MIND YOUR FACTS, MR. EXPERT a.k.a.Annu Kapoor

Ali Peter John

History, even if it is film history, faces a grave crisis when it is handled by half-baked historians, out of work actors and directors, jobless journalists and so-called critics.

There have been any number of experts on the history of Hindi cinema ever since the splurge of the social media and the ever-growing number of entertainment channels, which have led to giving" jobs" to people who have even a smattering of knowledge or pretend to have knowledge or have better knowledge than any of their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

One of such experts is the well-known actor Annu Kapoor who would have been better off if he had stuck to his original calling and played better roles than he has played in the last forty years that he has been around in theatre, television and films...

But, there must have been some flaw in his fortune somewhere for him to turn a historian and come up with bloomers which are just not true. It hurts to point out glaring mistakes to a man who was a friend once not so long ago, but when a very enlightened and knowledgeable student of cinema, both Hindi and International, like Dr. Trinetra Bajpai ,who is not only a leading chemical engineer in the World but also an author who has written authoritative books on Indian film music and biographies of Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar and has a library of books and music that any lover of cinema and music can envy, points out such glaring bloomers, one has to take them seriously, there is just no way out...

In one of his radio shows, the learned Annu Kapoor talks about Waheeda Rehman having a clash with her director, Raj Khosla in her very first film, "C.I.D",(1956)and then not having worked with Raj Khosla again. The learned historian in Annu Kapoor so conveniently and easily forgets that Waheeda Rehman had been Raj Khosla's leading lady in his very next film, "Solvaa Saal" made in(1958).He also forgets that years later Raj Khosla had directed Waheeda Rehman in "Sunny" starring Sunny Deol.

In another stinking bloomer, historian Annu Kapoor tells his innocent (?)audience that Dilip Kumar and Johnny Walker had worked together in A.R. Kardar's "Dil Diya Dard Liya". And that they didn't work together again. Little did the part time historian know that the two actors and friends came together again in "Gopi" made in 1970.

Annu Kapoor earlier got away with many more blunders and bigger bloomers on a similar show he did for a sponsored show on one of the private channels on television.

He is not the only one to cause such damage to the history of Hindi cinema. What can be done to prevent such harm from being done to a subject that has already gone through so much of neglect by people who have never care for its reputation and have only jumped at the first opportunity to make a few bucks at its expense ?