My masseuse is spot on when it comes to Hindi films. Occasionally, her perceptive comments make me snap out of that delicious state of languidness, reverie actually, that a good massage can induce. She is usually fairly critical about what Bollywood has been churning out lately. But this time she can’t stop gushing over Ranbir Kapoor’s exuberant performance in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.

“You must see this film. You will see three Kapoors in Ranbir. In one scene he dances like Shammi Kapoor, shaking his shoulders and head just like him. (At which point she lets out a giggle.) He starts dancing before he even gets to the party, before the music has started. Sometimes, you will see Raj Kapoor in him, a bit sad and a bit funny. And sometimes he has the soft romantic expression of Shashi Kapoor. Ah, and yes, he wears one shaandar sweater after another, like his father Rishi Kapoor....”

The latest Kapoor to arrive in Tinseltown has been avariciously plucking the best from his family tree, appropriating lines, gestures, expressions and screen personas for almost all of his films so far – emulating or spoofing as the scene demands. He is only four films old – the fourth, Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh... was out last December. (His awaited flick, Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti, is being readied for release.) Yet, he has found a secure berth in the upper reaches of the pantheon of the contemporary screen gods and goddesses: the box-office triumphs of Ayan Mukerji’s Wake Up Sid and Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ajab Prem… ensured this unstoppable ascension.

Ranbir Kapoor belongs to the fourth generation of the Kapoor film dynasty, beginning with his great-grandfather, the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor who left Peshawar against the wishes of his police officer father to become an actor in Bombay in 1928. He played the leading man in a silent movie, Cinema Girl, the following year.

The founder of this unique film dynasty (the only one of its kind really, even internationally) was obsessed with theatre, and to a lesser extent cinema. His firstborn, Raj Kapoor, was even more feverishly obsessed with cinema. And his grandson, Ranbir, seems to have the same stubborn gene coursing through his veins. Witness his recent statements in various interviews: ‘I am a very hungry actor.’ ‘I am very ambitious.’ ‘My true calling is cinema and acting.’ The last quote follows a comment about his ‘love’ for women but they are not ‘his true calling’.

What makes Ranbir run? The tweens love him. When I went to see Ajab Prem... the cavernous cinema hall – not a multiplex – was packed with youngsters, with barely a soul over 25. They laughed, they clapped, and lingered on even after the credits began to roll at the end. The critics tend to like him, even when they rubbish the films he is in. Perhaps, it is the actor’s ability to play the sad clown (not literally, of course) – that skill to make us laugh and cry at the same time. He also has a good sense of comic timing – you either have it or you don’t.

There’s an air of innocence – even vulnerability – about this lanky actor – so unlike the six-pack heroes of the day who increasingly look as if they have stepped out of video games, speaking as they do with ersatz American accents and body language. Perhaps Ranbir is a throwback to a cleaner, gentler time in our cinema – before the era of the angry young man on the silver screen.

“I am an old soul in a new garb, not a New Age man. I would love to be born in the time of Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan and Raj Kapoor,” he once told me.

Ranbir also told me that one of his prized possessions is a portrait of Raj Kapoor. It is not the usual photograph of a family member hung on a wall after he or she has died. It is a collage of the many images of Raj Kapoor culled from his films – a pictorial CV of the legendary showman. This ancestral portrait has (unless he has recently removed it) pride of place in Ranbir’s bedroom. It was, he said, the first thing he saw when he woke up.

No wonder that in his first film, Saa–wariya (2007), the spirit of Raj Kapoor lurks benignly in the background. “Sanjay Sir (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) gave me, or I found the gesture, and connected with Raj Kapoor and his magic world of cinema,” Ranbir told me when I asked him about his affinity with his grandfather, adding, “It connected me to my legacy.”

Such an awesome legacy may have proved too overwhelming for those higher up on the Kapoor family tree. Shammi Kapoor struggled for five years to carve an identity of his own, which wasn’t easy considering the imposing presence of his elder brother. Both Randhir and Rishi Kapoor, to a lesser extent, had to do much the same with the ever-lengthening shadow of their father Raj Kapoor.

GenNow, on the other hand, wears the RK legacy far more lightly. For the youngest actor-scion of the Kapoor family, being the grandson of Raj Kapoor has proved to be a great calling card: it landed him his debut, Saawariya, with a much-sought-after director – and the first Indian film to be produced by Hollywood (Sony Pictures). It is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s homage to Raj Kapoor – from the inception of the film to the recurring images and allusions to the cinema of the maestro.

Paradoxically, Ranbir doesn’t quite look like a Kapoor, the way his cousins Kareena and Karisma do with their grandfather Raj Kapoor’s light eyes and fair skin. There is hardly a trace of the Kapoors in his vulnerable, slightly lost-looking face. Ranbir is a younger, male version of his actress-mother, Neetu Singh: he has the same droopy eyes and bangs falling into them – not to forget a similar facial structure.

For an aspiring young actress to resemble a star mother is probably an advantage. But it is hardly one for a young man. It took Saif Ali Khan several films, some muscle-building and a luxuriant moustache – in Omkara (2006) – to really come into his own, for people not to dismiss him as a younger male clone of his mother, actress Sharmila Tagore.

Yet, even then, long before all the plaudits for his films started coming his way, Ranbir exuded confidence. Underneath the apparent diffidence lies the quiet determination of a long-distance runner. Perhaps it has to do with the years he spent away from home in New York, learning how to make films. He was not just another star brat hanging round for papa to launch him. Life was, as he says, “sugar-coated” until he went overseas.

During his years at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Ranbir made about half a dozen short films. “You learn what film-making is about – it hits you. Americans are efficient.” It was also coming of age in a tough city. “I shared an apartment. We would starve, go to McDonald’s,” he recalled. Ranbir also attended The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute to get a taste of method acting.

Back in Mumbai, homework took on a new meaning. He learnt acting from his father, Rishi Kapoor. “My father reminded me that acting is not in the genes. People see you as a valid candidate but you can’t take it for granted. There is a lot of hard work. It is not about going to the gym and becoming an actor…. While giving me tips on dancing he told me that he always danced with his face. It was all about expression. If the mood was on your face, you were in. He also advised me to sing along aloud and not worry too much about the steps...BR Chopra had once told him that acting was all about putting in effort and coming across effortless, with a smile on the face. My father tells an amusing story about Shashi uncle. When he was nervous about doing a song, Raj Kapoor told him that he had no reason to be nervous. He said: ‘You are a Kapoor, just be passionate.’”

The Raj Kapoor poster over his bed is not only a fount of inspiration but a reminder of the fact that the task of reviving the moribund RK banner rests on his broad young shoulders. Perhaps, Prince Charming has finally arrived to awaken the slumbering RK Films studio, although there’s time yet for this RK to pick up the baton. “The home banner is top priority; it’s where I come from. I do want to direct. The minute there’s a good story, I will get to work.”

After all, for the Kapoors there is no business like show business.

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