Those Were Kaka’s Superstar Days, While Kaki Searched for Freedom Through Divorce

By Sharad Rai

It was the early 1980s…
Rajesh Khanna and Dimple had already separated from each other. This separation was final—forever. After the split, Dimple left the Ashirwad bungalow on Carter Road and came to live at her father Shri Chunni Bhai Kapadia’s house, Samudra Mahal, located on Birla Lane in Juhu.

The 1982 Juhu trip after the separation rumor

When we learned about their separation, two of us journalists went to her father’s Juhu residence. This was sometime in the last days of April 1982. We reached there in the scorching heat and were perhaps offered Rooh Afza sherbet to drink. With me was photo-journalist S. Khan (who is no longer with us; in later years, he went on to become a writer for films like Khiladi and Sheshnaag).

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Dimple’s father, Chunni Bhai, was a very courteous man. He said, “She won’t say anything. They are separated now—that’s all there is to tell.”
After a while, Dimple came and sat on the sofa in front of us.

“So this is your final separation?” I asked.
Dimple nodded in agreement.

Her face was completely blank, almost wilted. Looking at her, it was hard to believe that this was the same girl who had been the heroine of Raj Kapoor’s super-duper hit film Bobby. She came and sat wearing what looked like a simple maxi-nightie.

“She won’t say anything. The matter has gone to court now,” Chunni Bhai said.
“Yes, she has finally left his (Rajesh Khanna’s) Ashirwad bungalow on Carter Road and come to live with us.”

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After some time, Dimple’s younger sister Simple came in carrying a tray of tea. Perhaps Chunni Bhai didn’t want even a servant to enter the room. Simple (who is no longer alive today) was a cheerful, healthy young girl, while Dimple, sitting right in front of us, looked frail, exhausted, and silent. It seemed she had gone through tremendous turmoil. At no point did it feel like we were sitting in front of the “Bobby girl” whose clothing style had once set trends among young girls. We wanted Dimple to speak, but she remained silent throughout. Whenever Chunni Bhai spoke, Dimple would quietly look at him. Not once did she smile.

Calling Rajesh Khanna and Dimple’s marriage a mismatched one, Chunni Bhai told us that Dimple had been selected by Raj Kapoor for Bobby when she was just 14 years old. She married Rajesh Khanna at the age of 15 and a half—before Bobby had even been released. Rajesh Khanna was 30 years old at the time, and after marriage, he stopped Dimple from working in films and made her sit at home.

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“He was twice her age. Within a year of marriage, Tina was born. God knows what she saw in him… star craze!”
For Rajesh Khanna, he used the words “a perverted man.”
“A man who, in a drunken state, burns his wife with cigarette butts and maintains relationships with another woman—can any woman live with such a man?”

Dimple remained silent. There was no reaction from her—neither agreement nor denial.

Just then, two little girls came and clung to Dimple. The elder one, about 8–9 years old, was being called “Tina” (today she is Twinkle Khanna, Mrs. Akshay Kumar), and the younger one, about 5–6 years old, was “Rinky” (Rinkle Khanna, who worked in a few films under the name Rink Khanna and is now settled in the US).

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Watching both daughters cling to their mother, we felt at that moment that beyond being a star, beyond being a superstar’s wife, even if she ends up as a single mother—above all else stands a woman’s motherhood. When a mother embraces her children, she forgets everything else.

The peace that appeared on Dimple’s face at that moment was exactly of that kind.

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