With a heavy heart, the world has bid goodbye to veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, who breathed his last Thursday morning. A few hours after his death, an old tweet of the actor surfaced in which he expressed his desire to visit Pakistan so that his children can see their roots.
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In the tweet, shared in November 2017, Kapoor appeals to Kashmiri politician Farooq Abdullah to solve the Kashmir issue so that he can visit Pakistan before he dies.
Unfortunately, the actor passed away before that could happen and the past couple of years has seen Indo-Pak relations go from bad to worse.
Rishi, himself had strong ties with Pakistan. Not only are his ancestral roots in the country but he was also connected with the people here especially via social media and often engaged in heated debate with them.
A few weeks before his demise, Kapoor had asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to “advise his country to take adequate precautions.”
“People of Pakistan are also dear to us,” the actor had written in a tweet.
Rishi’s ancestral home, popularly known as the ‘Kapoor Haveli’ is located in Qissa Khwani Bazar, in Peshawar Pakistan. Rishi’s father Raj Kapoor, grandfather and patriarch of the Bollywood royalty Prithviraj Kapoor and grand uncle Trilock Kapoor were all born in this building. According to details, the house was constructed between 1918 and 1922 by Dewan Basheswarnath Kapoor, father of Prithviraj Kapoor. However, after the partition the Kapoors’ migrated to India.
The magnificent haveli has about forty rooms with exquisite overhanging balconies and astonishing floral motifs in its front.
In 2019, Rishi had requested the Government of Pakistan to preserve his ancestral home and convert it into a museum.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi, at that time, had said, “There was a call from Rishi Kapoor. He requested that his family’s home in Peshawar should be made into a museum or some sort of institution. We have accepted his request.”
Similarly, Shehryar Afridi, who was serving as the Interior Minister at that time had shared that the actor had called him personally with his request.
“He had called me and talked about making his ancestral home into a museum. Now the federal and provincial governments are working on this and will transform the house into a museum soon,” Afridi had stated.
Rishi had last visited Pakistan with Shashi Kapoor and Randhir Kapoor in 1990. They had travelled to Peshawar to see their family’s house and also took some soil from the house to keep their heritage intact.
Decades later, Rishi shared a picture from the visit on social media.
Kapoor breathed his last a day after he was admitted to the hospital after he complained of breathing difficulties. The actor had been battling with cancer for a while now.
Read more – Veteran Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor passes away
Announcing his demise, the actor’s family in a statement had said that he remained his jovial and entertaining self till the end and that he would “like to be remembered with a smile and not with tears.”
