Long before Aamir Khan strummed the guitar to instant stardom in Qayamat se Qayamat Tak and Karan Johar gave Indian cinema frothy films with beautiful locales and pretty boys, there was Rishi Kapoor. He was the original romantic hero with a knockout smile and deadly dance moves. And the love of my life.

My parents didn’t watch too many Hindi films when I was young, and so neither did I. But they did go to see a film called Bobby and came back raving. A family friend wanted to see it too but didn’t have company, so I was sent as a seat-filler. The movie or its young heroine in her polka-dotted dress didn’t move me particularly, but my baby heart beat a little faster every time the pink-lipped Rajababa came on the screen.

A few years later, I had to escort another aunt to a film. I knew nothing about it, nor did I particularly care till I realized that the hero was the chocolate boy hero from Bobby. Research tells me that the film was called Zinda Dil. All I remember from that time was my indignation at the parental injustice shown by the father to young Rishi Kapoor in the film. The father (Pran, as it turns out) had already earned my dislike in Bobby; now I positively detested him.

The die was cast.

I was officially in love with Chintubaba, as the magazines called him. A voracious reader, I devoured every word I could find on him. We didn’t get film magazines at home but, fortunately, I needed to visit the dentist frequently for my braces back then, and did all my reading there.

Thanks to the dentist, I knew about Raffoo Chakkar and Khel Khel Mein when they came along. But I couldn’t persuade my parents to let me see them. And no one could stop me from watching Laila Majnu, which I went to see with my best friend.

(Pic: Wikipedia)

Pic: IMDB

Young ladies didn’t go for movies alone in the small town in Uttar Pradesh where I grew up, so my brother’s nanny was sent as our escort. That would have been all right, except Aai cried so much and so loudly when Majnu died that I could have died too—of mortification.

By now, my love for Rishi Kapoor was public.

At book shops, I sighed and mooned over film magazines carrying his articles and posters till my mother gave in and bought them for me. I immediately cut out the pictures and pasted them on my bedroom walls.

I also started wearing my watch on my right wrist, a la Chintubaba.

I wasn’t a very demanding young girl but I insisted on watching every new Rishi-starrer that came along. I didn’t just watch the celebrated ones like Kabhie Kabhie, Hum Kisise Kam Nahin and Karz, I also watched (and loved) films like Barood. The super-successful Sargam and Prem Rog were appreciated by everyone but me. A rural milieu was not my thing, nor Rishi Kapoor’s, I felt.

Doosra Aadmi is one film I can’t ever forget, and not because of its unusual story line and evocative music. Once again, Aai had been sent to the movie-theatre with me, and she let out a huge shriek the first time Chintubaba came on the screen. She had seen him dying in Laila Majnu, you see, and was convinced that she was seeing a ghost. All my explanations about cinema couldn’t convince her, and she sat with her face hidden in her hands the whole movie.

Needless to say, I refused to take her for any more films after that.

I must mention here that I formed a Rishi Kapoor fan club of one. Not a single friend or family-member liked my hero. My best friend, who used to go to the movies with me initially, had also gone over to the smouldering Amitabh Bachchan camp, and joined the other girls in making fun of my pretty-looking heartthrob. (I understand now why I didn’t care much for the multi-hero films in which Rishi Kapoor starred; there was too much post-viewing comparison and criticism from my friends to deal with.)

Kapoor and Sons (Pic: Wikipedia)

The pain in my heart eased years later, when someone took a Danielle Steele film and turned it into a Rishi-Poonam Dhillon-Tina Munim starrer, which my now-teenage friends all loved. By then, my Rishi Kapoor fever had dimmed a bit. Still, Yeh Vaada Raha and Saagar evoked a mild flutter of the heart at the remembrance of passion past.

The harsh realities of life caught up with me post-Nineties, and wiped away my old obsession. I watched only a few Hindi films, and none of them starred Rishi Kapoor.

In recent years, however, I’ve seen and marvelled at the actor’s masterful performance in films such as Agneepath, Mulk and Kapoor and Sons. I’ve also admired his forthrightness in TV interviews and clever lines on Twitter.

But it wasn’t till today, when I heard about his passing and flashes of his old movies pulsed through my head, that I realised how special ‘Rajababa’ still is to me, and how much I don’t want to let go.

If life gave me a chance to sing one of his own songs to him, it could only be this: Kahin na ja, aaj kahin mat ja.

• (The writer is a Delhi-based writer-editor who cut her teeth in journalism at The Telegraph)