Aakhir, ye ravi kapoor kaun tha ?........

There have been so many stories behind one success story, especially in the film industry and the success story of Jeetendra is just one of them. And let me go back to those early days when a lower middle class Punjabi family lived in a crowded chawl called Ramchandra Chawl which stood between a church and an old cinema house called Central cinema where Marathi films were mostly screened and Hindi films were shown just once in a way.

The area was Girgaum ,which was a place thickly populated with mill workers and small time white collar employees. The Kapoor family was a family that had a cordial relationship with all their neighbours and the reason was the elder son of Mr Amarnath Kapoor who was a very good dancer who made festivals like Diwali, Dusserah and especially Ganesh Utsav special.

Ravi Kapoor was that boy who was the favourite of every man, woman and child and studied in the nearby convent school called the St , Sebastian High School from where he did his matriculation, after which he didn't want to study any further as he wanted to be an actor in films....

He had told his father about his ambition. His father was s dealer in imitation jewellery which he suplied to leading filmmaker. He now carried a small black and white photograph of his son Ravi in his purse and showed it to filmmakers. One morning, he was with the great filmmaker Dr V Shantaram and showed him the photograph of his son,Ravi and the filmmaker liked the boy in the photograph and asked Mr Kapoor to bring his son with him the next morning.

The excited father and son reached Rajkamal Studio in Lalbaug and Dr Shantaram offered Ravi Kapoor work as an extra and asked him to join the crowd shooting for his film Sehra in Jaipur. Dr Shantaram kept encouraging Ravi Kapoor and finally launched him as his hero in his film Geet Gaaya Pathorone with his daughter Rajshri as the leading lady. But Dr Shantaram was not very happy with the name Ravi and gave him the name Jeetendra and that unknown Ravi Kapoor from Ramchandra Chawl grew into one.of the most successful stars of Indian Cinema.

And today more than five decades later that boy Ravi Kapoor, sorry Jeetendra has worked in more than five hundred films. He has a bungalow on Pali hill which is an underground bungalow and he now doesn't live there after he built " "Krishna" which many call "the new Buckingham Palace" he once had bungalows in Hyderabad and other cities of Andhra Pradesh and Chennai when he was the busiest Hindi film star working in Hindi films planned and shot all over the south.

That boy Ravi Kapoor as also been a leading producer and the man behind Balaji which is named after Balaji, the God who Ravi Kapoor firmly believes has made him the legend called Jeetendra

AAJ RAVI KAPOOR JAB PEECHE MUDKAR DEKHTA HOGA TOH USKO YAKEEN NAHI HOTA HOTA HOGA KI EK CHAWL MEIN REHANEWALA EK AISA STAMBH BANA HUVA HAI JISKO DEKHKAR LOGO KO KHWAABON PAR AUR INSAAN KE MEHNAT PAR YAKEEN KARNE KA DIL NA SIRF CHAAYEGAA BALKI KHWAAB KO SACH MEIN BADALNE KE LIYE MEHNAT KARNE PAR BHAROSA BADH JAAYEGA