With waves of nostalgia swirling around Nargis and Raj Kapoor on June 1 and 2 — her birth anniversary and his death, one remembered the afternoon of May 3, 1981. Nargis’s once vibrant face lay lifeless in Sunil Dutt’s Pali Hill bungalow. She’d lost her battle with pancreatic cancer.

One also recalled how the silences and whispers characteristic of a funereal crowd were suddenly replaced with excitement as cameras surged forward in the afternoon heat. They had to capture the entry of Raj Kapoor as he turned up in his fresh white kurta and dark glasses.

Twenty three years of marriage to Sunil Dutt and three children later, the RK-Nargis relationship still had news value. Their ardour had been doused decades ago and, years later, Nargis and Raj Kapoor had matured to a stage where they were on talking terms and could be civil with each other. But they were still headline-worthy. So when RK came to bid Nargis a final goodbye, it was an unmissable moment.

However, what lived on more than all the gossip was the touching visual of an empty chair when Sunil Dutt went ahead with the premiere of his son’s debut film Rocky, on May 7, four days after Nargis had passed on.

All deaths are poignant but Nargis’s departure got an extra touch of pathos when Sunil Dutt placed an empty chair between him and Sanju at the premiere. Watching Sanju debut on the big screen had been her dream. The seat was for her, like she was sitting between her two favourite men to watch the dream that she didn’t live long enough to see. That empty chair is still the most used visual every year when her death or birth anniversary comes around. Incidentally, today is Sunil Dutt’s 92nd birth anniversary.

Sanju’s mother missing his first premiere by barely 100 hours was the most moving debut one had seen. Little did one know that one would be witnessing the same sad moment twice over a few decades on.

Like Nargis, Mona Kapoor was also rapidly sinking with the same dreaded disease. I recall a dinner I’d hosted for close friends where Mona had come baring her shaved head in public for the first time. She too knew that time was running out for her. Taking a break from norm — Yash Raj Films never screened an unreleased film for any family member — Aditya Chopra had arranged a special show of Ishaqzaade only for Mona. She thus got to see her son Arjun’s debut film. A timely gesture by YRF because Mona passed away on March 25, 2012; Ishaqzaade released on May 11.

Mona had been anxious because, unlike Sanju who was launched with parental love by Sunil Dutt, father Boney was not launching their son, and she’d heaved a sigh of relief when Arjun had auditioned and got a break from YRF. Ishaqzaade was successful but to not be around to see Arjun get his share of fame made Mona’s farewell that much more poignant. As Arjun put it at that time, the release was a “bitter-sweet” moment for him.

Nargis was only 51 when she died. Mona had not even hit the half-century mark.

In 2012, while one could understand Arjun’s grief, nobody could foresee that a similar storm would hit the same family within six years. Nargis and Mona had been ailing, everybody knew they’d slip away any moment. But when the Kapoor family gathered in the UAE for the wedding celebrations of nephew Mohit Marwah, nobody could have foreseen that it would end in tragedy.

Sridevi’s accidental death at 54 on February 24, 2018, was déjà vu time for Arjun as he saw his half-sister Janhvi in exactly the same heart-breaking situation he had been in six years ago. Janhvi’s debut film Dhadak was released five months later. Like Nargis and Mona, Sri too wasn’t around to share the excitement of her daughter’s debut.

Sometimes, dreams leave a hole in the heart.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author