Shashi Kapoor: The Householder, the Star Seminar

About the book: India’s first biography of Shashi Kapoor sheds light on one of the country’s most enigmatic personalities - an actor who straddles the worlds of commercial Hindi cinema, theatre and small-budget art movies; who is, at once, an earnest householder and a committed star. In this rare book, we are offered glimpses of Shashi Kapoor, the family man - son of Prithviraj Kapoor, husband of Jennifer Kendal, and father to Kunal, Karan and Sanjna. We are led through Shashi Kapoor’s film career - his debut as a bright-eyed child-actor in Awara; his emergence, in the hectic 1970s, as India’s busiest performer - with a slew of hits including Deewaar and Trishul; and his rise to international prominence with Merchant–Ivory’s The Householder and a ‘trilogy’ of films on older men with fading pasts. About the author: Aseem Chhabra is a film journalist, freelance writer and film festival programmer in New York City. He has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Outlook, Mumbai Mirror, Rediff.com; has a regular column in The Hindu and has been a commentator on Indian cinema and popular culture on NPR, CNN, BBC, as also ABC’s Good Morning America, Associated Press and Reuters. Aseem is the festival director of the New York Indian Film Festival and the Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival in Pittsburgh. He is also the voice of Shadow Puppet #1 in director Nina Paley’s award-winning animated film, Sita Sings the Blues. Aseem is from Delhi, lives in New York, and visits India often.