Shashi Kapoor’s warm nature is what I will remember most: Ananth Nag

While veteran Sandalwood star Ananth Nag grew up looking up to Shashi Kapoor, he considers it his good fortune to have shared screen space with the late actor. He recalls his memories of the actor and shares the one thing about

Kalyug

that still bothers him.
“When I was young, I used to watch his films in Hindi. I then watched some of his parallel and new-wave cinema in the early years of his career. Subsequently, I saw him in films like Jab Jab Phool Khile, in which he was the wonderful romantic hero. Later on, when I was working with Shyam Benegal, I had a wonderful surprise and fortune to work with Shashi Kapoor in Kalyug, which was, coincidentally, produced by him. It was a wonderful experience to have shared screen with him and taken notes from him. I used to meet him quite often whenever he visited Bengaluru. In fact, I was one of his guests when he had a special event in Bengaluru, at which he released a special edition book to commemorate 25 years of Prithvi Theatre. At the event, he reminisced that he knew my mother-in-law,

Rani Sharma

, and that he had worked with her. This was a revelation to me. She was into theatre. In fact, Shashi Kapoor’s father, Prithviraj Kapoor, had also acted with her back in the day. I have very warm and fond memories of Shashi Kapoor. But, as it is inevitable, death is something that we can’t fight. Ironically, one of my most vivid memories from Kalyug was being a little skeptical about how my character would be responsible for the death of Shashi Kapoor’s character. I was very uncomfortable with what I was doing. This was something that I had a tough time to come to terms with as a young actor back then,” says Ananth.