WHICH WAS RAJIV HARI OM BHATIA'S (AKSHAY KUMAR) FIRST FILM?

ALI PETER JOHN

I am not a historian. I am not a great writer. I am not a film critic. I have no pretensions of being a chronicler of events. I am not a biographer and I am not even a perfect journalist. I only write what I know. I only write about what I see and feel. I write about what and who I love and admire. I write about incidents and people who have happened in my life and I have been witness to. And I write from the reserves of my memory which I have been richly been blessed with by God abundantly and without which I would be starving in the streets or breaking stones in some faraway quarry. Allow me, to share one of the thousands of stories living in my mind as a memory...

I was walking around in the compound of Natraj Studio, which was like my home in the seventies and eighties. I had friends in some big filmmakers like Dr Ramanand Sagar and his five sons, Shakti Samanta ,Atma Ram(the younger brother of Guru Dutt)and Pramod Chakravarty, who were all big names in the film industry.

I was passing by the office of Chakkida (as Pramod Chakravarty was called),who had made big entertainers like "Ziddi","Love in Tokyo" ", "Jugnu", "Azaad","Naya Zamana " ,"Jyoti", "Nastik"and "Trimurti"among many others.He had given up making films after he had signed Vinod Khanna to work in one of his big films and Khanna had ditched him and many other producers when he quit the industry to join Bhagwan Ragneesh as his gardener in his Ashram in Oregon in America. He had spent five years in America and was in Disney Land when a girl recognized him as Pramod Chakravarty, the film maker from India, which made him return to India and plan to make films again....

That evening, I saw a handsome young man wondering outside Chakkida's office. He had a box of photographs in his hand. He asked me if there were any producer who was making a film around. I told him about Chakkida and also told him that he was not making any film as he had just returned after a long break. The young man asked me if he could leave some of his photographs for him. I asked him to leave them with Chakkidas trusted right hand man and told him that he would place the photographs before Chakkida the next morning. The young man was a little hesitant, but he left the photographs with his name and telephone number. It was the first time that I knew his name was Akshay Kumar and his original name was Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia...

Chakkida had no work, but he made it a point to be in his office at 11:am sharp. He took one look at the photographs and put them in his brief case and sent for me. He asked me what I thought about the young man. I said he was good and that I had heard about him. Chakkida asked me to see him again the next morning. That evening, he showed the photographs to everyone in his huge bungalow from his wife and son and daughter-in-law to all his kitchen staff and down to his drivers and security staff and they all said that the young man was good and some of them even said that he was even better than Kumar Gaurav, Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol.

Chakkida came back to his office, called Akshay and his secretary, Vijay Bali and signed Akshay as the hero of his next film.Things fell in their places fast. Chakkida was a very good friend of Randhir Kapoor whose wife Babita had been the heroine of his film, "Tumse Achha Kaun Hai"and their daughter Karishma Kapoor was all set to make her debut as a leading lady. Chakkida signed her .Sameer and Anand-Milind had made it in the world of music and Chakkida got them on board. Mir Muneer who was with me in college and was a name in TV circles was to be the writer and V.K. Murthy, the cinematographer of Guru Dutt was to add glory to the film which was to be called "Deedar".

Chakkida realised how film making had changed after he had left the scene and felt he should not have taken the step to make the film and the film ultimately flopped, but a filmmaker is always a filmmaker. He planned and made another film called "Barood" with Akshay and Raveena Tandoon. He had to face greater problems and decided never to make a film again. He cursed his stars and the secretary of Akshay for delaying his film. Call it his curse or what you may, Akshay's secretary, Bali who was a health freak who gave advice to half the industry was having his evening walk when he suddenly collapsed and died of a massive heart attack....

A few months later..Chakkida called me to his office. He said he wanted me to write his biography. He had a room for me in his bungalow where we would sit and write. He had made all the arrangements down to a typist and a secretary each for me and for him. It was a great high ,but not for more than a few hours....At 5:30.in the morning, his Man Friday called me and said "Chakkida gaya".One more glorious chapter had come to an end. The morning we were supposed to start working on his biography, I was attending his funeral.

And today, that boy I met in the compound of Natraj Studios is Akshay Kumar, one of the biggest and richest stars who can donate twenty five crores of rupees to the Prime Minister Care Fund and interview the Prime Minister and ask him serious and solemn questions like "Aap aam kaise khaate hai,kaatkar ya chuskar ?"