King Sasha!

Shahid Kapoor joins Hitlist editor Mayank Shekhar for the latest edition of Sit with Hitlist. Pics/Ashish Raje, Aishwarya Deodhar

It was around when he was about six or seven, Shahid Kapoor recalls, his father Pankaj Kapur took him out to New Delhi's popular food joint, Nirula's, for a meal. Unbeknownst to what would hit them, the two were suddenly surrounded by "a hundred people, who'd picked up gajar [carrots], and were charging at them on their restaurant table - almost like zombies, going, Hehehe…. Gajar khaiye, gajar, hehehe…"

"Par mein bete ke saath pizza kha raha hoon [But I'm having pizza with my son]," Pankaj Kapur shot back. But no avail. The public was, of course, responding to Pankaj Kapur's iconic role of Detective Karamchand, and his love for gajar, in the 1980s, on Doordarshan.

Father-son had to eventually rush out of Nirula's. Shahid told his dad, who was visiting him from Bombay then, to never take him out again! "By virtue of distance, the interaction between him and me was anyway limited."

Shahid's parents had separated/divorced, when he was quite young. He was then growing up in Delhi, with his mother, Neelima Azeem, and his maternal grandparents, who were both journalists with the Russian publication, Sputnik.

Sasha, that's the "ghar ka naam" his grandparents gave him - and that his tribe of fans, self-named Shanatics, call Shahid by - is also a common Russian name, he points out.

It was only when he turned 10, that Shahid also moved to Bombay to be with his mom, a trained classical/Kathak dancer, who was looking at a career in acting.

Shahid himself was one of the top dancers at Shiamak Davar's dance academy - moving up from the back rows, at dance performances, to the front row, and eventually becoming a trainer at the institute, "which is how it works at Shiamak's school; you have to prove yourself, every step of the way."

In fact, if you notice closely, you can find Shahid dancing in the group in Subhash Ghai's Taal (1999), even Yash Chopra's Dil Toh Paagal Hai (1997). On stage, he was ecstatic to be "moving right behind Aishwarya Rai, Salman Khan, at popular award shows." By 16, Shahid says, he was already earning enough to manage without pocket money from home, "even help out with the household income."

A picture, from a trivia night, we show Shahid, is of him with actor Ayesha Takia. They're both such lovely children, posing with coffee mugs to the TV screen. Shahid and Ayesha were the OG: "I'm a Complan boy, she's a Complan girl!"

He laughs, "Ayesha was a really big [child] star at the time. We had to wait for her to turn up on the set, while I got my solo shots done!" But these were "one-off appearances on screen, because I was a cute kid, and someone or the other saw and cast me." His mom was clear she didn't want him to get full-time with commercial/advertising work still.

Cut to: 2003. Which is when I first met Shahid, seated quietly at the reception area of the mid-day newspaper office, in Lower Parel. A publicist had called to check if I might be free to say hi to a young kid he'd brought along. I was a young recruit/intern type at that office myself.

Having stepped out for a minute as a favour to the publicist, you could see other people quizzically wondering who this boy in their midst was. They had seen him somewhere, just not sure where.

"Back then, before there was social media, it used to take years for you to reach out to people. Now, it can happen in weeks and months," Shahid recalls. The exact date for that first meet-up is not hard to figure. Shahid says his debut film, as lead, the teenage romcom, Ken Ghosh's Ishq Vishk, released on May 9, 2003.

On that Friday, he'd excitedly gone over to Bombay's Sterling cinema to watch himself on the big screen for the first time: "Between noon, and when the film finished, while I had just been around doing nothing, the people's perception of me had totally changed. Barricades were put up. I was too young, at 23 - which from an exposure point of view, is very different from how 23-year-olds are, now. And I thought, oh, wow, is this what stardom is?"

That ‘media round' must've taken place a couple of days after. Which is almost exactly 20 years since, that we're recording the episode of Sit with Hitlist, at the mid-day office again (this time in Bandra East).

Only that Shahid is full of confident banter that's hard to reproduce in text - he's a major Bollywood star (with over 50 releases to his credit). Having been through a "turbulent journey, of ups and downs", and indeed a cracker, eclectic career - over those two decades.

Starting out as the ‘chocolate boy' romantic lead (Ishq Vishk to Jab We Met), graduating to a more action/masala hero (Bloody Daddy, his last release), and even layered parts, whether on the big screen (Kaminey to Kabir Singh), or OTT platforms/series (Farzi).

Shahid Kapoor's blockbuster movies, Jab We Met (2007) and Vivaah (2006)

Even at the beginning of his stint, young Shahid never introduced himself as son of the great Pankaj Kapur. We might have seen him differently. It was a conscious, self-respecting call he had taken - of making it on his own.

For four years, Shahid remembers, between age 18 and 22, he'd simply been incessantly screen-testing for parts: "I like the word ‘struggler', they use [only] for aspiring actors. It's true. It's a life full of rejections. Four years means about 1,200 days - and I would have easily given about 200 auditions."

None of those films apparently made anybody's career, so he's glad for it. One of which, Shahid says, he rejected himself - N Chandra's Style (2001), because he was clear, even at that age, that he would debut only as the solo-lead.

It's another matter, he says, that once Ishq Vishk did well, commercially - he was considered too young for producers to cast opposite existing, established female leads: "They'd rattle out names of three-four popular, female stars, and say, ‘You'll look like a kid with them! Where's your ‘mardaangi' [manliness]? There was no work for my age-bracket, and for the way I looked."

Also, he submits, there was a perception in Bollywood at the time, that a star was born, at best, only once every half a decade: "And Hrithik [Roshan] had already become huge [with Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai] in 2000. Vivek Oberoi quickly followed [with Company] in 2002. So, apparently [by law of averages], I didn't stand a chance!"

Of course, all these rules are assumptive. They fail in the face of public choice, which is impossible to predict. Another such rule I point out to Shahid is how, when it comes to a loyal female following - the credibility built from a particular film cements it so much for a male lead sometimes, it can easily lead last them a lifetime.

Take Ryan Gosling, for instance. Take The Notebook (2004) out of his filmography. And he wouldn't garner half the female fans that's stuck around him since. Likewise, with Shah Rukh Khan, and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). The connect is irreversible. The persona sustains.

I wonder if it's the same relationship with the female demographic that Shahid attained with Imtiaz Ali's Jab We Met (2007), first. He says, "I know Jab We Met gets a lot of credit [as it should]. But let's not forget Vivaah [2006]. It was a small-budget film - by the legendary [producers] Barjatyas' standards.

"Their [more expensive film, with modern sensibilities] Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon had just failed. Sooraj [Barjatya] and his father [Raj Kumar Barjatya] were planning to do a movie, with new actors, to test their original, traditional lower middle-class audiences/sensitivities. Vivaah is the last Indian movie to do a ‘silver jubilee' (25-week run in theatres)," Shahid claims.

Audiences like me, of course, remember him more for Vishal Bhardwaj's Kaminey (2009) - decidedly from the dark side of the moon, which was as diametrically a U-turn for his onscreen image.

We wonder how different could it be to be on a Barjatya set, over Bhardwaj's: "Chalk and cheese. Vishal doesn't like anything sweet. He'd keep asking me to go ‘kamina'. Sooraj would want me to throw way all city [slicker] influences, and be sweet. It's schizophrenic [to be on both sets]!"

As for Imtiaz Ali, Shahid recalls, "He was a new director, when he came to me. The first thing that struck me was how good-looking he was, himself, [lost] in his dreamy thoughts.

"Then the fact that he narrated out of a bound script, which wasn't common. Back then, you heard a 30 to 40-minute narration that the director would then develop, if you said yes [to it].

"The script had ‘Geet' written on it. I asked him, ‘What does this mean?' He said that's the heroine's name. I told him, ‘The next time you go to a hero - don't go with a script with the heroine's name on it!'

The next time, he came to me with the same script, he had ‘The Train' written on it," Shahid laughs.

Eventually they settled on Jab We Met, because big daddy Pankaj Kapur came up with the title over dinner: "I was telling him about how I want an English-Hindi mixed title, and what the story was about.

He said, call it Jab We Met." Which was one of the titles entered into a public poll held by a newspaper. "The other was Bhatinda Express. The third one I don't recall. People picked Jab We Met!"

Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Shahid Kapoor in Vishal Bhardwaj's Kaminey (2009)

As for his female following - evidenced from the fact that this conversation itself is being recorded with an all-women audience - Shahid attributes much to his more recent, by far the biggest hit of his career, Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Kabir Singh (2019), as well.

The film was a scene-by-scene remake of Arjun Reddy in Telugu, by the same director. So Shahid knew exactly what he was walking into - the part of a drug-addled abusive boyfriend, that remains his most controversial yet. So much so that it's been four years, and he feels the need to defend it still.

He says, "There were so many people refusing to accept that people are liking the film. I was like, ‘Arey bhai, logon ko acchi lag rahi hai, tum log baithe ho apni [high] chair mein - suggesting, how dare you like the film? Well, accept it."

He's also willing to engage on the criticism. Which is perhaps not that people were refusing to acknowledge the commercial numbers/footfalls. But that the film was about the sort of character, who may exist in real life, surely. But who was instead being lauded as a hero of sorts. That was the issue that some people may have had with arguably a misogynist subject.

Shahid disagrees, "Well, Kabir slaps the girl [Kiara Advani]. She slaps him back. But when he slaps her, it is so shocking that it stays with you, and it disturbs you, right? Everything that happens to him after in his life, is a downward spiral. Until the last moment when somehow, the girl agrees to be with him! He is a complete mess. A very cinematic character. It is like Taxi Driver, or Scarface."

The deranged Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in Taxi Driver ultimately kills himself, though. "Kabir Singh is actually about how everyone should get a second chance. In love, who hasn't messed up? And if you see it, right from the promo - at no point is it being said that he is a great guy.

"I'm nothing like him. But as an actor, it's my job to play different characters. You don't have to like him. You should like my performance. He's not the hero. He's the protagonist."

Which can be said of Shahid's equally messed up, Punjabi hip-hop star, Tommy Singh, from Abhishek Chaubey's Udta Punjab (2016). What did he find in common between both the characters?

"Nothing, besides that they are both Singhs," Shahid laughs. "There is a scene [in Udta Punjab], where Tommy says that he's never done anything for anyone else. And that he must [for Alia Bhatt's character]. He's been completely self-centred. Which is how he's different from Kabir, who gives it all [for his love]. And she's nice enough to have him back. Love stories must end with a note of hope."

The other thing common between Tommy and Kabir is, of course, that they are both substance abusers, isn't it? "Yes." Played by an actor, who's a sworn vegan, and teetotaler! It's something you don't associate with movie-stars still. "You can call me boring, I don't mind," Shahid smiles.

The other thing unusual for a movie star is getting into an arranged marriage, which is what Shahid made as a life-decision, when he married young Mira Rajput, in 2015.

"Well, if you'd asked me then, I'd have said arranged marriages don't make sense to me, either. But it happened [organically]." He says they met through family: "We were part of the same spiritual group that I was obviously aware of. She was all of 20 years old. I was 34. I was a little embarrassed [about that].

"But I was really looking for someone who could understand both aspects of my life - the spiritual side, and that I'm an actor [a public figure]. She was genuinely interested in figuring me out as a person.

And you can tell, when these things are real. She was not affected [by my profession]."

The first time they got on the phone, Shahid remembers, they spoke for seven hours straight. He knew he'd found the one. He feels the same way about her family, that he treats as his own: "They're very classy, and sorted people."

During the two years of the pandemic, Shahid says, he stayed over with his in-laws' throughout, in a place called Dera, in Punjab: "We had reached there, just three days before the lockdown got announced."

A token of our appreciation to Shahid Kapoor

A few years back, Shahid had recounted to us a trigger point on this aspect of his life. He'd been single for a while. He was returning home, alone, having had won the Filmfare Award for Vishal Bhardwaj's Haider (2014).

That big night, he slept with his statuette. Acknowledging a thing amiss, that he must do something about: "I felt the need for a companion. But even then, I didn't know I'd find a perfect life-partner. It's tough."

Up until then, you could describe Shahid as ‘seriously monogamous': "I had always been that guy in my 20s - in long, settled relationships." The other aspect that early success in showbiz thankfully affords the young is a rich, rockstar life, when you're merely in the 20s. Sports stars are similarly privileged. I'm sure that must've been a legit high, before he decided to proverbially settle down.

"It's a stupid high," Shahid explains. "So, I'd go and buy myself a fancy sports car, and then I would feel like, ‘Why did I do this? Now, I am broke, again!' You're a little stupid in your 20s - making stupid choices, and then you blame other things. When I look back, I'm like, ‘Okay, I should have made better choices, I would have been more comfortable, yar!'"

Which is to say, "I also didn't have time for anything - too busy holding on to my position [professionally], working on the set 240 days of the year; let alone promoting my films thereafter."

How about dating the hottest women in Bollywood, though - surely that's a great perk of being a star into only life's second decade, when most others are busy moving up from the low rank/station, attempting a half-decent living!

Shahid isn't particularly impressed/nostalgic by that reminiscence: "See, at the end of the day, you are dating good-looking women. But you are also considered desirable, and good-looking, right?

"So, it is not something that you are getting three levels above your own league! I mean, there were enough women interested in me as well, right?" Spoken truly with that feisty swag of a 20-something!

Looks apart, going by talent from pedigree alone - as a star performer, doubtlessly, Shahid has picked up his dancing skills from the mother, and acting prowess from the father. He's quick to point out here,
"I was more happy about getting my hair from my mom, and acting chops from dad! I was like, ‘Dad, I don't want your hair!'

"He was semi-bald at 30, and he used to keep messing with me saying, ‘I'm an actor, I can play all kinds of characters. Abhi toh tu hero ban gaya hai, agar tere baal udd gaye toh tujhe kaam hi nahi milega [You've become a star. Now if you lose your hair, you'll get no work!].' He used to mess with me, dude!"

Much as the father and son couldn't have had a more separate career graph, from the looks of it, Shahid did indeed imbibe the ambition of gaining respect as an actor from Pankaj Kapur. It's part of his natural training.

"I'd seen all my father's film, growing up - whether that be Rui Ka Bojh [1997] or Ek Doctor Ki Maut [1990]. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro [1983] is, of course, one of my favourite films ever."

The two collaborated most ambitiously as actor-director, in fact. Wherein Pankaj Kapur debuted as filmmaker with Mausam (2011), starring Shahid in the lead. They'd produced the film as well - charting a story as wide in scale as The Gone with the Wind, no less.

This was around the time, Shahid says, that he'd himself gone through a makeover, in terms of how he'd go about his career goals.

"I was done with walking into a set, being given dialogues to perform right there, and carrying on. I wanted to approach films with a sense of commitment, and had chosen to work in one project a year." Which is the time and energy he spent on Mausam, along with his father, who spent over year and half on it.

"But we realised, that's not how everyone else works. And so, while the film was in production, others had moved on. We were finding it hard to match dates [with cast/crew]. Even when I saw the film's final cut, I knew this was not going to land [well]. It wasn't the film that my father had envisioned." Mausam bombed at the box-office, causing a career setback for Shahid, to start with.

One of the things, it appears, that Shahid regrets about stardom is the sort of time it takes to finally get a hang of the system: "By the time you know exactly what's going on, you've already lost eight to 10 years. When you come from a [mainstream] film family, on the other hand, you've experienced much, up, close and personal, already." That's the advantage, he says, his half-brother, young Ishaan Khatter, has.

Having grown up under the wings of Shahid: "He's watched me and my choices closely, and always had an opinion on it. For instance, he wouldn't like me in a [Dil Bole] Hadippa, but totally love me in Kaminey. As an elder brother, you sort of become the guy riding the motorcycle, with him on the back seat!"

Having seen all his films, it would be fair to suggest some of Shahid's early script-sense could be befuddling, at best. For instance, I point out, what could have made him sign up for a pic like Paathshala (2010), that I remember wondering the same, even while watching it: "That was a friend who asked me to give him seven days of my life, and he badly needed it." All choices have a reason.

Consider Prabhu Deva's R… Rajkumar (2013), and Rajkumar Santoshi's Phata Poster Nikhla Hero (2013), that Shahid hit the screens with, soon after Mausam hadn't worked, theatrically.

"That was [me seeking] commercial success. If you're not successful, you actually have no power to make any choices. So, you just have to get successful, first. It's simple. R… Rajkumar, in fact, did well. And Phata Poster did not."

From a film industry POV, he looks at movies very differently, Shahid concedes. Namely, you need films of all palette to march on as an industry: "What I don't get is people who can only make dosas saying, that those who eat burgers, are no good. That's not how it works. I stay away from such people."

And it's not that commercial success, or massive footfalls, is the only criterion, surely. Soon after the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's blockbuster, Padmaavat (2018), there were news reports suggesting Shahid wasn't pleased with his own presence in the pic, along with Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, who evidently stole the show. Was there any merit to these assertions?

He candidly admits, "It's true. Everyone was lovely in that film. And I don't want to get into details. But I kept thinking, ‘Why did I do this film?' I had no perspective. And I don't want to blame anybody."

Which also relates to insecurities that come naturally with an actor's mercurial job? To take another example of published reports, there was one about how Shahid didn't get along with co-star Kangana Ranaut, during the making of Vishal Bhardwaj's Rangoon (2017). True?

"Not true. I got along fine with Kangana. She's a fine actor." Long pause. Okay, that is a long pause. "What do I say? You're not asking me anything else. You're talking about insecurities, looking in from the outside into an actor's life. But it may not be [those] insecurities. There are so many things that can be there, if first of all, there is a problem!"

Which is fair. And being a star, as against a professional actor alone, inevitably involves media scrutiny - as part of the job, even if an occupational hazard, on occasion. Surely, over two decades of being right at the centre of Bombay showbiz, has come with its own potholes.

The one story I remember concerning Shahid, and in fact mid-day - shortly after we met first at the newspaper's office reception - were a series of paparazzi pictures that the tabloid had published in 2004, starring Shahid and his girlfriend then, taken at a Juhu nightclub, Rain.

Those pictures were clicked by a bunch of kids randomly hanging around in the nightclub, with a digital camera. There were no feature-phones with cameras at the time.

Those juvenile delinquents arrived at the mid-day office, demanding Rs 500 for the set of blurry but innocuous images/video of Shahid, kissing, in love, evidently. Unmindful of possible minders around.

I wonder what that did to Shahid, once those pictures appeared, in what became a big, salacious, tabloid story. Which was hardly a big deal though, if you look at it objectively, rather than voyeuristically.

"Of course, it was a big deal. Let's be honest - putting out pictures like that would get you a lot of eyeballs. That's the honest truth of it. It's okay. You know, we all take it with a pinch of salt. But what was your question, again?"

The question was, what did he feel about it, when that happened, then? I don't think he's spoken about it in all these years.

"Oh, I was destroyed at the time. I was just 24 years old, a kid. I felt my privacy had been invaded, and I could do nothing to protect it. I was a mess. At that age, especially - because you don't even know your own feelings. You are figuring out how to be with a girl you are dating. And in the middle of all that, this happens…"

What's changed with stardom and the media landscape since, of course, is that practically everyone is with a smart phone, making videos, pictures, selfies in public. Shahid, 42, reasons, "Now, you are aware that [a paparazzi snap] like that is 100 percent going to happen. At that time, we were caught off guard by it.

"So, that is like an informed devil, as opposed to an uninformed-devil scenario, then. You at least know, ‘Yeh toh hone wala hi hai. Also, ab toh meri shaadi ho gayi hai, bacche ho gaye hain (Now, I'm married with kids). Nobody is interested in those things about me. They have other 24-year-olds to focus on."

Watch the full interview here: