The Kapoor Family - Moustache Men of my Dil!

I am going to be 18 on Wednesday, so I thought I might as well do a post on my favorite family of Bollywood and the family with the most letter R's in there too! I am an absolute RK lover, I could be talking about Raj,Randhir,Ranbir, Rishi, Shashi(Balbir Raj) or any of them, they all have a unique quality about them which makes me love them all and they all have a dysfunctional relationship with each other, as I've read from Shobhaa De and my aunts who work at the gossip mags in Mumbai! I have many times tried to explain the family tree to my silly sister who always forget shortly after!
Prithvi hates people staring at him!

1. Prithviraj Kapoor: No R name here, he acted in the first Indian film Talkie "Alam Ara" he wasn't the main star as the cute Master Vithal was. I particularly liked Prithviraj because he was soo theatrical and had the greatest booming and towering voice ever. His theatrical and silent era movie faces will always stick in my head, the constant hands to the face, the wiggly fingers, the unfortunance (another sign of my 17-year oldself as I make up words) of his pink face going red in his freak-out or angry scenes. His angry scenes consist of flaring up till scarlet colour but not actually doing a freak out! He was my favorite as the nasty dad roles in Aawara, Jaanwar, and his really nasty but good dad in Mughal-E-Azam where he sucked in his anger and looked like a sparrow with an enormous chest of air! I adored him in Kal Aaj aur Kal where he was the old age personified while battling Randhir as brash young modernism personified!

The mac daddy! I had to add this leery picture of him!
2. Raj Kapoor = R for Rabir Raj, a question in the "If:The book of life" asked if you could sit and talk with one person around, well immediately I'd talk to Raj Kapoor or Buddha maybe, but Raj is such a fascinating guy both on and off screen! He had a long affair with Nargis while married, he had a messed up relationship with his father, he lost his two younger brothers when he was around 7, had a humungo dysfunctional realtionship with Shammi and Shashi, had a dirty old man penchant in his movies post-Nargis, his kids seem slightly messed up with daddy issues after, he pushed the erotic envelope in his latter movies. But gosh darnit he was a bloooody amazing director, when I thought about making movies for a living (last year lol) he was my immediate influence, but then journalism was always on the backburner of my head, coz I can ask questions! But his movies were inspiring, gorgeous, and universal, he juxtaposed the comedic with the sadness, but always his movie had a message no matter how subtle or OTT the message was. Like BR Chopra he wanted to push the envelope, and he wanted to start a dialogue with his fans. His "Raju the Tramp" were imititations of Charlie's tramp, but he had distinctly Raj traits the syrupy and sweet smile, the innocent eyes, the outgrown clothes, a tramp that deflects all the badness! Sorry for the ramble I just love Raj, one of these days readers I'll write an essay on Raj and bore you to tears!

My and Memsaab's lover boy!
3. Shammi Kapoor = R word is for Shamsher Raj, after Memsaab's many reviews of him I became entranced by this guy who jumped and bopped about into every heroine's reluctant heart! He jumped and skipped right into my "How shammi danced into my dil" series which is gonna grow as I bought a ton of his stuff this weekend! Shammi was the answer to the counter culture of India, he was loud proud brash and didn't care that he cavorted about like a loony, which made him I think embody the rebellion during the 60's. Some random trivia I found from his autobiography is that he had heated argument with Raj in the 50's, they didn't speak until several years later, he was a notorious womanizer and alcoholic during his lull in his career, he said his favorite heroine was Asha Parekh who could handle his boisterousness and makes me wonder "Did they ever go out?"

My Shashi in a mush!
4. Shashi Kapoor = R letter Balbir Raj, the absolutely gorgeous Mr. World type gorgeousness is what the Shashi Pradesh slogan should be or if I make a new state called the "Shashilicious Masala State" I love Shashi with all my dil, because he's such a fantastic actor who did some of his best work with Merchant Ivory movies, especially "The Householder" which I must review one of these days, and "Shakespeare Wallah" he was/is a world class actor that varied his roles all through his career from Serious Merchant Ivory, to masala greatness with the Shashitabh jodi which I vote as my fave, to the art house cinema of the 80's. My mum could be the biggest Shashi fangirl out of all of us as got a gift of the axe fan from him, met him several times next door at my neighbour Rita's house, let me and my sister sit on him as kids, and control her squealing fangirl inside when she met him for the first time. Shashi was always the bourgoisie or fancy guys or the slightly fancy country bumpkin to me in the movies, he never quite pulled off the "angry gorgeous man" roles, but who cares he tried valiantly and looked HAWT doing it!

Awww Randhir the 70's rebel of modernism
5. Randhir Kapoor = R letter for the confusing Randhir Ranbir, Raj's eldest kid. I love Randhir because like Shammi he's spunky and fun, in no way of comparison is he greater than Shammi but he's as a fun and jumpy as Shammi. Randhir is still dedicated to running his father's museum and looking after the RK banner and theatre. When he introduced himself by acting and directing in the great and funkadelic "Kal Aaj aur Kal" he jumped on the screen as a new rebel of the 70's. The movie examined the meeting of the old and the modern ie him and his grandad Prithviraj while Raj(the now) has to balance/choose out of the two. Has revealed in some gossip rags about him and his dad not getting along too well, he's talked about his separation from Babita, and seems at ease with talking about his troubled family strife. His directing style was subtle-ish, and his movies were always technically brilliant, and my favorite thing about Randhir is that he dresses soooo stylishly with his funky printed shirts, his lovely Rajesque mush, his skinny jeans that he could pull off, his abroad slight twang, and generally he's the type of high school or college guy I kinda like!

Vaah Vaah Vaah!
7. Rishi Kapoor = R for Rishi Raj, that almost sounds like a puppy name, he's the cute and upbeat brother here, Raj's second son. I love Rishi, because he jumped away from his father's massive shadow of blobbyness, and is more reserved when talking about his dad. Which didn't help when Subhash Ghai used the manager character in Karz to be a sort of symbol of his dad Raj, who possibly threw him into an industry or who was very distant from his kids outside of work, I felt that use was not very nice of Subhash, that's why Karz has always been a "bAHH hUMbug" for me! Back to Rishi, he's really cute and he plumped up a bit after Bobby, which gave him the "Double Chin of Sensitivity" as I'll call it as Rishi does play lover boys and sidekicks, and funky rockstars all with a brooding sensitive emo side to them. He married Neetu in 1978 or something, made her stay at home for a while, before she came back to Bollywood.
Unfortunately the only pic I could find. He is really cute before though?!
8. Rajeev Kapoor = R for Rajiv Raj, he is the least filmi son of Raj, he debuted into the big league for a few years in "Ram Teri Ganga Maili" one of the most porny and horny films Raj made to sign off his career with. Rajeev was the awkward Kapoor brother, he could act but was either too plump or too tall for me, and he didn't sport a mush very well like his bhais could. But i think he was one son that probably didn't wanna be in movies as much as his dad pushed him into as he did mostly assistant directing, directing, and editing, he's one of the creative and awkwardly cute guys.

9. Kunal Kapoor = Not the HAWT one from Rang De Basanti, my mum met him when he came over with Shashi to Rita's house, and she said he was gorgeous! I don't know about that, but Karan Kapoor the other Shashi son is waaaay cuter.
HAAAAWWWWTTT=17year old
Sinewy and Sweet=18year old!
10. Ranbir Kapoor = R for Ranbir Raj, Rishi's kid and one of the cutest new actors ever. He is the really suave and cool Kapoor, he was magical in Saawariya definitely capturing the dreamy nature of Dostoevsky's character in "White Nights" and in Bachna Ae Haseeno, he was the ladykiller who goes back for some filmi redemption. I'm really looking forward to what his career will turn out like, and if he'll leave Deepika to marry his favorite 18-year old on Wednesday someday soon?
Awww Karisma in the good 'ol days!
11. Karisma Kapoor = No R here, but Karisma was one of my favorite 90's actresses after Pooja Bhatt, Raveena Tandon, and Urmila. But she started off pretty fugly with those bushy eyebrows and even the unibrow for a while eeekkkkk!!! She had the gorgeous green eyes, and she proved that the lady Kapoors can act as well. She has that terrifically throaty whiny voice that grates sometimes, but I can forgive her coz she's stunning and carries the Kapoor gene of greeny-blue eyes. Her serious roles were great Fiza, Zubeidaa, and more I wish she'd come back soon!
In the rubbish/slightly good Tashan
12. Kareena Kapoor- No R here either, but initially when I saw Kareena's first movies I hated her, she was so overdoing the "I'm an NRI Indian and all NRI's talk like Clueless" act, I hated her soooo much in K3G, her conduct in the media of being a brash rude little brat and starting a verbal war with other stars made me dislike her even more, and I disliked her even more when she brought the pushy stage-maa Babita along with her everywhere to start a media fight. But over time she has grown on me, taking the unconventional roles like Chameli, Dev, and Omakara, and doing the rubbish but cultly brilliant Tashan.

There we have most of the Kapoor clan, I neglected to mention the wives like Neetu or Babita, they are both great actresses but naah! Hope u like my immense history of my love for the Kapoor Khandaan!