New Delhi: The evening had moved without incident — until the MC announced the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for Raj Kapoor. President R. Venkataraman stood to applaud. The whole auditorium rose. But Raj Kapoor did not. He couldn’t. An acute asthma attack had collapsed him onto his wife’s shoulder, his lungs caving in.

In a gesture unlikely to be repeated, the President of India stepped down from the dais and walked to the ailing showman. Perhaps the applause pierced Kapoor’s haze. Or perhaps it was instinct — the instinct of a man who had made his life a show. With visible pain, leaning on his wife, he rose. He even tried to smile. He took his bow. Then he collapsed again. A month later, I read of his death in The Guardian, in Liverpool, where I had gone to study. I bought a John Player Special with my meagre funds and walked an empty, drizzling road, singing, Kal khel mein hum ho na ho… Nobody saw my tears.

The world, however, had seen him. And not just seen — adored him. In the 1950s and ’60s, Raj Kapoor was India’s most recognisable cultural export. His Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955) didn’t just play to packed houses in the Soviet Union; they became part of the cultural fabric there. Songs like “Awaara Hoon” were sung in Russian on factory floors, in schools, and by workers marching home after their shifts. Kapoor’s tramp — part Chaplin, part Hindustani everyman — became a symbol of hope in a........

© News9Live