Documenting Beauty: An Objectification of Shashi Kapoor, Or, The Tenets of Shashism

It only took one comment from Beth to tip the PPCC over into madness: yes, we thought, yes, why not, dammit! Why can't we document in painstaking, embarrassing detail all that we love and covet of Shashi Kapoor? With the same celebrity worship that Bridget Jones has for Colin Firth, we too can have journal entry upon journal entry of schoolgirl gushing for the god of our idolatry. We're not worthy!

Let us hence enlist all that we love of Balbir Raj Kapoor, third son of Prithviraj, better known as Shashi.

1. When Shashi smiles, golden rays of the sun shoot from his teeth.

A lightbulb is not a good metaphor, because the power of Shashi's smile surpasses even the strongest, eco-friendliest lightbulb. This is not megawatt, this is ultraviolet. It is rumored that Hema Malini got a bad case of sunburn thanks to Shashi's smile during the making of Janemaan Tum Kamaal Karti Ho in Trishul. After rushing her to the hospital for third-degree burns, she had to go through a week-long regimen of moisturizer and unattractive peeling (hence why she wears such a modest outfit throughout the song). To prevent this from happening again, Shashi was asked to refrain from brushing his teeth for the making of the song in the hope that some plaque would dim the smile. Unfortunately, it did not, as Shashi does not develop plaque.

Scientists are still unsure as to where the powerful light comes from, as Shashi's smile is only meant to be viewed using special sunglasses and even then, most scientists faint at the sight of it, but many theories indicate that it is, indeed, originating in the canines.

2. The croaky-sexy Shashi voice has been known to be more effective than hypnosis and more pleasurable than the consumption of opiates.

While many believe that Frank Herbert was inspired by Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics in the writing of Dune, legend has it that Mr. Herbert actually watched Aa Gale Lag Jaa shortly before he started his novel. Mr. Herbert was so compelled by Shashi Kapoor's voice (particularly in the scene when the latter, "Aur teri khubsoorat khubsoorat Mummy-ka.") that he caught fire and, like Hema Malini, had to be rushed to the hospital and doused in extinguisher. After coming to and recovering from his burns, Mr. Herbert then realized the power of The Voice, and decided to model the hypnotic powers of Lady Jessica's and Paul Atreides' "Bene Gesserit" voice in Dune on Shashi's vocal acrobatics. Examples of the original Voice can be found throughout the late 1970s-early 1980s canon: Kabhi Kabhie ("Poojaaa.", "Kya baa-aat hai, beta?"), Silsila ("Mere bhaaai hai."), and so forth.

3. Shashi's designer curls have healing properties.

Not many know that the ancient herb, myrrh, was actually just an extract from Shashi Kapoor's hair clippings. When Achilles' lover, Patroclus, was killed in the Battle of Troy, Achilles demanded that his lovers' body be wrapped in myrrh. Since myrrh was so difficult to obtain (it required Shashi to get a haircut), Achilles had to wait until the making of Namak Halaal, when Shashi shed his 1970s godly locks and went for a more conventional 1980s style. Similarly, the curls in Shashi's hairstyle are often used as the yardstick against which geometric properties are measured; for example, it was not until Archimedes was watching Immaan Dharam that he discovered the formula for the area of a circle. Leonardo da Vinci modelled many of his drawings on Shashi, and the famed picture of a man standing in a circle is actually (an admittedly poorly rendered) Shashi standing inside a perfect curl of Shashi's hair.


4. The way Shashi wobbles his head has inspired a new form of yoga.

With the increasing popularity of Hatha yoga in the West, not many practitioners realize that many of the original moves were modelled on Shashi's powerful and compelling body language. Even though most red-blooded human beings as well as several species of birds cannot withstand the power of Shashi when he wobbles his head, and more often they are rendered immobile and coma-like by it, ancient yogis deep in the Himalayas have discovered that wobbling your head the way Shashi does (left-right, just so) not only improves blood flow to the brain but also enhances your sense of smell. Thanks to the yogi's many years of deep spiritual practice and mental discipline, they were able to maintain consciousness even in the face of Shashi's head-wobbling just long enough that they could see how he did it (left-right, just so). They were then rendered immobile and coma-like, with several catching fire.

5. Like Schroedinger's cat, direct observation of Shashi Kapoor influences the Power and possibly leads to the exponential implosion of the universe.

In the United States, the FDA has issued a warning label which will soon be printed on Shashi Kapoor DVDs: "Watching Shashi Kapoor is dangerous to your health." This is due to the many documented cases of unknowing viewers catching fire at the sight of a head-shake or a good dance shuffle. Scientists recently discovered the alarming fact that watching Shashi Kapoor DVDs changes the very nature of those DVDs, hence leading to the exponentially-increasing probability of the universe imploding on itself like how the Witch King does in Lord of the Rings. A convention is hence being organized: "Beware the Temptation: How to Look Away." Most Shashist academics think this is futile.