The Evening I Found A Struggler Who Was To Be Akshay Kumar

Ali Peter John

I was browsing through my mobile when I heard Akshay Kumar speaking in an interview and the one line that caught my attention was,“it is very important to be at the right place, at the right time and week the right people"and my mind went back to the first time I met a young man called Rajiv Hariom Bhatia. He was walking alone in the compound of Natraj Studios clutching what looked like a portfolio of the young man who I later came to know was a struggler looking for a break.

I was the only man walking around after all my meetings with producers Ramanand Sagar, Shakti Samanta and Aatma Ram (the younger brother of Guru Dutt) were over the young man came walking up to me and asked me if there was any producer or director who had his office somewhere around. I asked him what he wanted to know. He said he had worked as a chef in several countries and was a gym trainer in Mumbai besides being Martial Arts expert.

I was impressed but I kept asking him what he wanted to do since all the filmmakers had left for the day. He pointed out the office of the renowned filmmaker, Pramod Chakravorty who was the maker of big hits like“Love In Tokyo",“Ziddi",“Tumsa Nahi Dekha",“Naya Zamaana",“Barood", once with Dharmendra and again with Rishi Kapoor soon after the release of“Warrant",“Bobby"and“Trimurti"besides an Indo-Bangladesh film with Rajesh Khanna and a heroine from Bangladesh.

The young man who looked tired and frustrated said he had the last lot of his portfolio and asked me if he could leave the photos for Chakravorty. I told him that Chakravorty had stopped making films after Vinod Khanna had signed his film and ditched him to join Bhagwan Rajneesh. He asked me if he could leave the photographs with an elderly man who was working the garden of Chakravorty's office. I said he was the perfect man as he had been working with Chakravorty for more than fifty-years and I assured him that his photographs would be seen the first thing in the morning when Chakravorty came to office. The young man looked relieved and he parted ways....

The next morning at around eleven thirty Chakravorty called me to his office as soon as possible. I reached his office and he showed me the photographs of the young man who he said was called Rajiv Bhatia. He asked me what I thought about the young man and I told him about the background he had given me the previous evening. Chakravorty was excited like a child and put the photographs in his briefcase.

That evening he left office in his yellow Mercedes early and went straight home. It was only the next morning that he called me again to tell me that he had shown the photographs to his wife Laxmi who was related to Guru Dutt, his engineer-son and his wife and his entire staff down to the gardener and the chowkidaar. He asked all of them what they thought about the young man. They all approved of him and his wife even said that he was better than Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt who were the ruling star-sons those days.

The man who had decided never to make films change his mind overnight and told me he was all charged to start making films again. He called Rajiv whose number was on the photographs and within an hour he had signed Rajiv who was to be called Akshay Kumar. He knew that his friend Randhir Kapoor's daughter, Karishma Kapoor was looking for a good break. Her mother, Babita had worked as his heroine in“Tumsa Nahi Dekha". He called both the parents and told them about his decision to make a comeback with a new hero. Karishma was making her debut and it didn't matter who the hero was. Chakravorty was so excited that in one day he put together an entire project which included a TV writer, Mir Muneer as the writer, Sameer as the lyricist and Anand-Milind as the music directors.

News about his finding a new team spread and Akshay was signed for Raj. N.Sippy's“Saugandh"and Karishma was signed for Prem Qaidi by D. Rama Naidu of the South.Chakravorty took his own time to make“Deedaar"and both Sippy and Naidu finished their films first and their films,“Saugandh"was known as Akshay Kumar first film and Naidu's“Prem Qaidi"was considered the first film of Karishma Kapoor. Both the films did average buisness, but Chakravorty signed Akshay Kumar for his second film too with Raveena Tandon as the heroine. The hero had become very big all of a sudden and Raveena who was now his girlfriend started giving Chakravorty endless problems over dates till Chakravorty got disgusted and took a final decision to give up making films for good and getting into some other buisness. But he wanted to write his biography for which he had built a room for me in his bungalow in Linking Road. All was set to start work on the biography when I recieved a call at six thirty in the morning. It was his man Friday who was crying on the phone as he told me that“Dada"had passed away at four am after a massive heart attack. Chakravorty became a part of history and the young man he have his first break to Akshay Kumar was on his way to make history

For more Bollywood updates, follow Bollyy!

Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Akshay Kumar, Akshay Kumar Biography