Shashi Kapoor, Jennifer and Shakespeare

I am your wife, if you will marry me:

If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow

You may deny me, but I'll be your servant,

Whether you will or no.

(Miranda in The Tempest by Shakespeare)

It was in the role of Miranda that Shashi Kapoor first saw Jennifer and as some close family members reminisce, he fell right in love then and there.

Their’s was not an easy love story. Jennifer’s father ran a theatre company called Shakespeareana Production. Shashi Kapoor was out and out a Hindi film person. But he had a keen interest in theatre and was working in his father’s theatre company. They met in Calcutta in 1956. Jennifer’s father did not support the idea of Jennifer marrying Shashi. They nevertheless did get married in 1958.

It is a popular love story. Most of the love stories end with ‘they live happily ever after!” But this is the exact point from where real love stories begin - the struggle to be grounded in family life and pursue dreams together. Most of us lose the dream part quite early in the ‘happily ever after phase’. But that was the strength of their relationship.

Jennifer did keep Shashi grounded, kept a strict watch even on his diet and supported him when he was expanding his base to international productions with Ivory-Merchant. She looked after the children and was an anchor in Shashi’s life.

In turn, Shashi Kapoor abided by and respected her control over his life and diet. She was not around all the time but Shashi Kapoor adhered to her dietary instructions. He romanced some of the most beautiful heroines of his times on screen, but never once was his name associated with any of them off screen. Together they were a team, who shared a single passion, theatre and acting. They both were people of refined taste in art and cinema. In their own way, both tried to promote artistic cinema. Even when Shashi Kapoor became a successful commercial film hero, he kept experimenting with various nuances of acting with ‘Junoon’ ‘Kaliyug’ and Utsav. Jennifer’s role as an old insecure and lonely woman in 36 Chowringee Lane is unforgettable.

Both were talented in their own right, both were successful and neither tried to tread into another’s territory. They rather expanded each other’s arena of artistic experiences. In a profession where relationships falter due to work pressure and professional uncertainties, where artistic intensities often become a bone of contention in relationships, Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal became a symbol of creative harmony. When Jennifer died, Shashi was quoted as saying:

“I sense her presence often. And the house, and everything in it, is just as it was when she was alive."

A man is known and remembered by and through the relationships he has had with people around. Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal both are not with us any more but their relationship is what they will be remembered for, what reflected in their work and contribution to cinema and theatre. No heaviness of existence there, just a light floating feeling of sublime human endeavour. To quote the Shakespearean play again through which these two beautiful souls met :

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

(The Tempest)