It is hard to believe Shekhar Kapur is 78 now. There is a quality of uninterrupted youthfulness about him. Shekhar is naturally friendly. He doesn’t have to make an effort to be gregarious. Like his uncle Dev Anand, he is curious about other people’s lives. He asks a million questions. He wants to know about what you read, what you eat,which are your favourite films,what you think of his rather slender oeuvre, do you like Mr India more than Masoom, how many times have you seen Bandit Queen, etc etc.
In 1983 after a dodgy stint as an actor(Toote Khilone, Jaan Haazir Hai, Udaan, Swayamsiddha) Shekhar Kapoor turned director with Masoom a stellar adaptation of Erich Segal’s Man Woman & Child, which immediately established Shekhar as one of the foremost filmmaking voices in India. Erich Segal’s tearjerker novel about a family man who brings home his illegitimate child was made into an insipid Hollywood film featuring the distinguished Blythe Danner and Martin Sheen as a happily married couple who face rocky weather when he brings home a son from another mom. Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah were better .And Shekhar kapoor’s Masoom is far far better work than the original.
He followed it up four years later with the crazily endearing Mr India .As a director the most overpowering film Shekhar made was Bandit Queen. But it’s Mr India he is most known for in India. And it has grown in popularity over time.When Shekhar made Mr India he wanted to make sure that the audience remained glued to the seats for two and a half hours.To keep up that momentum for so long was tough.Even when the kids in the film were eating they were tapping the tables with spoons. It’s a very agile livewire film. Everyone is super-energetic.It’s a hyper film.
In forty years Shekhar Kapur has directed only seven feature films. Why? Because, as Sanjay Kapoor once put it rather bluntly, Shekhar is a “lazy guy”. Lazy or restless, Shekhar is now back with his first feature film in thirteen years. What’s Love Got To Do With It which reunites him with Shabana Azmi after Masoom, is Shekhar’s most charming film to date. It eschews a complicated narration in what is an essentially complicated Indo-Pak romance.
At the least, Shekhar’s fans can breathe a sigh of relief. He is not done as yet.
His dream project remains Paani which he prepped for Yash Raj films for four years with Sushant Singh Rajput and then abandoned. Shekhar was planning Paani for decades. In the period he has made only one feature film,two short films, a segment of New York, I Love You the film paying a homage to New York city in 2008, and Passage another short film for the Sarovsky company in 2009.He also directed some episodes for a series on William Shakespeare.
He is hopeful about reviving Paani soon. The theme of water shortage is so against what the studio style of filmmaking in the West that Shekhar doesn’t want to make it with their money.
Looking back during the lockdown in 2020 Shekhar told me he had no regrets about his sparse output. “I just want to be the conduit of my dreams.I have had a brilliant life. Couldn’t have asked for more.People don’t know 20% of what I did. From films to musical stage shows all over the world to being at MIT to do a series of lectures all over the world , to tech start-ups before the word start-up became popular .I’ve been an accountant, a management consultant .. . I’ve been so busy doing things .And this is the time to reflect . What is that I have not done ? What did all of that mean ? This is the time for me think about my life.Have I achieved what I wanted to?”