So, as a fan of Hindi cinema who came of age in the 1970s, I began thinking about who the definitive jugalbandi pair of my childhood years could be, during the endless waits (for stars, junior artistes or production excuse) that are part of filmmaking. The favoured pastime during these interludes is to recount the tales of filmic lore. One of my favourites, that exemplified the golden age, was usually invoked when stars were late -- it was the legend of two actors who used to race each other to the sets, to seewho could get there earlier, and often both beat the producer and the entire unit there in the process. Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor. The two colossuses of my, and probably most of my generation's, cinematic imagination. And in a sense they couldn't be more different from each other.

Shashi Kapoor was the son of the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor -- a Pathan in the best sense of the word -- Sikander, Rustom, Akbar, all roles impossible to conceive without him. (There is the story of a group of Iranis that would religiously attend screenings of Prithvirajsaab'sRustom-e-Sohrab, day after day for months on end, totally drunk, wait in anticipation for him to give life to the lines "Main Irani hoon" in his wonderful gravelly voice, and then leave the cinema hall, utterly satisfied.) His two eldest sons, Raj and Shammi, were great stars too, one the quintessential post-Independence Aawara, the other a brilliant, modern Elvis figure. It was no silver spoon Shashi Kapoor was born with, but theultimate pedigree any actor could hope for.

On the other hand, Amitabh Bachchan's antecedents were as impressive, although vastly different the son of poet Harivanshrai Bachchan, he possessed looks that at the time stood out for unconventionality, and a lean physique that stood in stark relief to the plump fashion of the time. Shashi Kapoor inherited his father's incredible features, and what innumerable women have described as the most devastating smile Indian cinema has ever seen.

They worked together in innumerable films, the most successful screen pairing in the era of multi-starrers. May be because together they had a chemistry that covered all our emotions -- one's dark, brooding person counterfoiled by the sunny, radiant charisma of the other. So it seemed in all the films -- at two ends of a love triangle inKabhi Kabhi, as brothers divided in Deewar, or later as brothers united against Bond-esque villainy inShaan. Most interesting, perhaps, is where they made the maximumimpact. When it comes to performing a scene, there are few actors today who don't see the shadows of a Bachchan performance in there. Death scenes, drunken scenes, comedy scenes, scenes where the protagonist stands up to the injustices of the system, any time I think of any one of these scenes, there is probably a Bachchan reference I am clinging on to. So even when I see such a scene performed by another actor, the comparison to Bachchan is never far away. It takes someone of the calibre of an Aamir Khan to nuance an original expression inGhulam, and to avoid immediate comparison. When one would look at the sheer breadth of a career, there are few who have achieved as much as Shashi Kapoor. Beginning his career in 1960 with Merchant Ivory inThe Householder, he has never looked back. He has done the gamut of Hindi films, and a lot more besides. He has, together with his children, kept Prithvi Theatre going, produced films backing directors like Shyam Benegal inJunoon, Govind NihalaniinVijayta, Girish Karnad inUtsav, and produced the masterpiece 36 Chowringhee Lane centred around a gem of a performance by his wife Jennifer Kendall. As an actor, he has delivered superb performances in English films too, most memorably in films likeHeat and Dust and Sammie and Rosie Get Laid. And so, even today, they are charting different paths -- Amitabh Bachchan even more firmly committed than before to commercial cinema, now adding the responsibilities of producing films to the onerous task of starring in them, while Shashi Kapoor is in semi-retirement, the only roles he takes on being in films made by Western producers, such asMuhafiz a few years ago, andSidestreets, a film set in New York that is due for release in the United States this summer. So, like in debates between Miles' minimalist interpretations and Coltrane's "sheets of sound", or Plato'sCave and Aristotle'sEthics, we do not question our luck at having been able to see themboth.