'Kids love my chaddi-nada'

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />NEW DELHI: The hair is an indeterminate red, sunglasses wrapped around the face, a long gold chain weighed down by medallions, black shirt with flaps, black trousers without flaps and you expect him to screech: "ooooouuu". Tarzan in New York? More like Shakti Kapoor in the Congress.<br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="32.1%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/534176.cms" alt="/photo/534176.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">NEW ROLE:</span><span style="" font-size:=""> Shakti Kapoor swearing his allegiance to Congress.</span><br /><span style="" font-size:="">(PTI photo)</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">Provoked by the truckloads of actors queuing up to join the BJP, the Congress on Tuesday set about getting some tinsel of its own. And who did it find but Shakti Kapoor. The comic, not the villain, he will tell you. And even as a villain, he says, he has "sung songs and danced." And raped on screen only one or twice - "Then too I kept laughing. It is so funny to rape a girl".<br /><br />Forgive Shakti Kapoor, for he means not what he says. After talking sense for over an hour, this is the first lapse. And he is not even jumping into the political fray by joining the Congress, just promising to "campaign extensively." <br /><br />The sometime sidekick in countless films says: "I am not joining the party because I can''t give 100 per cent as I have my commitments. I don''t want to give 30 or 40 per cent like other actors. I will join when I can work properly for the party." <br /><br />His face is drawn into what is probably an earnest look as he talks about "education, health and the need to change the system." And the Congress is the only party that can, insists Kapoor.<br /><br /><formid=367815><br /><br /></formid=367815></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />Why? Because he has been such a "fan of the Nehru parivar", because he is from "the Chacha Nehru culture," because when he met Sonia Gandhi for the first time "I was so happy", he exclaims, like a newly crowned beauty queen, hands waving in the air. <br /><br />It is a little incongruous to see the rather bizarrely attired Kapoor - yes, there is even a ring in the ear - talk politics. But he does it with the elan of a trained actor. "When people bring up (Sonia Gandhi''s) foreign origin issue I feel hurt. This is a woman who is the nation''s bahu, who has sacrificed her mother-in-law, her husband for this nation. How can you call her a foreigner?" he asks, injured.<br /><br />The villainous mien that most people associate with him will not adversely affect a Congress that desperately needs a makeover itself. Kapoor is certain. "Children love me", Kapoor pronounces solemnly. "I have done so many films" - reels off names - "where I had a comic role, I make them laugh. They even love my chaddi-nada (a cinematic obscenity made famous in the Govinda flick Raja Babu).<br /><br />You don''t have the heart to tell the enthusiastic Kapoor that any child young enough to enjoy that kind of thing, will not be voting.<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>