Ranbir: The naughty yet nice chap

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From creating a stampede at a girls’ school to making all lady journos dance to his tunes at a formal press-meet, Bollywood dreamboat Ranbir Kapoor knows how to make his frenzied fans eat out of his hands. With a pierced ear, twinkling eyes and a goatee, this tinsel town heartthrob doesn’t need to make much of an effort to waltz his way into the hearts of fans and ... the hall of fame.

Enjoying every bit of his promotional tour for the upcoming movie Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, this instant charmer claims to have always been a naughty-yet-nice chap since childhood. True to his onscreen avatar Bunny with a badtameez dil, the Kapoor lad walks down memory lane. “I don’t want to narrate those cheesy incidents on camera. Or else, every other city will ban me and not let me shoot in their city. I still remember being the most spanked kid in my class,” he quickly adds with a quip. “Well, there was this Ma’am of ours, Miss John, who came to school wearing skirts. As a five-six-year old, I would sneak under her table to check out her legs. Well...that sight would give me immense pleasure,” he chuckles. “I was caught in the act one day; my guardians were immediately called in and the angry teacher complained about me,” recollects the student of Bombay Scottish School with a dash of humour, predictably leaving the rest in splits. Boys will be boys after all!
Rolling his eyes, the dapper dude further delivers a naughty dialogue from the film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani which goes as: Badtameezi ek bimari hai, aisi bimari jo dheere dheere waqt ke saath budhape mein badal jati hai. (Naughtiness is a disease and with time, it gradually converts into a senile old age.)” Jokes apart, the Filmfare Award-winning hero of two consecutive years, concedes on a serious note that “being naughty is harmless as long as it doesn’t hurt people either physically or their sentiments.”
Quiz him on the message that his impending youthful movie (starring Deepika Padukone, Kalki Koechlin and Aditya Roy Kapur) intends to convey through its story, and the next-gen actor chips in without batting an eyelid: “One thing I took away from this movie is that relationships are precious in life and that real happiness heightens only when it is shared with near and dear ones. I will certainly carry forth the friendly, working equations I had forged with my co-stars on this particular venture, and cherish it forever. You know what, with the passage of time, we all tend to forget our kith and kin, close buddies, girlfriend and sadly enough, even our parents. So it’s very important to remain grounded and closely attached to the people who mean a lot in your lives. I’ve learnt this valuable lesson during the making of this movie and I promise myself to start sharing my happiness which spreads like a perfume’s scent.”
Styled by Manish Malhotra in the movie, the actor looks dapper on screen. “Bunny is a fun-loving, chilled-out guy. So he appears funky most of the time. From suave suits to maverick denims, he likes to comfortably slip into whatever he finds in his wardrobe,” comments the actor about his character.
Calling his illustrious grandfather Raj Kapoor his ultimate inspiration, he stresses, “He is my role-model not only as a filmmaker-actor but also as a great human being, a doting husband and an affectionate grandfather to say the least. I was very young when he passed away.”
Rubbishing rumours about remaking the 1951 classic Awaara, starring his great grandfather Prithviraj Kapoor, grandfather Raj Kapoor and yesteryear heroine Nargis, the man-of-the-moment confirms that, “I don’t possess the talent to touch a great, fascinating gem of Indian cinema like Awaara.
“And, no such development to my knowledge is taking place in the near future either!”