Shashi Kapoor dies, Shashi Tharoor gets condolence calls

Shashi Tharoor / File Image

New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram:Veteran actor-filmmaker Shashi Kapoor, the romantic screen icon of the 70s and early 80s, died on Monday at a hospital in Mumbai. But Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said he was getting condolence calls.

"We're getting condolence calls in the office. Reports of my demise are, if not exaggerated, at least premature. #ShashiKapoor," Tharoor tweeted on Monday.

The mistake happened after a news channel's Twitter handle wrote Shashi Tharoor instead of Shashi Kapoor, who was 79.

But the politician has "no problem" as "mistakes happen. Glad to be able to crack a smile at a tragic moment".

Tharoor even paid tribute to the youngest son of late Prithviraj Kapoor and brother of late Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor.

"I feel a part of me is gone. A great actor, smart, cosmopolitan, impossibly handsome and w/a name that was often confused w/mine. (My office got two calls from journalists today about my reportedly serious ill-health!) I will miss Shashi Kapoor. Condolences to his family and all his fans," he tweeted.

In Thiruvananthapuram, a close aide of Tharoor told IANS that the MP's office in Delhi has, since Monday evening, hadbeen getting a flurry of telephone calls from several people, including journalists, with all in a hushed voice asking about Tharoor.

The aide said initially all of them were indeed perplexed on how come a common cold and cough that Tharoor had since arriving in New Delhi on Sunday night could lead to so many calls.

"Later, we understood when it surfaced there was a goof up committed by a TV channel who got it wrong after Bollywood actor Shashi Kapoor passed away," said the aide.

Tharoor, who was in Kerala apital and was moving around for a few days after Cyclone Ockhi hit the district's coastal villages, had caught a bad cold and cough.