Filmmaker Karan Johar penned a heartfelt tribute for one of Bollywood's greatest cine icons, Rishi Kapoor.
Calling him his 'hero', Karan shared the first time he saw Rishi Kapoor on celluloid. "I was seven years old and overheard that my parents were invited to see a preview of Duniya Meri Jeb main. It starred my favourite Rishi Kapoor but since it was a school night, my very particular mother refused to let me come with her. I threw such a tantrum because I couldn’t bear the fact that I was being disallowed from seeing a Chintu Kapoor film that my parents finally succumbed. I went with stars in my eyes, like I had every time I saw him on celluloid... he was my HERO," shares Karan and adds how his childhood was dedicated to watching 'the very handsome, exceptionally charming and the eternally romantic Rishi Kapoor'.
"My childhood was dedicated to watching him sing his songs with abandon, wearing his printed sweaters and dancing in my bedroom and doing the dafliwalle routine with a dinner plate in front of my school friends," he adds.
The filmmaker took a nostalgic trip as he described the first time he met Rishi Kapoor. "When I met him for the first time in Cochin on the sets of my father's film Duniya (1984), I looked at him like he was a monument that I wanted to keep marvelling at... When I directed him in Student Of The Year, I shed a tear silently after he gave his first shot, a major childhood dream was actualised."
"Today I feel like an irreplaceable void has crept into my existence, a piece of my growing years has been snatched away... I am honoured to love him, to know him, to have a drink and reminisce with him... I still will, how can the romance of Indian Cinema ever leave us? Never. Dard-e dil... But this legendary legacy will live on! I LOVE YOU RISHI KAPOOR!," he concludes.
Interestingly, two days ago, Karan had paid a tribute to his 'all time favourite actor' Rishi Kapoor by superimposing his face on Rishi's in the song Main Shayar Toh Nahi.
Bollywood's original chocolate boy, Rishi Kapoor breathed his last today morning after fighting a two-year-long battle with Leukaemia.
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