An everlasting visual will be of Krishna Raj Kapoor pointing to her wheelchair and asking me, “Is this any life to lead?” We were at the prayer meeting for Shashi Kapoor, where she was quite distraught saying, “He was a kid when I got married. And he’s also gone.” Shashi was a naughty, charming eight-year-old when Krishna Malhotra became a Kapoor at age 16. Watching that child slip away before her was something she took to heart.
But there was more in store for her to see before she wrapped up an elegant innings at age 88. Her older daughter, Ritu, was already battling two types of cancer and Krishna was too frail to travel to the US to be with her. With the world’s best treatment available to her, Ritu was still hanging in there when her husband, industrialist Rajan Nanda, died of kidney failure this August. He was 76.
The Monday before she herself passed, Krishna had organised a little tea meeting at her Chembur residence to mourn Rajan. With RK Studios up for sale, an era was ending and she was watching it. But the news of her son Rishi’s startling diagnosis (it is the dreaded disease but one cannot say with certainty what kind it is or at what stage) — he, Neetu and Ranbir had to fly to the US for immediate treatment on the 29th — was the last straw. Within 48 hours, Krishna had a fatal cardiac arrest and declared dead on arrival at the hospital in the wee hours of October 1.
For all that took pieces of her heart away, Krishna was no whining matriarch. She was scheduled to play cards with her girl buddies at Sunita Prem Kishen’s place on Tuesday.
At her Ganapati celebrations on September 21, daughter Rima Jain was happy that her mother had come to her place that afternoon for a darshan. Rima’s Ganapati is, incidentally, always adorned with gold jewellery. Did Krishna come all coiffed and groomed, as always? “Of course,” Rima had laughed. In earlier years, Krishna used to drive all the way from Chembur to Ray’s at Kemps Corner to fix her hair and do her nails. Sometimes, she’d drop in at Chunky Panday’s mother’s parlour in Bandra. “Now mom has taught her maid to do her hair, since she can’t go to parlours like she used to,” Rima had merrily disclosed. Irrespective of who groomed her, seeing Krishna chic and perfectly polished was as sure as the sun rising in the east.
She was also very particular about feeding people who went to her house, whether she knew them or not. Once, we were doing a photo session with Rishi in her Deonar bungalow when he, as usual, was irritably in a rush. But even he had to be polite and say, “Please eat, it’s my mother’s instructions.” Ditto when we went for a session with youngest son, Rajeev (Chimpu). That day Krishna didn’t come down but her trays of goodies reached the entire camera unit.
She lost Raj Kapoor, the man who lit up everybody’s lives around him, more than 20 years ago but she presided over the Deonar bungalow and kept it running in style and comfort, making enough room for any Kapoor family member to move in and stay. Ranbir loved spending time with his grandmother, soaking up stories of the past. Just as he likes visiting Hiroo Johar to chat with her even when Karan’s not at home.
Krishna may have had much to grieve about but she was no wilting widow with sob stories. She was fun till the end. Ageing but her bright red or pink lipstick in place, her hair, of course, superbly styled.
One week after her prayer meeting for her son-in-law, Krishna herself was gone, her bungalow once again overflowing with people, food and beverages being served neatly in a separate room just the way the hostess par excellence would have liked it.
It was fitting that she was taken to the RK Studios before the cremation. Fitting that the studio still belonged to the family in her lifetime.
RIP to elegance and hospitality.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author
