Shammi Kapoor had first met actress Geeta Bali during the making of Miss Coca Cola (1955), produced and directed by one of his closest buddies, Hari Valia (originally Hari Ahluvalia). It was a routine hero-meets-heroine encounter as everyone thought. "Pleasant and warm," as Shammi later described it, but more "professional" than any he'd had with an attractive young actress/woman. For a change, Shammi had refrained from trying out any of his stock-in-trade one-liners on the cool-looking sardarni.

"I got to know the essential Geeta during the outdoor shooting of Kidar Sharma's Rangeen Raaten in Ranikhet," Shammi had recalled. "Curiously, Geeta was not the heroine of the film. Another protégé of Kidar Sharma's, Mala Sinha, was... Geeta was not in the original cast of Rangeen Raaten. She had literally gatecrashed into it to do a cameo of a man."

Ranikhet, which means Queen's Meadow, is a quaint little hill station tucked away in the salubrious, breathtakingly beautiful environs of Kumaon in the Great Himalayan Range.

"There couldn't have been a more potent place to make sparks fly between two vulnerable hearts seeking each other," Shammi had reminisced... "After pack-up, there used to be ample time for two crazy people, who had been inevitably thrown together, to freak out amidst the majesty of the hills. Geeta had the restlessness of a mountain spring and outrageousness amazing for a star. Nevertheless, she was mature beyond her years. She was only 24 then, a year older to me. But, as she told me, she'd lived a very hard life. Her father, a low-paid school teacher, had lost his eyesight. Her brother, sister and mother were partially deaf. It was a situation that could have unnerved anyone, but not her...

"I can't point to the exact moment when I fell in love with Geeta. I guess it was a small incident involving a tiger that did it. I had been pining away for a tiger that had given me the slip. Geeta kept patting my knee and saying, 'Don't worry Shammi, you'll find him.' One night, we were returning to our hotel after dinner. Geeta was in a jeep ahead. As I turned the corner, I saw her jeep parked midway on a bridge and she was on the bonnet doing a strange sort of jig. I ran to her in panic. 'It's that tiger, Shammi, your tiger. It just went this way. Get your gun,' she was yelling out. I was speechless. There was a wild tiger on the prowl in the vicinity and this woman was doing a jig on the bonnet of her jeep in celebration. She just wasn't scared. So how could I help it? I fell in love with her. Madly. I still remember the day. It was April 2, 1955.

"It was destined," Shammi had reflected. "Or else, why did Geeta force herself into Rangeen Raaten when there was no suitable role for her in the original script of the film?"...

Shammi and Geeta had fallen madly in love with each other... "There were a few question marks, though," Shammi had reflected. "Geeta was a year older to me. She had co-starred with my father Prithviraj Kapoor in a film called Anand Math (1952). She had also worked opposite my brother Raj Kapoor in Kidar Sharma's film Bawre Nain (1950). I was not sure how my family would react to it. But the apprehensions were momentary. I was adamant within myself that it had to be Geeta. She was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. But, ironically, the hurdle was Geeta herself. A pragmatic, down-to-earth woman, she kept cautioning me, 'Shammi, I love you. I can't think of living without you, but I just can't marry you. I can't let my family down. They depend on me. They have nowhere else to go to.'

"...Thankfully, that didn't separate us... My passion had grown to a point of insanity. In spite of her resistance, I kept proposing to her once every few hours like a smitten teenager. And she kept turning me down with her lovely smile.

"Four months of agony, tears, cajoling, pleading, separation and desperation followed. Then one day, the inevitable happened, just out of the blue. On August 23, 1955, we were at Juhu Hotel, Bombay... I had been staying there as there was no one at home. My parents were out in Bhopal with the Prithvi Theatres troupe. I proposed to Geeta again, knowing she'd shake her head once more and smile. But she didn't. Instead, she knocked me out of my wits. She said, "OK Shammi, let's get married. But it's got to be now..."

"You mean right now? This moment?" I asked her in disbelief.

"Yes, just now... or it may never happen." she said in a no-nonsense tone.

"I jumped up and said, 'OK, just now... done.'"

"We drove straight to our common friend, Johnny Walker (the late comedian) for guidance. He had eloped with his girlfriend (actress Noor) and got married barely a week earlier... 'We are Muslims,' he said. 'We just had to find a Kazi. You are Hindus, you may have to go to a temple and get married.' That made sense. We drove to Bandra to my friend, Hari Valia, producer of Coffee House in which Geeta and I were working at that point.

"Hari had had a similar experience. He took us to the famous Banganga Temples off Napean Sea Road, in South Bombay... When we reached the temple at the crack of dawn, Geeta in her by-now crumpled salwar-kameez and I in my kurta-pajama, it was pouring cats and dogs. With Hari Valia as the sole witness, the pujari (priest) performed the ceremonial rites and we took seven pheras (rounds) of the holy fire and were declared husband and wife. Geeta took out a lipstick from her purse and asked me to apply it on her maang (parting of the hair) like sindoor (vermilion) to proclaim our marital status.

"Geeta and I were married at last.

"We drove back to Matunga to my grandfather's to seek his blessings. He welcomed us with open arms and blessed us. I then called my parents, who were in Bhopal, to tell them that I was a married man now. They were surprised but happy. We then went to Geeta's parents to inform them of the best thing that had ever happened in the lives of two people in love. They were in for a shock. Geeta hadn't told them anything. She hadn't connected with them since leaving home for work the previous morning. There had been panic in the house as she hadn't returned home at night. They let out a huge sigh of relief when they saw us."...

Months later, Geeta's sister Hardarshan Kaur had narrated what had happened on the morning of August 24, 1955: "When the doorbell buzzed non-stop early in the morning, I had woken up with a start and run to the door, literally trembling. Geeta had not come home at night, so I was very scared. When I opened the door, I saw my sister standing with Shammi, grinning. Seeing my stunned look, they quickly bent down and touched my feet and announced that they had gotten married. I was speechless. As there were no sweets in the house, I ran into the kitchen to get some sugar. When the couple turned, they saw a sweeper standing close by. They bent down and touched her feet as well. We Sikhs believe that if you run into a sweeper while embarking on an important mission, it's a good omen."

(A few years later, recalling the episode, Hardarshan had said, "Marriage to my sister did prove very lucky for Shammi, didn't it? Look how his career took off overnight from nowhere.")

Extracted from Shammi Kapoor: The Game Changer by Rauf Ahmed; Published by Om Books International; Price: Rs 595; Extracted with permission from Om Books International