KAKA JI KE WOH BESHUMAAR BEHENE JO RAKSHA BANDHAN KE DIN "ASHIRWAAD " KE BAHAR SAMNE BHEED LAGATE THE ...

I have seen the effect of the stardom of several stars , but I have still to see the kind of madness that use to happen on the birthday, anniversary and any of the Sundays and festivals outside his bungalow, the dream house called "Ashirwaad " which was a blessing till he was the superstar and turned into a curse after he lost his super stardom to Amitabh Bachchan - Ali Peter John

Everyone who has lived to the seventies and the early eighties very well-know about how girls of all ages use to kiss his cars and members of his staff and how they use to write love letters to him with their own blood and attach their letters with doctor's certificates to certified that it was there own blood and how girls use to keep his photographs under their pillows in the hope of seen him in their dreams....

But this superstar who can never happen again had another kind of female fans of all ages who were not as ambitious as those women who were madly in love with him .

There were women who had smaller ambitions like wanting him to accept them as his sisters.

Every Raksha Bandhan, the superstar received lakhs of rakhis of all sizes and colours and even some rakhis with strings of gold and silver .

There were times when Rajesh Khanna was so busy that he didn't have time to even look at those rakhis and asked his secretary and other men to do what they felt like doing with those rakhis and Raksha Bandhan became a bigger blessing for his staff than for himself and some" sisters " even made arrangements to send him gifts like the most expensive pens , wrist watches, different kinds of kurtas and even cars . He only kept the pens and wrist watches and returned the cars .

The response to his super stardom on Raksha Bandhan day was so overwhelming that he had to create a staff to deal with the situations .

It was this phenomenon of Rajesh Khanna and his celebration of Raksha Bandhan that made director Rishikesh Mukherjee have an entire sequence of Raksha Bandhan in Anand, were his sister Seema Deo celebrates Raksha Bandhan with him in "Anand " in which he speaks the memorable dialouge , " meri umar tujhe lage, yeh dua bhi nahi mang sakta, bahen" ( he knows he is going to die of cancer in a short while and that is why he doesn't want to bless her with his life ) .

As Rishikesh Mukherjee who was a master at understanding human feelings expected, the Raksha Bandhan scene in "Ananand" was a true celebration of Raksha Bandhan....

However, Rajesh Khanna and his super stardom kept failing and so did the number of his fans and lovers and his "sisters " .

A time came when he had almost no fans and the "sisters " all left him and asked Amitabh Bachchan to accept them as his "sisters " .

That is why I say stardom and super stardom are very fickle and temporary, it can be here today and gone tomorrow...

BAHENE AISE HI NAHI BANTI , BAHENE SIRF RAKHI BANNE SE NAHI HOTI , SIRF PHOOL AUR TOUFE SE NAHI BANTI . BAHENE SIRF DILSE AUR EHSASO SE BANTE HAI , NAHI TOH WOH BAHENE NAHI HOTI NA HO SAKTE HAI .