Heard Fauji, recalled Raj Kapoor...

The credit for making Shah Rukh Khan SRK a household face must go to the late Raj Kapoor Not the Raj Kapoor yoursquore more familiar with This Raj Kapoor was a colonel in the Indian ArmyIn fact once when a generalrsquos car was driving past Kapoor he forgot to observe the soldierrsquos protocol of stopping to salute the vehicle To which the general got off his car and asked the officer ldquoWho do you think you aremdashDilip KumarrdquoHe replied ldquoNo sir Irsquom Raj Kapoorrdquo The affronted general believed the officer was kidding and almost had him sacked from the Army Why did I think of Col KapoorBecause blokes on social media posted that this week marked 35 years of SRKrsquos breakout TV show Fauji that appeared Wednesday evenings on Doordarshanmdashsometimes surpassing the meterbreaking ratings of Ramayan on the national broadcasterDelhibased Col Kapoor wrote directed produced Fauji The series set in an academy training the sharpest Indian Army officers to become elite commandoes began with a disclaimer in the opening slate that might be impossible for anything to do with the military anymore ldquoAll events and characters on this show are based on truthrdquoThis columnistrsquos 2002 interview with Col Raj KapoorSRK played young Lt Abhimanyu Rai His first set of fans were children like me playing FaujiFauji with plastic guns in the neighbourhood thereafterAs Renuka Shahahe who subsequently acted opposite SRK in the serial Circus told me once ldquoShah Rukh was already a superstar before Bollywood after Fauji 20000 people used to gather to watch him on the sets of CircusrdquoWhen I asked the beautiful Shahane to recall her favourite SRK anecdote she laughed ldquoThe first time he met me he asked lsquoWhy are my heroines always so uglyrsquo He was brash like that Maybe he thought his heroine in Fauji wasnrsquot so goodlooking eitherrdquoThat would be actor Manjula Avtar playing a medical doctor in Fauji who Lt Rai initially chases down in the manner of borderline stalkingmdashthe one facet about desi content from the rsquo80srsquo90s that inevitably ages badlyTo be fair there was also Major Vikram Rai Rakesh Sharma with as desperate a female suitor Ameena Kapoor who follows him around the academy while he shows no interest Vikram the instructor and Abhimanyu the student are brothersFauji was equally fit to be a family drama besides authentic enough for an ensemble showcasing of the Indian Army with its own ldquobuddyrdquo culture of shared bravado rather than bland heroismYoung boys eyeing their loveinterest dealing with insecurities vulnerabilities faced with danger chiefly the sonofa gun Captain Narayanan A Kanan who would enter the screen with his own chilling background scoreIrsquove been rewatching Fauji lately four episodes down as we speak Age has altogether dimmed out the lights on the screen making the show look like a terribly shot silhouette with scenes that seem so staccato Itrsquos still easy to tell the strong script setting plus characters with the whacked out potential energy of our own Top GunldquoI say chapsrdquo if SRK must remake anything hersquos ever done it should be the series that made us first gawk at him from a distance at Nirularsquos foodjoint in Chanakyapuri ldquoDamn is that karate brownbelt Abhimanyu Rairdquo Rest is history chemistry geography and a lot of mainstream Bollywood that followed for inescapable omnipresenceIn Fauji itself Lt Rai and his coursemates rightly take the piss out of the portrayal of Army in Bollywood Thatrsquos because Col Kapoor whorsquod served in the military for 27 years knew what he was so enthusiastically talking aboutI guess we store memories as narratives And my memory of the memory of Fauji itself involves a boy in my neighbourhood who died at dinner because a pea seedmatar fell into his wind pipe He was engrossed watching FaujiThe second memory is almost as tragic Thatrsquos when I went over to meet Col Kapoor in Delhi as a rookie newspaper intern in 2002 Col Kapoor was 71 then but he looked olderHe was already old when he portrayed the affable cop in Gulzarrsquos Angoor 1982 He plays General lsquoKhoon Pasinarsquo Kochchar heading the commando training academy in Fauji Best known still for starring in the Volfarm ad ldquoThoda ketchup try karo Ketchup hota kaddoo bharardquoHe spoke to me about how ldquothe camera chose SRKrdquomdashthe showrsquos OG lead was Vikram and not Abhimanyu Rai Taking a shine on memdashfor all the time I had to patiently listen to his stories including the one above about the general nearly throwing him out of the ArmymdashCol Kapoor invited me over for drinks in the eveningI was a virgin to whiskey We may have polished off a bottle or two between us Emotional for the unlikely bond Col Kapoor handed me his entire photodump of rare Fauji stills BTS etc to use as I please ldquoBe careful with it son There are no negativescopies Irsquom handing you my lifersquos wealthrdquo he saidI left that album behind in the autorickshaw to my hotel He called for many days after I just didnrsquot have the heart to pick up the phone What would I say Col Kapoor passed away 2019Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper