Shashi Kapoor acted in plays, directed and produced by his father Prithviraj Kapoor, while traveling with Prithvi Theatres. He started acting in films as a child in the late 1940's under the name of Shashiraj as there was another actor by the same name who used to act in mythological films as a child artist. His best-known performances as a child actor were in Aag (1948) and Awaara (1951), where he played the younger version of the characters played by his older brother Raj Kapoor and in Sangram (1950), where he played the younger version of Ashok Kumar. He worked in four Hindi films as a child artist from 1948 to 1954.