It was a huge surprise for everyone shooting at Chandivali Studio for the serial Bikhari Aas Nikhari Preet produced by Kanika Bajpai and Trinetra Bajpai and directed by veteran Lekh Tandon. Veteran Shammi Kapoor actually came to visit his very old friend who had directed him in his ward-winning role in Professor and later on in Prince as well.
Shammi Kapoor and Lekh Tandon both hail from a town now in Pakistan and had struggled together to get their footholds in the film industry. Their friendship blossomed then and has remained for over five decades.
The artistes of the serial Divya Dwivedi and Piyush Sahdev could not believe their eyes on seeing the veteran and touched his feet. Said Shammi, 'I was sitting at home and was getting bored so I picked up my phone and asked Lekh where he was. So here I am!'
The highpoint was that Shammi Kapoor himself drove his Mercedes all the way from Malabar Hill to Chandivali Studios at Andheri, a distance of almost 40 kilometres in Sunday's not-too-light traffic on December 23. Shammi went nostalgic and said, "The last time i had come here was to shoot for the climax of Ajooba in 1990. A set of the ship had been erected here and I had shot with Amitabh and Rishi Kapoor."
All the technicians too gathered around him and Shammi Kapoor obliged them with clicking photographs. "Had I known that my presence would disturb the shooting so much I wouldn't have come here," he quipped.