some interesting roles in movies such as’Besharam’ and Rishi was seen recently in quite a good role in the movie ‘Kapoor & Sons’ in which famous Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was also cast as Rishi’s grandson. IFFM is a journey of Rishi from Simi Grewal to Fawad Khan who are also the guests this year.
Rishi and Neetu  even ended up in Sydney for a Meet n  Greet.
Funnily TIDU was not invited by the organisers at the behest of another publication  being involved.
I have always wondered why the insecurity.
Rishi Kapoor came at a price to meet his fans. He sang ‘Main Shayar to nahi’ and danced for them. I am sure many went mad over him and got dozens of selfies and pics with the star pair to show off on their Facebook pages. By the way he refused to get selfies. He hates selfies whereas Neetu didn’t mind the Sydney selfie seekers .
If I can meet him all I want to ask Rishi is why ‘Usko kamre mein band kar diya’ or ‘Chaabi guma di’. Do the rest of the 300,000 NRIs who saw and still see his movies have no access to him? Or did he not have anything to say to them while he is here in Australia. I am sure people were curious to know the Kapoor jhaandaan he came from, his granddad Prithivi Raj Kapoor and the great showman his father Raj Kapoor. No nothing, Rishi and Neetu went away after soem songs and soem pics with their fans.
In the end I would like to say to Rishi: ‘Hey hey hey re, Hey re sahibaan!   pyar mein sauda nahi…’

 

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