Chapter 4

Twenty five movies in a year, for two consecutive years. Though he wasn't the lead actor in all of the movies, that was way too many movies for someone to act in a single year. There were actors in the past who'd done so many movies in a year, but the times were just changing, and the work that went into a single movie was way more! The pressure was high. I hadn't made too many movies with Shashi in that period, as my journey in parallel cinema was going deeper and stronger, and I was making steady progress in that direction with Rajeev. I had introduced Shashi as a style icon, and he was making very rapid progress in that direction. But from the little I met him in that period, he generally seemed a very tired man. He had become a chain smoker. He once told me he couldn't sleep without drinking at least a peg of whiskey.

All this worried me, and in spite of some stupendous performances from him, it was his health which constantly worried me. One day, I got a call from his office, saying he'd generally thrown out of the window the bound scripts of a couple of movies which were placed on his table. He had become unusually furious and was shouting at everyone in the office. His tone had seemed menacing, and he seemed drunk. Shashi never usually drank in the mornings, I knew that much, and if he'd done that, something was definitely going wrong. When I got into the room, he wasn't ready to meet me. He sounded scared, and warned me from entering the room. When I did enter though, he threw a couple of marble statues at me, one which hurt me on the hand, and then broke down, tears flowing down his cheeks. I went up to him, and gave him my lap to lie down, and patted him till he slept. As soon as he slept, I called up a psychologist, and had him admitted at Apollo. They diagnosed him, and told me that he had lost much of his mental balance. All he needed was some time for himself, and a lot of mental peace.

Following that, I took him in my wings once again, and he lived with me for the next two years. But, I even I had lost belief. The guy had just lost, and recovery seemed a far way away, would he ever make it again?