India's first biography of Shashi Kapoor sheds light on one of the country's most enigmatic personalities - an actor who straddles the worlds of commercial Hindi cinema, theatre and small-budget art movies; who is, at once, an earnest householder and a committed star.

In this rare book, we are offered glimpses of Shashi Kapoor, the family man - son of Prithviraj Kapoor, husband of Jennifer Kendal, and father to Kunal, Karan and Sanjna. We are led through Shashi Kapoor's film career - his debut as a bright-eyed child-actor in Awara; his emergence, in the hectic 1970s, as India's busiest performer - with a slew of hits including Deewaar and Trishul; and his rise to international prominence with Merchant-Ivory's The Householder and a 'trilogy' of films on older men with fading pasts. Equally, we are provided with an astute analysis of Shashi Kapoor, the businessman - the proprietor of Film-Valas; the producer of Shyam Benegal films; and the distributor of Bobby.

With luminous and thus-far undisclosed stories by the actor's family (Neetu Singh, Rishi, Sanjna and Kunal Kapoor), co-stars (Shabana Azmi, Simi Garewal, Sharmila Tagore), colleagues (Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, James Ivory, Hanif Kureishi, Aparna Sen), and friends; Shashi Kapoor, the biography - by one of India's best-known film journalists - is as captivating as Shashi Kapoor, the star.