Chapter 3

The screen test was the most satisfying I ever conducted. The guy was a novice at acting. But his face was extremely suited for the large screen. It immediately struck me, that this guy was going to make it big someday. I gave him a couple of opportunities at showcasing some of his style contents. The whistle incident had stayed in my mind ever since I'd seen him flip it. I had other ideas with it. I gave him a cigarette and asked him to flip it into his mouth, following which I asked him to improvise. Being a chain smoker myself, I knew that cigarettes were something that connected instantly to the youth. He flipped the cigarette into the mouth, and then in a manner of improvising, took the entire filter into the mouth, and after a second brought it out letting it out with the smoke. Style was redefined, or so I felt. This was a definite scene in my next film, I decided.

After the photo shoot, and the screen test, I enrolled him in for a three month course at my acting school, following which I promised him a role in my next movie. He happily took the offer, and on that day, I renamed him to the film world as Shashi Kumar. Three months later, I took him into the Tamil movie, where Rajeev was playing the hero, and was romancing a lady older than him, whose daughter, ironically his dad was romancing at the same time. There was a minor role of a terminal cancer patient-husband of Rajeev's romantic interest in the film, in which I cast Shashi. The most unideal start for an upcoming artiste, Shashi walked in through the gates of a bungalow, fully drunk, in the very first scene of his onscreen journey. Who would have wondered, that this inauspicious debutant would go places soon! Film offers started pouring in for Shashi. I gave him a role of an abusive husband in another of my woman-centric films. Very soon, he did two films with Rajeev and a leading actress of the times, Chandni. One, where Rajeev was a village simpleton, Chandni his educated love interest, and Shashi, a village ruffian who Rajeev kills in the end for trying to rape Chandni. The movie got Rajeev awards, and Shashi a lot of accolades for his acting and style. The next one, my personal favourite, was a story about a couple Chandni and Rajeev in love, and Shashi who loves Chandni, killing Rajeev and making it seem like an accident. But very soon, Chandni gets married to Shashi's father, and slowly avenges the death of her beloved. Extremely impressed by Shashi's acting, I sent him an appreciative letter, telling him how proud I was to have introduced him into the industry.

Soon, by the end of that year, Shashi was loaded with film offers. He had many new time directors asking him to be a hero. He almost invariably acted with Rajeev in all his movies during this period. This was around the period when the success on his head became too much for him to bear, and he almost succumbed to it.