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Before Hindi cinema started shooting in Switzerland for those dreamy love songs, Kashmir was the go-to location for shooting love stories. Many Hindi films until the early 1980s would often shoot against the snow clad mountains in Kashmir and it always looked serene on screen. But, all of this changed in the 1980s after the political situation of the state changed and soon, it became rather dangerous for film units to spend endless hours in the area. It was around this time that Rishi Kapoor, along with the unit of Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie, faced an incident where thousands of people threw stones at their hotel. The situation got so out of hand that the military had to intervene to evacuate them.
In his memoir, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored, Rishi recalled that when they were shooting in Pahalgam, Yash Chopra had organised a party for him on his birthday. Rishi recalled that his wife Neetu and his co-actor Naseem were also present here as on this day, they had just wrapped up the shoot of a song. The party guests were making merry inside the hotel and were completely oblivious to what had been happening outside. Rishi recalled that an argument between the horse owners and taxi drivers took an ugly turn after a driver got drunk and picked a fight. One of Yash Chopra’s assistants, Deepak Sareen, went to check on the situation “but the situation rapidly spun out of control. There was chaos with a thousand-strong mob flinging stones and fireballs at the hotel. The crowds were baying for Deepak Sareen’s blood and mine too.”
The episode was starting to get worse so Rishi Kapoor and others were sent to their rooms and were told to hide under their beds as no one knew how this would play out. Their rooms were locked from inside but the stones being thrown at the hotel smashed their windows and Rishi described it as the “scariest moment” of his life. “We were all herded off to our rooms for safety and asked to lie down under our beds. Our rooms were locked from the outside and the curtains were drawn. But the windows were soon smashed to smithereens and the hotel was gutted,” he recalled. The actor said that then then Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah had to get involved to evacuate them safely “with the help of the military.” Rishi said that barring this incident, he had pleasant memories of shooting in Kashmir.
Rishi Kapoor passed away in 2020 after a long battle with cancer.
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