Living Up To The Hype Of Being Raj Kapoor’s Son Was Not Easy For Rajiv Kapoor

Rajiv Kapoor, the youngest of the late Raj Kapoor’s actor-sons who passed away after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai at 58, had shown immense promise at the outset of his career, but he failed to live up to the hype and huge expatiations that the audiences and the media had from the son of the greatest showman of the film industry. His career also failed to take off because of his blunder to ape his inimitable uncle Shammi Kapoor onscreen in his very first film.

Chimpu, as Rajiv was affectionately called, had delivered a massive hit as the leading man in Raj Kapoor’s swan song, Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985), where his performance had earned him widespread praise of the critics, but that was simply not enough for the son of the great Raj Kapoor and brother of Rishi Kapoor. Worse, his decision to follow Shammi Kapoor’s style of dancing in his first film, Ek Jaan Hain Hum (1983), which was released before Ram Teri Ganga Maili proved to be a big mistake. He was not only dismissed as a Shammi Kapoor clone but also a one-film wonder. He hardly benefited from the success of Ram Teri Ganga Maili as its credit went to his father as well as its debutante actress Mandakini, whose bold scenes had created ripples in and outside the industry.

Rajiv went on to do many films, including multistarrers such as Zalzala (1988) and Zabardast (1985) and even tried to change his image with films like Lava (1985) but his acting and dancing skills had no takers in 1980s. With the emergence of better dancers and actors such as Mithun Chakraborty and Govinda in the disco era of Bollywood, he fell by the wayside. With the demise of his legendary father in 1988, his chances of a career revival took a beating.

Apparently disenchanted with his acting career by the turn of 1990s, he decided to switch over to direction and editing to carry forward the legacy of his father’s iconic banner, R.K. Films with an ambitious Prem Granth (1996), He chose to cast his elder and more popular brother, Rishi Kapoor in the lead opposite superstar Madhuri Dixit but the film sank without a trace at the box office, dealing another big blow to him. He did not attempt to direct any other film after that and gradually chose to retreat from the limelight.

Rajiv was doubtless not as talented as Rishi, or for that matter, Randhir, his eldest brother, but his truncated career lasting less than a decade should not be a reflection on his acting calibre. He could prove it in films like Lava. In retrospect, it seems it was the audience’s huge expectations from Raj Kapoor’s son and Rishi Kapoor’s brother that ultimately proved to be his undoing. The legacy of the mighty Kapoor Khandan, the first family of Bollywood, was probably too heavy and too intimidating for him to carry forward. He made it worse by doing a Shammi Kapoor in his maiden venture. But then, that is a test all the star sons have to go through in the tinsel town.

In his later years, he looked after R.K. Studios set up by his father with his brother Randhir, but that too was sold in 2018 after a major fire gutted one of its floors, damaging memorabilia of many a Raj Kapoor classic such as Awara (1951), Barsaat (1949), Shri 420 (1955) and Mera Naam Joker (1970).

This is the third tragedy in the Kapoor family in about a year. In January 2020, Raj Kapoor’s eldest daughter Ritu Kapoor died from cancer, followed by Rishi Kapoor who passed away in April after battling a prolonged battle with cancer.