Raj Kapoor was once slapped hard by filmmaker: 'Thought he would yell at me but…'

He is remembered as Bollywood’s ‘ showman’ and one of the greatest directors in Indian cinema. However, Raj Kapoor’s stratospheric success did not occur overnight. At the beginning of his Bollywood journey, he was shown the ropes by a strict disciplinarian and was known to be a difficult pupil. His mentor, director Kidar Sharma. Sharma, who launched Kapoor through the 1947 drama ‘ Neel Kamal’ recalled the time, he slapped him in a interview with Prasar Bharti.

Sharma revealed he was introduced to Kapoor when he was making the movie ‘Gauri’. Initially, Kapoor was made third assistant and asked to help writing scripts and be a clapper boy. He described Kapoor a “nice looking boy and very alert”.

“During the shooting of ‘Gauri’ he refused to do his responsibility of playing the club. Instead, he combed his air, and composed the clap against my instructions. He also inquired the cameraman about the lighting,” he revealed.

One day, he told him they have to travel 40 miles for a shot and asked him not to comb his hair and not interfere with the shot. However Kapoor who was truant at that age, mischievously clapped around the artificial beard of an actor and dragged it away.

Sharma lost his temper and slapped him. “I hit him so hard, there were finger prints on his cheeks,” he reminisced.

However, to his credit, Kapoor did not lose his composure or throw a tantrum. “I thought he would yell at me, that he was the son of a big star and throw a hissy fit at being humiliated in public, but he said nothing and went away smiling,” he said.

Later, Sharma realised the boy wanted to see himself on screen. In the morning he drew a new one-month contract for a new leading man and offered Kapoor to star as the male lead of his next directorial ‘Neel Kamal’ and gave him signing fee of Rs 5000.

He recalled, “He took one look at the signing amount and started crying. When I asked him that he did not cry when I hit him, why he was bawling now, he said, ‘Sir you did not know kindness hurts most?’ I am jhalli (stupid), I will end up ruining you..’ ”

‘Neel Kamal,’ which marked the cinematic debut of Kapoor and Madhubala, became a moderate success at the box-office. However, Kapoor’s second and final film with Sharma, ‘Bawre Nain’ (which also starred his future sister-in-law Geeta Bali as the leading lady), became a major hit. The film also launched the career of Hrithik Roshan’s grandfather Roshan Lal Nagrath as a composer.

In a separate interview,Kapoor acknowledged “Kidar Sharma as a one-man institution who taught me all I know about film-making.”

Sharma’s remarkable journey in Indian cinema came to a poignant close when he passed away on 29 April 1999. His death occurred just a day before he was scheduled to be honoured with the prestigious Raj Kapoor Award, an accolade named after the legendary actor whose early career Sharma had been instrumental in shaping and guiding toward success.