Aruna Irani mourns Rishi Kapoor’s death: ‘There will be no one like my Chintu baba’

Aruna Irani, who worked with Rishi Kapoor in his first film as a leading actor, Bobby, mourned his loss. Rishi died on Thursday after a two-year battle with cancer.

The playful number Main Shayar Toh Nahin from the 1973 film Bobby was the first time Aruna Irani worked with a very young Rishi Kapoor. The song became a classic and the film a superhit, Irani shares how that was also a start of a beautiful friendship between the two, which only ended today with Kapoor’s death.

Rishi Kapoor and Aruna Irani in a still from Bobby.

“I feel so sad. I don’t know how to process this news, I don’t know how to express this grief. I loved him as a human being. Actors bahut ayenge bahut jaenge, there will be no one like my Chintu baba,” shares the 73-year-old.

Further sharing how their relationship has been over the years, Irani, while pushing back her tears, says that even though she was not part of the film industry for the last 22 years owing to her television shows, Kapoor would never fail to call her up or message her.

“I don’t know why Rishi baba left us, I used to love him. He was a fantastic actor but not just that, as a human being, Rishi baba was fantastic. He was always in touch with me even when he was in New York and then when he came back. He never lost touch with me. He used to chat with me and would ask about by well-being. Very few people are like that.”

The two also worked together in films such as Raaja (1975), Sargam (1979 ), Laila Majnu (1976) and Bade Dil Wala (1983), among others. But particularly reminiscing their Bobby days, Irani says how Kapoor was a “mastikhor, zindadil, hasmukh insaan”.

“He would greet everyone in a room, he would speak to everyone and that is what one needs. No matter how big a star he was, he was a good human being first. He used to have a lot of fun on the set, his father (director Raj Kapoor) used to get angry and ask him to focus on work. He would not get angry but follow what his director said,” she says.

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