Shashi Kapoor & Zeenat Aman – When two exceedingly gorgeous people are on screen then sometimes the story need not matter, but with Shashi and Zeenat fireworks set the screen on fire. In the topical Roti Kapada aur Makaan (1974) directed and starring Manoj Kumar, as his synonymous character Bharat who is struggling to obtain any of the essentials in the title, which frustrates his girlfriend Zeenat, who dumps Bharat for the richer Shashi. Truth be told, Zeenat makes a much better jodi with the happier Shashi than the moody Manoj. Especially in a scene where he presents her with red roses to match her sari on her birthday, while Bharat is too busy being grumpy! However their chemistry was shown to the hilt in Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) the most overtly sexy films of the 70’s. Kapoor rehashes the Shakuntala story, with Zeenat as a scarred but beautiful gaon ki chori who entrances the local engineer Shashi, but she hides her scars throughout their courtship and he rejects her on their wedding night. The film was controversial for Zeenat’s see through saris and the intimate scenes between the two. Their chemistry is at its most explosive in a scene where the two lovers are singing at a waterfall “Yashomati Maiya Se” it is such an erotic sequence because Shashi and Zeenat convey so much with their lingering looks and yearning body language. Where the story might have lacked in subtlety, this spicy jodi more than made up for that, especially in their intimate scenes which brought back the kiss which was banned since the 1930’s!
