THE BLOG
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It was raining when the family announced
Rajesh Khanna's death on the afternoon of 18 July, 2012. Not the kind of
heavy downpour that Mumbai's shrinking lakes would gratefully accept,
but a light, continuous drizzle that swept Carter Road in Bandra West
and dropped silently on Aashirwad -- the road and bungalow in which
Rajesh Khanna lived, as if the Heavens were crying inconsolably for the
loss of this great actor, Bollywood's first superstar.
When he joined film in the late 1960s, there were already romantic
leading men and icons of the screen; certainly Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor
and Dev Anand were legends, and there were also Dharmendra, Shammi
Kapoor and Manoj Kumar, but none of them could claim to take their fame
to the dizzying heights that Rajesh Khanna did. And he did it with what?
A rosy complexion; twinkling eyes; a mischievous smile; clothes that
were fashionably Indian and that he carried stylishly on his short,
somewhat portly frame; a sense of dancing that was as ridiculous as it
was endearing; and, a melodramatic style of acting that involved a lot
of shaking of the head, prancing around and sidelong glances that would
not have got past either the box-office or front-benchers today.
It was not his songs that made him Bollywood's first superstar, nor the 180 films... but his crazy fan following.
Yet he got away with it then -- and how! Quickly Rajesh Khanna
amassed the biggest, maddest fan following across all of India with a
string of Bollywood hits like Aradhna, Do Raaste, Anand, Itefaq,
Daag, Saccha Jhutha, Aan Milo Sajana, Safar, Kati Patang, Andaz, Hathi
Mera Saathi, Dushman, Amar Prem, Roti, Aap Ki Kasam and Prem Kahani.
In this, he was aided by the wild, mellifluous and talented Kishore
Kumar -- together they had recorded and filmed some of Bollywood's most
memorable songs that stand the test of time even today. Rajesh Khanna
himself was to say, "Kishore was the soul, I was the body" of their
inseparable jodi of the 1960s and 70s. But it was not his songs
that made him Bollywood's first superstar, nor the 180 films -- 106 of
them as solo lead, because this was before the multi-star era -- but his
crazy fan following. India had never seen anything like it. If boys in
college dressed like him and wore their hair like he did, then girls
wrote letters in blood swearing their undying love; they secretly got
married to his photograph, and kissed his car to leave their lipstick
prints behind.
And just when he was riding the crest of this huge and mad wave of
fame and fortune -- Amitabh Bachchan had yet to step into the shoes of
the angry young man -- Rajesh Khanna went and got married to the
debutante actress Dimple Kapadia whom Raj Kapoor was introducing in Bobby.
Bollywood had expected Rajesh Khanna to settle down with the vivacious
fashion designer and actress Anju Mahendru, whom he dated for years, or
perhaps even the lovely Mumtaz, with whom he shared several hits and
supposedly also a romance. But no, it was the unknown Dimple Kapadia who
became Mrs. Rajesh Khanna to the superstar and "Bobby" to Bollywood.
Despite her own mercurial rise to fame with just one film, Dimple stayed
away from the screen after that because Rajesh Khanna wanted a mother
to raise his daughters and not some servant. Apologetically, he was to
say later of his denying Dimple her career, "I had no idea of Dimple's
talents, because Bobby had not yet released when we got married, but I agree -- to curb talent is a crime."
Maybe it was the baggage he carried around of being a superstar, maybe it was the coterie of chamchas
who lived his life with him -- there was no telling then of what went
wrong -- but Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia soon split, and from then
on the superstar's decline set in. There were other women who stepped
inside Aashirwad, among them the actress Tina Munim whom Dev Anand had
introduced, but a coldness had gripped his life and taken from it the
sheer joy of living that he epitomized till the mid-70s. His popularity
waned, his films quite simply got embarrassing, and by the 1980s Rajesh
Khanna lost his grip on Bollywood and became a recluse who seldom
stepped outside Aashirwad.
It was Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress who drew him out with the lure
of politics closer to the 1990s, and Rajesh Khanna -- perhaps missing
the adulation of fans and the contact with the masses -- agreed to
contest elections and become a Member of Parliament from Delhi. At the
time, he had said, "If India has 2,000 problems and I can solve even
one, then I will feel I have achieved something." But it was not to be.
Which Bollywood actor has ever made a success out of politics! And
Rajesh Khanna was to regretfully say later, "When an actor neglects
family, wife and kids because he is busy playing the star, how will he
do justice to politics which requires 100% time and dedication."
Rajesh Khanna was to regretfully say, "When an actor neglects family, wife and kids because he is busy playing the star, how will he do justice to politics...?
His last years went by rapidly. If he lived in black and white
flashback thinking of how he made Amitabh Bachchan's dream come true by
doing Anand with him for Hrishikesh Mukherjee, then there was
also a colourful spotlight coming down on Rajesh Khanna when IIFA
conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award on him in 2009 and gave Amitabh
Bachchan the honor of presenting him this trophy. Yes, it is true that
it was Rajesh Khanna who inspired Amitabh Bachchan to join films when
the latter was still a shipping company executive working in Calcutta.
Of their earlier association that went from Anand to Namak Haram,
the Big B was to handsomely say, "What hysteria Rajesh Khanna
invoked... I used to be constantly asked, 'How does he look?' and 'What
does he do?'" While Rajesh Khanna himself was to say of the
yet-to-be-angry-young-man, "When I saw Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Haram, I knew my time was up."
But his time was not really up until that rainy afternoon in Mumbai.
When tired of battling ill-health, perhaps depressed of being alone for
half his life, and fatigued by the demands made by a curious and
capricious industry to try and get him back to stardom like others of
his time were doing... Rajesh Khanna quietly slipped away in the comfort
and security of Aashirwad with his family around him. He went like
"Anand" did of cancer in the 1972 film that fetched him the Best Actor
Award. Among those with India's first superstar when he breathed his
last was his son-in-law and current Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, to
whom Rajesh Khanna once advised, "Dance, entertain, do good action...
but act only in films that have a purpose, not this Khiladi series."
Sadly, for this dialogue, and for his quiet and dignified farewell to
cinema and life, Rajesh Khanna did not get any awards. Kaka was
Bollywood's term of affection for him, because in Punjabi it means a
small baby, and when he joined films he was a baby. But he earned the
industry's respect, and they added the 'ji' later to immortalize him
forever as Kakaji -- the first superstar of Hindi cinema.
Published by :
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/mark-manuel/the-slow-slipping-away-of-rajesh-khanna-bollywood-s-first-super/
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