I have been honored & blessed to be a friend with someone who as more than a film star to me. Time & again we talked to each other like Guru-bandhu. We advised each other on various topics & also a lot of times I got scolded for being foolish. In this blog I will try to unreveal that side of Shammiji which has hardly anything to do with his films. I hope all the fans that requested me to share this will now enjoy the real spirit of their hero.
Ever since Shammiji laid his hands on his first mac, he was exploring every software and websites available to him. You might have noticed in his interview that he also had shopped for quite many softwares when he bought his first mac.
Before he designed his website Shammiji was playing around with graphic editing softwares as well as animating softwares. In those times there use to be mostly gif animators or randomized codes that would move an object randomly on the screen. Putting a sound in it was a huge thing because even the looped sound of a bell as seen in this video would be a huge thing to be downloaded on a 26.6 kbps line.
The video below shows the first animation he did (On an Apple Macintosh) with an OM symbol and the photo of Haidakhan Babaji which was sampled in a low color profile which the animating software supported. For many people this might seem to be a silly animation with no creativity in it, but if you were on the net or even on a computer around 1996 this was a big thing.
This video was put as animation on the jungle website earlier but it was removed since no browser supported the old plugin it needed. I recently recoded the video format and put in on youtube so that all the fans who missed it can see it again. Enjoy!
Shammiji had learnt classical music (singing) in his early days. He also had his own study of various styles of western music. His practice to express the song in actions made him special and legendary. I need not write much in this blog just enjoy the video.
Do not use this copyrighted video anywhere without permission.
Time and again right from my parents to other Shammi Kapoor fans, from friends to non-fans, I always heard about people comparing Shammiji with Elvis Presley. I think Aamir Khan was smart enough to to say “I think Elvis is America’s answer to Shammi Kapoor”. The gossip of aping elvis eventually became attached to the legend and made fans eventually believed for real that Shammiji was really trying to imitate the ‘King of Rock n’ Roll’.
In my first meeting with him itself this was one question on my mind. Had he modeled himself on Elvis? A similar comparison might be drawn with Raj Kapoor’s tramp image with the one who pioneered it – Charlie Chaplin. I may never know about Rajji’s inspiration of the tramp as I never got a chance to talk to him on such serious subjects but I had this chance with Shammiji. I have to admit one thing here, my first meeting with Shammiji might not have been pleasant to him as I was talking too many things that didn’t please him including the elvis issue. But I will get to the other topics of that meeting later. This blog is only about THE ELVIS FACTOR.
Shammiji asked me if I had taken any lessons for dancing like Michael Jackson. I said I hadn’t but I have practiced a lot watching MJ videos since childhood. He said, “This is the boon your generation has due to technology. You have video cassettes, vcds, dvds and mainly the internet where u can explore and learn from the people you admire. You have the liberty to rewind all that stuff and do it again the right way. Do you think such technology existed at our time??”
I still argued “There must be movies you saw or theaters that might have played the stuff like concerts or something.” He shook his head saying there was nothing like that. Shammiji explained to me that he was a fan of rhythm. He loved jazz, rock n’ roll, etc. and did follow the western movies and their styles if that came to dancing or attire but it was definitely not Elvis he ever concentrated on. He didn’t have the liberty or the facility at that time to do so. He did mention a few actors of western (country) movies on whom he modeled himself on (esp since Tumsa Nahin Dekha). I don’t remember their names at the moment. He put on the video of ‘Aaja Aaja’ and asked me what was Elvis about it? He said it was extempore for him.
So here is another rumour that is laid to rest. Everyone should now know that Shammiji never copied Elvis. You all also might have observed that he has never mentioned Elvis in any interview either. It’s the media fabricated thing, but it lasted too long! In the video attached you can see how Shammiji was explaining that ‘Aaja Aaja’ was an extempore performance and not a choreographed or planned dance.
