Pagla Kahin Ka: Deconstructing Shammi Kapoor

He wasn’t the greatest of movie actors. Nor was he the biggest of superstars. Yet, Shammi Kapoor was a phenomenon in a league of his own.
 
His box office reign lasted no longer than a decade and a half – from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s – and his films did not rewrite the rules of the medium in terms of either form or substance. Yet, Shammi Kapoor, as a showbiz icon, lives on to this day in our collective consciousness.
 
What is that defines the timeless Shammi Kapoor aura?
 
Pretty much in the manner in which he defied the dominant creative norms of the golden era of Hindi cinema, Shammi Kapoor has mocked at death in his own inimitable way.
 
He may have passed on into another world, but in the here and now of the Mumbai movie industry he will continue to be a constant presence owing to the spirit of rebellion that he so aggressively embodied.
 
Shammi Kapoor has made a final curtain call redundant. He hasn’t really left the frame.
 
Many in contemporary Bollywood still play, and will continue to play in the foreseeable future, by the rules that he laid down way back in the 1960s.           
 
So we will continue to see the reflections of Shammi Kapoor in starry mannerisms on the big screen and in the strains and rhythms of Hindi film music in one form or other as long as Bollywood, as we know it, survives.
 
In his screen avatar, Shammi Kapoor personified the bold, brash post-economic liberalisation breed of young Indians all of three decades before it actually came into existence. Rock drummer, nightclub crooner, well-heeled gadfly, lovelorn dandy, loquacious, loose-limbed, livewire ladykiller – he was all this and... well, he was just this and nothing else. And that is precisely made Shammi Kapoor what he was, rather what he is...
 
When Guru Dutt was humming Chaudhvin ka chand ho ya aftaab ho/ jo bhi ho tum Khuda ki kasam lajawaab ho (Chaudvin Ka Chand, 1960) with all his wistful romanticism, Shammi Kapoor was unabashedly belting out Dil deke dekho, dil deke dekho ji (Dil Deke Dekho, 1959) and Aai aai ya karoon main kya suku suku (Junglee, 1961).
 
The singing voice for the two actors was the same: Mohammad Rafi. But the tone and tenor were different and not without reason. Guru Dutt and Shammi Kapoor were ideologically and artistically worlds apart.
 
The sensitive Guru Dutt was weighed down by the emotions that the world imposed on him; the suave, swashbuckling Shammi Kapoor revolted against the compulsions of the times.      

  
He was a one-of-a-kind movie star who followed absolutely no rules except those that he deemed to embrace. He was Hindi cinema’s first “me-first” megastar.
 
He was just the stuff that authentic pin-up boys are made of. His dashing looks, rugged charm, rakish gait, light eyes and nimble feet made him a dream come true for millions of swooning fans.
 
When Shammi Kapoor arrived on the scene, the reigning stars played characters with a point of view. He changed all that: he played himself in film after film, no strings attached.
 
In doing so, he foreshadowed the emergence of Bollywood’s completely ‘apolitical’ male stars of the 1990s and beyond, the likes of Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar, who built their careers almost entirely around the telescoping of their own individual personalities into their larger-than-life screen roles.    
 
When Shammi was on the screen, his was a deliberate act of virile physicality designed to grab instant attention. You couldn’t take your eyes off him for fear of missing the magic of an out-of-blue antic here or an exaggerated swagger there that he would probably never ever repeat again.
 
Every swish of the arm, every nod of the head and every twist of the hip would happen in a flash, creating an aura of dramatic spontaneity that has never been replicated by any Mumbai actor before or since.  
 
The Shammi Kapoor phenomenon was probably just waiting to happen. India had just gained independence after two centuries of British rule and had, as state policy, embarked on a path of Nehruvian socialism.
 
Many Hindi films of the era reflected the collective existential angst of a country coming to grips with its chequered past, negotiating its uncertain present and seeking to shape its immediate future. The destiny of the nation was uppermost in the minds of many a Mumbai filmmaker and movie star of the 1950s.
 
Raj Kapoor was the quintessential tramp at odds with the world, Dev Anand the enigmatic romantic hero and Dilip Kumar the anguish-ridden tragedy king: each of them revealed an aspect of India through his screen persona.
 
Shammi Kapoor was a born rebel. He had no patience for articulating social or political lines. He wanted his own pound of flesh and pursued it with the zest of a bloodhound.  
 
There was space for “sheer entertainment”. The films of Shammi Kapoor provided just that. India was in the throes of rapid urbanisation and rural displacement, creating a restless mass of urban youth looking for avenues of expression and ready to sway to a defiant new beat.
 
Shammi Kapoor stepped into the breach. He was a spirit set free from emotional, historical and ideological baggage. The titles of his films – Junglee, Jaanwar, Budtameez, Pagla Kahin Ka – said it all. His primal on-screen cry of “Yahoo” reflected the youthful yearning for a release from all burdens of past and present.    
 
Without obviously being aware of what he was out to achieve, Shammi Kapoor anticipated not just the direction that the nation was going to take in subsequent decades but also the very contours that Hindi cinema and Mumbai film music would assume in the future. He was a significant signpost in more ways than one.
 
It is, therefore, quite natural that the star’s iconic stature in entertainment folklore far outstrips the intrinsic quality of his movies and his own abilities as an actor.