Rishi-Amitabh Movies: A Trip Down Trivia Lane

@chintskap is his Twitter handle and he probably was the most active filmstar on Twitter. Unlike others, he did not prefer to be diplomatic and non-controversial on social media; rather he took on others head-on. He made his debut with a national award as a child actor in his Dad’s Mera Naam Joker. He also got the Filmfare Award for his debut as an actor in Bobby and the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement award in 2008. He is none other than Rishi Kapoor.

Rishi was suddenly admitted to the H N Reliance Foundation Hospital late Wednesday night and passed away a few hours later, sending shock waves throughout. Within 24 hours, the film industry lost two of its much loved actors, Irrfan and Rishi. Both were different from each other but had one strong similarity – ability to connect. They have done just one movie together and that eerily was named D-Day.

While Rishi has done just one movie with Irrfan, he has done several with Amitabh Bachchan and they were great friends.  Amitabh and Rishi has always been a hit pair. They last came together in ‘102 Not Out’, where Rishi plays a grumpy 75-year-old son of Amitabh who at 102 is a chirpy teenager. The previous movie they had done was ‘Ajooba’ 27 years back. Amitabh expressed his deep shock at Rishi moving on and used the words “I am destroyed”, which show his closeness.

To remember Rishi, let us go through a trivia journey of his movie with the great Amitabh Bachchan:

‘Kabhi Kabhi’ (1976), the first movie starring Amitabh and Rishi was a multi-starrer  and also had Shashi Kapoor, Raakhee, Waheeda Rehman and Neetu Singh. This was an important film in Amitabh’s career as it presented him in a role very different from his angry young man image. The movie consolidated Rishi-Neetu hit pair as well, as it was just after their super hit ‘Khel Khel Mein’ and ‘Rafoo Chakkar’.

‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ was the biggest hit of 1977. Rishi played Akbar while Amitabh played Anthony. The original name for Amitabh’s character was Anthony Fernandes but music directors Laxmikant-Pyarelal did not approve of the name and Pyarelal renamed it to Anthony Gonsalves after his violin teacher. In the song “My name is Anthony Gonsalves”, Amitabh speaks the famous dialogue “you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated with the exuberance of your own verbosity” with an accent and this dialogue was inspired by Disraeli speaking about Gladstone. Amitabh won the best actor award for his role. Rishi and Vinod Khanna drew applause as well.

The song “Humko tumse ho gaya hai pyar kya kare” is the only song which has the 4 legendary playback singers, Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi, Mukesh and Lata Mangeshkar, together. Kishore, Mukesh and Rafi sang for Amitabh, Vinod and Rishi while Lata sang for all the 3 heroines. During the song’s picturisation, Kishore, who had deep respect for Lata, remarked, “Three singers are required for the three heroes, but to sing with the three singers, one Devi (goddess) is enough.”

‘Naseeb’ was the next movie featuring Amitabh and Rishi. Vinod Khanna took a break from movies and was replaced by Shatrughan Sinha, otherwise Manmohan Desai had wanted the 3 heroes of ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ in ‘Naseeb’ as well. The song ‘John Johnny Janardhan’ had cameo appearances by many actors playing themselves. Since it was a Manmohan Desai film so many stars agreed that Desai had to request Raj Kapoor to coordinate and manage them. The song “Chal chal mere bhai…” showed the terrific chemistry between Amitabh and Rishi.

‘Coolie’ as a movie had the famous Amitabh fight scene where he got almost fatally injured. The entire country came to a standstill and millions prayed for the superstar. Apparently ‘Coolie’ originally had a sad ending which was changed as it was felt that the audience would not accept Amitabh’s death after rejoicing his recovery in real life. Rishi’s name in ‘Coolie’  was Sunny, as it was in ‘Naseeb’. The song “Lambuji, Lambuji, bolo Tinguji” like “Chal chal mere bhai” once again showed the terrific chemistry between the two.

‘Ajooba’ in 1991 was the last movie Amitabh and Rishi did together before 102 Not Out. Amitabh plays a masked Zorro-type hero in this fantasy. Neither Amitabh nor Rishi took fees for this movie which Shashi Kapoor had primarily made to rescue himself from his financial issues. Shashi wanted Raj Kapoor to direct the movie but due to his failing health he could not, and Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan convinced Shashi to direct it himself. Shashi wanted Sridevi to act opposite Amitabh but as she had issues in adjusting dates, Dimple Kapadia acted opposite Amitabh, and she too waived her fees.

‘102 Not Out’ was their last movie together. Unfortunately, they will not be seen in movies together again, but they have given us some good movies through which they will always be in minds together.

We love you Rishi Kapoor.