Long Live Rajesh Khanna: A Superstar who is a Super Teacher for all Stars and Superstars

The first time I saw Rajesh Khanna was when he was a lonely young man walking in the corridors of the times of India when he was one of the young men who were appearing for a talent test organised by Filmfare and the all India producers guild. The lonely man was the winner of the contest and was to do his first few films with producers who were part of the guild. Ali peter john

He was first offered the villian’s role by Manoj Kumar in his first film as a producer-director “Upkaar” but the presence of mind of Rajesh and the kindness of Manoj Kumar led to his opting out of the film and it was Prem Chopra who took his place in “Upkaar” and went on to be a star-villain. 

I saw an unknown Rajesh Khanna shooting for “Baharo ke sapane” with Asha Parekh as his leading lady. It was a pathetic sight to see him siting on a Charpai with hundreds of people passing by him and making remarks like “Faaltu” and “koi nahi hai” and going after Asha Parekh who was a big star those days. The first three films of Rajesh Khanna were flops and he saw no future for himself.

I was in college when a film called “Aaradhana” was released and every student in my college had bunked classes to see the first day first show of the film. It was the same atmosphere all over the country and at twelve noon Rajesh Khanna was a flop star and at 3 pm he was a star and then there was no stopping him till the media gave him the title of the First Superstar. He justified his new title by having 22 silver Jubliee hits in a row and the whole country was singing his praises and his songs and even wearing Kurtas like him.

The craze for the new Superstar went to such an extent that girls kissed his car and the walls of his house and wrote love letters to him in their own blood with doctor’s certificates to prove that it was their own blood. Some girls even got married to him and applied the Vermiliol mark (sindoor) on their foreheads. Other girls kept his photographs under their pillows in the hope of seeing him in their dreams.

He had the most sensational marriage when he broke millions of female hearts to marry Dimple Kapadia who was twenty years younger than him. Experts said his getting married to Dimple would affect his superstardom, but nothing like that happened and Rajesh Khanna kept riding on the crest of unbelievable success leaving all the big stars of the time behind. It seemed like the Rajesh Khanna fever would never come down. The only legend who believed his rise was only a passing phase was Dev Anand who when he was asked what he felt about Khanna had said, “talk to me after 20 years”

Rajesh Khanna soon believed he was god or at least an Avtaar of god. No one, no rules, no systems and no values mattered to him. He believed he was a world of his own and he had his own coterie of admirers (better known as Chamchas) who fanned his massive ego and he kept riding rough shod over everything and everyone before him, behind him and all around him. Some of the biggest stars were in a panic and worried about their own future. And there were others who were more practical and were of the opinion that the fever would die down.

But the wild and whimsical ways of the superstar had to meet its doom and that seemed to come true when he first separated from dimple and their two daughters, Twinkle and Rinkle. His films started flopping at the box office. And finally the actor, Amitabh Bacchan who he once called a Manhoos and Panvati actor snatched the carpet from under his famous feet and with the release of Zanjeer, there was a drastic change and at twelve noon Rajesh Khanna was still considered the superstar, but at 3 pm Amitabh Bachchan had taken away the title of the Superstar from Khanna and the day that happened, Khanna went to the terrace of Aasihrwad, cried out to god and kept screaming, “why me god”. He was not prepared to accept the truth, but he was forced to by the existing circumstances and times.

By the early seventies, Rajesh Khanna had all but slipped and all the Attempts he made and others made for him couldn’t bring him back the glory he once had. He was slowly growing into a bitter and frustrated man and took to drinking very heavily
He saw Polictics as an alternate career and joined the congress party under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi and then Sonia Gandhi. He defeated his star colleague Shatrugan Sinha once, but he couldn’t succeed again and kept trying to be in the good books of the Gandhi family when nothing happened, he had more reasons to grow bitter.
By the beginning of the eighties, he was in no man’s land. His bungalow, Aashirwad had been placed under the court receiver and he had just one corner of the bungalow for himself. He woke up only after one and drove himself to his office on linking road and spent the next few hours looking out of the window and smoking with his memories going up with the smoke of the many cigarettes he smoked. At 6.30, he went into his room and opened a bottle of scotch and drank till midnight and drove back in an old Maruti 800. There were several evenings when I joined him in his long and lonely evenings, the style of the superstar was still intact. He would bring two bottles, one of his black label brand of whisky and a bottle of Simrov vodka for me and then say, “Ali, we have to finish our bottles before midnight” I would sometimes get so drunk that he used to feed me with his hands (the same hands for which his female fans were willing to die) and then leave me home on Yari road in Versova.

I can never forget the times when I took him to huge functions and how he used to be thrilled when he saw huge crowds waiting for him. I had taken him to a function in Kolkata and I remember how the shine on his face grew brighter when he saw a crowd of twenty-five thousand women waiting for him and he had said, “main abhi bhi superstar hoon, mujhe koun hata sakata hai?” The next morning he was invited by the new chief minister of West Bengal, Mrs.Mamta Banergee and seeing the reception organised for him by the chief minister herself and the crowds outdside her kalighat house gave him a feeling of flying again. I took him to a musical function where only his songs were to be sung and while listening to the songs and the reactions of the audience, he had told me, “Rajesh Khanna ko koi aise he bhulla nahi sakta. Mera jaddu hamesha zinda rahega” that evening I wanted to celebrate his new life with him, but surprisingly, he said, “bohot nasha ho chuka, logo ke pyaar se bada koi nasha nahi hota, mere bhai”. He had received the Iffa award at the hands of Amitabh Bachchan and could not get over it and called me to his small office in the compound of Aashirwad and kept telling me about how Babu Moshay had presented him with his award. He had clearly forgotten how he used to humiliate and insult Amitabh during the early days of Amitabh’s career. At the same meeting, I had taken some men from the colors channel who were keen to have him on the big boss show. He rejected the idea outright. And when the men left, he asked me how much money Amitabh charged per episode in the KBC show. When I told him the amount, he got up from his chair and asked me to call back the men from colors, but they had vanished from the area where aashirwad was. He had lost one big chance to stage a comeback.

He had turned into a shadow of the superstar Rajesh Khanna. He had stopped going out of aashirwad because of his looks and the state of his health. There were rumors about his being diagnosed for cancer and he who had once spread stories about his dying of cancer when he was on top of the world tried to hide the bitter reality. But what could the one time and all time superstar do to defeat cancer and he like any other common man finally surrendered to the power of cancer and died. He could have being forgotten like many of his seniors, but he was lucky to have a son-in-law like akshay Kumar who made sure that his one time famous father-in-law had a grand funeral.

  But what use was a grand funeral when the grim reality of life is that who ever you are, superstar or a nobody the rule and joke of life is that you all go up in flames and turn into ashes and are then remember during the chautha or the condolence meeting with your best photograph covered with white flowers and the pandits and a bhajan singer doing their best to please the mourners and then all is over whether you are Rajesh Khanna or Mr.Chunabattiwala ……. Till it is your birth anniversary for your punyatithi