For most of my life, my familiarity with Shammi Kapoor was mainly through his film music. My dad is a Shammi fan; as a child, I remember he used to have a radio cassette player by his bedside at night, with the song ‘ Akele Akele ’ echoing from my parents’ room into ours, putting us to sleep like a faint lullaby. My interest in Shammi Kapoor as an actor was fairly recent. In 2019, when the South Asian community was in uproar over the revocation of Article 370 granting special status to Kashmir, I felt compelled to disengage. Very instinctively, I decided to watch Kashmir ki Kali simply to see Kashmir in the 60s, because just watching Shammi Kapoor crooning ' Yeh Chand Sa Roshan Chehra ' from his shikara on Dal Lake seemed so familiar and comforting at that moment. I then embarked on a Shammi Kapoor movie marathon and observed his undeniable genius as an actor and a comic - just look at the disguises he donned in his movies - he played the older uptight Professor , he gracefu...