When Shashi Kapoor had Amitabh Bachchan’s scenes removed from his film: ‘I am not going to let you to do this’

On December 6, 2017, a heartbroken Amitabh Bachchan dedicated a blog to his late friend Shashi Kapoor. In the blog he recalled, “Ismail Merchant the producer of the film called us one fine day and said there some small parts which we could do and that he would pay us Rs 50 for it. I needed the money so desperately to feed myself, I readily agreed.”

He explained the scene was of Shashi Kapoor’s death where his body was being taken in procession for cremation. He wrote, “I was asked to be among those that formed the pall bearers along with several other junior artists in the sequence, to carry the body.”

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“Shashi ji was not at the shoot, obviously, but dropped by later at the location. When he saw what we had been asked to do, he walked up to me in the crowd of mourners where I was standing as a junior artist, or the ‘extra’ and asked me to move. ‘Don’t do these bit parts’ he advised, ‘you are made for better things’; and then spoke to the director to delete those portions of mine from the film.”

Shashi Kapoor too had spoken about the incident in one of his old interviews with Lata Khubchandani.

He recalled, “He once came on the sets of my film Bombay Talkies made by Ismail Merchant. I asked him, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said he had to say this line and he would get Rs 50 for it. I said, ‘Don’t be silly. I am not going to allow you to do this. You are destined for better things.’ He didn’t like it. He wasn’t too happy to lose out on the money.”

The friends turned family after Amitabh Bachchan’s daughter Shweta married Ritu Nanda’s son, Nikhil Nanda. She was the niece of Shashi Kapoor. Amitabh Bachchan often shares posts remembering his dear friend.