Rajesh Khanna's golden period lasted exactly three years. But the country has never known a bigger star. Between 1969 and 1971, Khanna was the undisputed king of the world. And he never let anyone forget it.
As hit after hit flowed out of his repertoire, Khanna climbed to a position where all his contemporaries began to feel seriously left out in the rat race. Jeetendra, who was a close friend of Khanna, openly though good naturedly grumbled about Khanna cornering all the plum projects that were available for the Bollywood leading man in the closing year of the 1960s and the opening years of the 1970s.
When Rajesh Khanna ruled, the competition simply vanished.
Khanna's track record during that period was beyond phenomenal. It was staggering! Beginning with Shakti Samanta's Aradhana, which came and blew open the box office in 1969, the hits simply flew out like there was no tomorrow: Aradhana was quickly followed by Narendra Bedi's Bandhan, BR Chopra's Ittefaq, Raj Khosla's Do Raaste, Samanta's Kati Patang, Manmohan Desai's Sachcha Jhutha, Dulal Guha's Dushman, and J Om Prakash's Aan Milo Sajna, all within a span of three years.
No star in the history of Indian cinema had so many hits flowing out so fast and furiously. With Chinappa Devar's Haathi Mere Saathi (arguably the biggest hit of his career), Khanna's career peaked. The Khanna frenzy touched the sky. Kids loved their haathi uncle as much their grandmothers adored Anand Babu, who hated tears.
After his death, Mumtaz, with whom Khanna did a truckload of hits, from Do Raaste in 1969 to Prem Kahani in 1975, recalled, "My jodi with Rajesh Khanna was lucky. We never suffered a flop. Our last film together, Aaina, didn’t click but it was just a guest appearance for him. Do Raaste, our first film together, was a big hit. The songs did it. 'Bindiya Chamkegi' and 'Chhup Gaye Saare Nazaare' became very popular. We did a whole lot of films after that, right until I got married and quit the industry. That allowed me the chance to interact with him fairly closely. "Shaadi mein jaise saare milaaye jaate hain, hum donon ki jodi ke sitaare milte thee." Our onscreen pair seemed blessed by divinity."
Sharmila Tagore, with whom Khanna did the iconic Aradhana and Amar Prem, recalled, “I was first-hand witness to the hysteria he had caused. When we did our first film, Aradhana, together, I had no idea what was to unfold. Suddenly, it got impossible to walk from my makeup room to the set without getting mobbed. The entire area used to be crammed with girls who’d fall all over him. I hadn’t, and haven’t witnessed anything like it. Did he change after the success? Of course he did. He’d arrive late on set. And still he didn’t manage to beat Shatrughan Sinha and Sanjeev Kumar, when it came to trooping in late. Although we had a great working relationship, and the films we did together were a success, we’d constantly argue about one thing. Both Kaka and I liked to put forward the same profile — the left side of the face — before the camera. The cinematographers were driven up the wall trying to accommodate us both."
Zeenat Aman said, "Kakajee was already a big star when we did our first film, Ajnabee, together. It was directed by Shakti Samanta, with whom he had worked on huge hits like Aradhana. So, I was this outsider, the newcomer. But not for a minute did he make me feel that. He was reserved, yes. But so was I. We had some fun times together. We shot a song atop a train ('Hum Dono Do Premi') long before Shah Rukh (Khan)’s 'Chaiyya Chaiyya.' Kakajee was so good with songs and romance. After Ajnabee, we did four films together, and got to know each other during Aashiq Hoon Baharon Ka and Jaanwar and Jaana: Let’s Fall In Love. In Jaana…, there was this bit that I considered a high point. He sang a medley of all his evergreen romantic hits for me. By the time we did our last film together, he had turned far more introspective. He confided in me about how he wanted to create a museum of his memorabilia. We didn’t end up keeping in touch. "
Recalled Asha Parekh, "We first worked together in an experimental film, Baharon Ke Sapne. He was not a star then. But we all could see that special spark in him. By the time we did our second film, Kati Patang, everything had changed. He was a superstar, the kind Indian cinema hasn’t witnessed. Girls would run after him, tear his clothes, kiss his car, stand outside his bungalow for a darshan for hours. I thought it was fairly entertaining. I remember this time we were shooting the song, 'Jis Gali Mein Tera Ghar' for Kati Patang in Nainital by a lake, and we had to stop because of the hordes that had gathered to see him. By the time we did Aan Milo Sajna, success had brought him confidence. He talked more, was far more expressive and fun. The song, 'Achcha To Hum Chalte Hain' in Aan Milo Sajna, was again hell to shoot because we wanted to capture the sunset, and light was playing hide and-seek. But Kaka was patient. He loved shooting songs.”
Then, it all ended. Suddenly, the downslide started. In 1972, six of Rajesh Khanna's prestigious projects bombed one after another. Epitaphs for his career were written, and not unhappily. Though Khanna bounced back with some notable hits in 1974 (Aap Ki Kasam, Prem Nagar, and Roti), the best was behind the nation's beloved Kakajee.
Stories of Khanna's arrogance and high-handedness had begun to gain credence. Manmohan Desai, a close friend of Khanna after two blockbusters Sachcha Jhutha and Roti, switched to Amitabh Bachchan with Amar Akbar Anthony, and there was no looking back to Khanna. Gulzar wanted to cast Khanna in a film. He was made to wait in the living room of Khanna’s iconic bungalow Ashirwaad all evening while the star drank and whooped it up with his friends/chamchas inside, and then told to come another day.
There were stories of how the superstar insisted on setting up projects entirely on his own terms. The music had to be by RD Burman and none other, although the combo had run out of steam. By the time Khanna and Burman worked together in Alag Alag in 1985, which was directed by the Khanna's loyalist Samanta for Khanna to romance his real-life love-interest Tina Munim, the creative juices had run dry. The film came after nearly a year of 'together' interviews where the fast-fading star and the pretty starlet spoke about everything they shared, including a lungi and toothbrush.
Alag Alag flopped, and so did all the other films that Khanna did with Munim, excluding Sawan Kumar's Sautan, the surprise success of 1983, the year when Khanna had a cloudburst of temporary success with Agar Tum Na Hote, Sautan, and most notably, Avtaar.
The trouble with Khanna's career was excessive subjectivity. He not only mixed business with pleasure; he even made sure that the business of pleasure was brought home to his famous bungalow Aashirwad, where every evening, the Khanna durbar of sycophants and loyalists gathered for drinks and gupshup.
Anju Mahendroo, Khanna's steady girlfriend of seven years and a practical woman, hated the yes-men who crowded Khanna's life and allowed him no room to grow. She wanted all the fakes and flatterers to go. When they would not be shown the door, Anju quit the relationship.
Says one of Khanna's heroines, "When Anju left, Kaka hurled downhill at a rapid pace, paving the way for Amitabh Bachchan to become the next superstar. If Kaka had not allowed the super-success of a spate of films in 1969-72 to blind his better judgment, he would have continued as the reigning superstar for at least another decade, and the Bachchan factor may not have happened when it did."
Most of Khanna's well wishers felt his overnight marriage to Dimple Kapadia in 1973 was a disastrous mistake for both of them.
Says a friend of the actor, "Dimple was half Kaka's age. She was completely besotted by him. Kaka was flattered to be getting so much attention from Raj Kapoor's heroine. He always had a fascination for all the things that Raj Saab discovered. When on the spur of the moment, he proposed to Dimple, she quickly accepted. Kaka made her throw the ring that was gifted to her by Rishi Kapoor into the sea to prove her loyalty to him. Drama was always a constant in the superstar's life."
The stormy marriage to Dimple lasted for five-six years. When she walked out with their two daughters to pursue a career, Khanna was left in their bungalow Aashirwad with a huge persecution complex, and little else to keep him company.
Says a male co-star,
"Kaka loved to play the martyr both in his real life and reel. He would justify his transgressions as husband and family man by arguing that he was misunderstood. On screen, he repeatedly revealed a death wish. It's no coincidence that his character died in film after film: Aradhana, Safar, Anand, Andaz, Namak Haraam. He saw himself as a combination of Guru Dutt and Devdas, and his roles repeatedly reflected this obsession."
The story goes that during the shooting of Namak Haraam, Hrishikesh Mukherjee was not sure which of the two heroes would finally die. It could have been either Khanna or Bachchan. But Khanna insisted on getting the privilege. On the day that the director was supposed to shoot the death scene, he placed a garlanded picture of Khanna on the wall.
Getting his way became a matter of habit for Khanna. In his head, he remained a superstar, albeit in exile, even when the number of guests at Aashirwad dwindled to nothing. In their defense, it must be said Khanna's friends were not treated well.
Samanta, who cast Khanna in almost all his films between 1969 and 1985, was persuaded to cast his sister-in-law Simple Kapadia opposite Khanna in the otherwise-watchable Anurodh. The film bombed. Aradhana not only gave the industry one of its most beloved star pairs (Rajesh-Sharmila,) it also started a durable friendship between Khanna and the director. Samanta, Burman, and Khanna became an inseparable trio of friends.
But the 'camp' culture, which the slipping superstars patented, also isolated him from a major chunk of talent in the industry. Yash Chopra was a very close friend of Khanna from the time the two worked together in Ittefaq in 1969. Naturally, when Yash broke away from his brother BR Chopra to direct and produce Daag in 1973, he cast Khanna in what turned out to be one of the star's bigger and final hits.
But after that, the cracks began to show in the Yash Chopra-Rajesh Khanna friendship. Not too many people know Khanna was to play the lead in Deewaar. He demanded some changes in Salim-Javed's script. He was replaced by the Bachchan.
Career blunders multiplied. In 1979, Khanna launched his ambitious epic production Majnoon, to be directed by the Pakeezah director Kamal Amrohi. The project never went beyond the grand mahurat. A few years later, the fading superstar ate back his own words about never working with his wife, and invited Dimple to co-star with him in Jai Shiv Shankar (the title tried desperately to evoke the magic of a song that Khanna lip-synched to glory). That project too was aborted. By this time, the Khanna phenomenon survived solely on nostalgia.
By the time the 1970s ended, the show was over for Khanna. But while the superstardom lasted, it remained unique in its impact. Churning out a plethora of hits, he never shied away from experimenting with characters. Early in his superstardom, Khanna played a killer on the run in Ittefaq. In Amar Prem, he happily took a backseat to Tagore and child artiste Master Bobby. In Anand, considered his best performance, Khanna had no leading lady. In Basu Bhattacharya's Aavishkar, the superstar enacted eerily real scenes from a troubled marriage. In Red Rose, he played a psychotic killer. In Bawarchi, he donned baggy half-trousers to play cook to a dysfunctional perpetually-grumbling family.
Interestingly, Jaya Bhaduri, who played the lead in Bawarchi, was not cast opposite Khanna. The two never worked together. And after a guest appearance in Andaz, neither was Khanna cast with the other reigning queen of the 1970s, Hema Malini, until Prem Nagar, when Khanna's career was waning, and it was no longer enough to sell a film on his name.
What finally and actually finished off Khanna's superstardom was the games he played. He happily apportioned plum roles between his two favourite heroines Sharmila Tagore and Mumtaz, and then in an interview, spoke slyly about how one of them would sulk when he spent time with the other. Understandably, the two ladies did not take too kindly to this sort of true confession. They kept a distance from him thereafter.
So did most of those who loved Khanna, including his family and fans who returned just in time for the final chapter in the phenomenon's life story.
No one knew Khanna well enough to be called a close friend. The first superstar of Indian cinema had no friends, only cronies, yes-men, and sidekicks, with whom he drank the night away.
However, Khanna did form an incredibly strong bonding with the doyen of Tamil cinema, Kamal Haasan. They spent many hours together ruminating on life and success.
In a rare interview with me on Khanna, Haasan shared details of his friendship with the moody superstar. “I refused to call him ‘Kaka’ like everyone did. I was willing to call him Bade Bhaiyyaor Mr Khanna. But not 'Kaka.' That infuriated him. We spent many many hours together. I was this ‘upcoming actor from the South’—that’s how he introduced me in Mumbai. He was the undisputed king of Hindi cinema.”
Since Khanna did a lot of South Indian remakes, he was often in Chennai. That is how the friendship started. “We spent a lot of time discussing cinema and life. He would sometimes get philosophical about the inconsequentially of life. Once we went to a movie together. It was a mediocre American film called The Swarmand. I decided to take him to a theatre at the heart of the city. He didn’t know we were going to a public screening. He probably hadn’t been to a public theatre since he became a star. When we reached, things were okay. He enjoyed the mediocre film thoroughly, and refused to leave until the end titles. That’s when I panicked. This was Rajesh Khanna, THE star of the millennium. If audiences got to know he was present, there would be a stampede and blood on my hands. But Mr Khanna refused to listen. He stayed on till the end. The inevitable happened after the show. All hell broke loose, as audiences realised he was there. I became THE Rajesh Khanna’s bodyguard and security officer as I took him through the crowd. His shirt was torn. But he was enjoying himself thoroughly. He giggled and chuckled like a child.”
Khanna’s better-half Dimple gave her friend Haasan (the two were pals ever since they co-starred in Ramesh Sippy’s Sagar) a piece of her mind. “She wanted to know what was I thinking when I took him to a public screening. Anything could have happened.”
Khanna watched a lot of Haasan’s films for remake rights. One of Haasan’s celebrated films, Sigappu Rojjakal, was remade as Red Rose.
One fine day, the phone rang in Haasan’s office. “This was the era of the landline phones. My personal assistant, a big Rajesh Khanna fan, was over the moon as God himself asked him about his well-being. Mr Khanna announced he was doing a remake of my film Sigappu Rojjakal, and that the mahurat was the very next day and would I please send him the cap that I wore for my character, since he wanted to wear at the mahurat and in the film. I agreed — who said no to Rajesh Khanna? He also commanded me to be present at the mahurat in Mumbai the next day. I protested saying I wasn’t needed. He insisted he wanted to introduce me as the upcoming star from the South . Anyway, the cap was sent from Chennai to Mumbai by hand delivery (there was no courier those days) by a man who, unfortunately, turned out to be a fan of both Rajesh Khanna and Kamal Haasan.”
The fan decided he did not want to part with the precious cap. Laughs Haasan, “Mr Khanna was livid. ‘Since you were coming, why couldn’t you just bring it with you?’ Many other caps were brought forth. But he wanted only that one cap.”
Haasan was fascinated by Khanna’s aura. “I never wanted to be a star. I observed him. Our friendship came to a sorry ending at a party in his house, where he was less than polite. But my friendship with Dimple is forever. It’s like the lines from the immortal Geeta Dutt song "Beqaraar dil iss tarah miley, jiss tarah kabhi hum juda na they." Whenever we meet, no matter how long is the gap, it’s like we had never stopped meeting. I know we’ll remain friends for as long as we’re alive. My daughter Shruti will make sure of that. She’s even fonder of Dimple than I am.”
Rajesh Khanna’s final years were painful, lonely, and desperate.
The only cure to old age is death. And there is no power in the world that can stop ageing. This Shabana Azmi discovered when she met one of her favourite co-stars in Khanna. Together, Azmi and Khanna were a hit jodi in Ishmayeel Shroff’s Thodisi Bewafaai, Mohan Kumar's Avtaar, and the 1979 superhit Amar Deep. They also worked together in Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avtar.
Azmi recalls how much fun they had shooting these films together. “We got along fine. He was known to be moody. But I never saw that side of him. With me, he was always chilled out. Very protective, very gentlemanly, had long discussion on commercial cinema versus the parallel cinema. We shot some important films together, important for me as they established me as a commercially successful actress.”
Many years passed, and Azmi and Khanna lost touch. They met again when he was seriously ailing. Excited as a schoolgirl, Azmi rushed towards Kaka to hug and greet him. It took her a while to know that he did not recognise her. Rather than embarrass him, Azmi quickly reintroduced herself to the superstar with whom she had worked in numerous films. It was a very sad moment for Azmi. A rude and brutal reminder of mortality.
Khanna is not the only superstar who became too ill to remember old friends. Bengal’s iconic filmmaker-actress Aparna Sen told me the same thing happened to her with Shashi Kapoor, whom she had worked with as an actress, and then as a producer. Sen’s first hugely acclaimed film, 36 Chowringhee Lane, was produced by Kapoor. Sen remembers meeting Kapoor some time before his death. He could not recognise her. And then there is the mightiest actor of all, Dilip Kumar, who did not recognise anyone in his last days.
Superstars, specially one as supremely super as Rajesh Khanna, should not live to see the fast-fade. It is heartbreaking. Not only for the star, but more for his fans.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
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