Raj Kapoor & Nargis: Bollywood’s Timeless Love Story

It would be a real task for find an Indian person who is unaware of Bollywood. Whether it is dancing in the panoramic vistas of Switzerland, singing on a longboat in the backwaters of Kerala, or even strutting through the streets of London, all of these are symbolic of the Bollywood machine. Though everyone would loathe to admit, conversations about films, actors, and nepo babies rouse heated debates at dinner tables. Perhaps the most recognisable surname in the registrar of glitterati is Kapoor.

The Kapoor family has been in the industry for decades; it would be safe to say they were the founding fathers of Bollywood. Or, at the very least, one of them. Before there was Kareena Kapoor and Karishma Kapoor, even before there was Rishi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor, there was Raj Kapoor. An influential director in the 1950s, Raj Kapoor is perhaps best known for the incredibly catchy "Awara Hoon" and, yes, as Ranbir Kapoor’s grandfather.

In addition to directing, Raj Kapoor was also an actor and it was on the sets of his film, Aag (1948), that he met actress Nargis. Over the course of the next nine years, the pair would star in 11 films together.

The affair between Raj Kapoor and Nargis was considered an open secret and was even confessed by Raj Kapoor’s son, Rishi Kapoor: “He was also a man in love—at the time, unfortunately, with someone other than my mother.”

The story, unfortunately, does not end in happily-ever-after. Since Raj Kapoor, a married man, would not leave his wife and children for Nargis, she finally put her foot down. Jagte Raho (1956) was her last appearance alongside Raj Kapoor.

It would be truly unfair that a woman as beautiful and charismatic as Nargis be denied a happy ending of her own. Fate, apparently, thought the same. Nargis met and fell in love with Sunil Dutt on the sets of Mother India (1959) after he rescued her from a fire. They married and had three children, including Bollywood OG bad boy, Sanjay Dutt.

Though the affair was short-lived, the iconic image of Raj Kapoor holding Nargis in a still from the film Barsaat is forever immortalised in the RK Films’ logo and was even recreated by Raj Kapoor’s grandson, Ranbir Kapoor, in his debut feature, Saawariya (2007).