Indonesia’s Celebrated Actress – A Fan of Shammi Kapoor and Dil Deke Dekho

Indonesian actress Christine Hakim, a six-time recipient of Indonesia’s prestigious Piala Citra award for best actress, grew up watching Shammi Kapoor films according to an article in the Hindustan Times on July 17.

A lot of Bollywood content is shown on TV in Indonesia. Bollywood existed in my country even before I was born. I remember Shammi Kapoor’s Dil Deke Dekho as a school student” Christine said, breaking in to the 1959 song, as described by the Hindustan Times.

                           (Christine’s favorite song)

Dil Deke Dekho was a classic Shammi Kapoor film, carried purely by his magnetism and his unique style. Asha Parekh plays a young woman, a ward of a rich widow, who meets Shammi, a young but poor singer.  Despite herself and her upbringing, Asha Parekh slowly falls in love with Shammi Kapoor. Her anguished resistance to what she feels and her final acceptance of her emotions is captured beautifully in the following song.


             (Our favorite song from Dil Deke Dekho)


One of our early articles was about Shammi Kapoor (Do you Yahoo – Yes we do, say Microsoft shareholders and Shammi Kapoor fans – May 4). As we wrote in that article, Shammi Kapoor is unique.

Dev Anand is the urbane, romantic legend of Bollywood. Rajesh Khanna carried this torch to super stardom in the late sixties and early 1970s. Dilip Kumar is the thespian legend of Bollywood. Amitabh Bachchan carried this tradition to greater heights in the late 1970s and still reigns supreme.

Yet, the magic of Shammi Kapoor has never been replicated. His breakthrough film was the 1957 hit “Tumsa Nahin Dekha” (“we have never seen some one like you“).  This title was taken from the following hit song from that film. But the meaning of the title really applies to Shammi Kapoor.


                               (Tumsa Nahin Dekha)

Notice Shammi Kapoor shouts “yahoo” to open this song. This “yahoo” shout was later immortalized in the famous “yahoo” song in the 1961 film “Junglee” (see our May 4 article referenced above).

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