THE LAMENT - The Pain Beyond The Loss

Cancer feels even more challenging when even the most privileged like Rishi Kapoor and Irrfan Khan don’t recover

- AMIT VAIDYA

Let’s face it. No matter how unattached we think we are from celebrity culture, we all collectively embrace it, or else we’d not indulge ourselves by experiencing different forms of art. So, when a highly-decorated versatile actor (dare I say the most internationally acclaimed and known actor of our time), and one of the most underrated but wildly-celebrated actors pass away within a day of each other, and the common thread between both men is film and cancer, you can’t help but pair them as two legends and one loss.

For me, Rishi Kapoor was my childhood. He stood in stark contrast to Amitabh Bachchan, who had succeeded with his “angry young man” persona. Kapoor was the quintessential romantic comedy hero before we even knew that genre existed. His innocence, his smile, his personality, was so effortless, that we found ourselves mesmerised by his charm, but not necessarily honouring him for his talent. That would change in the 1990s, with Shah Rukh Khan, who took the mantle away from Kapoor. With that, we also began to recognise the acting chops required to be such a personality. Karz is the film forever entrenched in my memory of Kapoor's. It was one of the first VHS tapes my family had, and I think I could recite every scene, every song by heart. As of late, Kapoor reinvented himself, moving away from being typecast as just the father of the next generation of romantic heroes, but as a no-holds-barred character actor, finally getting the chance to shine, and also achieve critical recognition for his work in films such as Kapoor & Sons and Mulk.