The death of an icon

Table of contents
The death of an icon
Rajesh Khanna: Last knight from cinema’s age of innocence
04
Beyond the songs: His awaaz was Rajesh Khanna’s pehchan
06
Rajesh Khanna’s last words: ‘Time ho gaya hai. Pack up!’
08
No more Anand: The endless death of Rajesh Khanna by TV
09
Bachchans, SRK, Salman Khan pay homage to the late Rajesh Khanna
11
Rise and fall
Rajesh Khanna: The Superstar who could not handle success
15
Tragic hero: The song that summed up Rajesh Khanna’s life
18
One day the flowers stopped coming: Rajesh Khanna
on not being a star
20
Why Rajesh Khanna was special
Why no SRK will ever out-romance Rajesh Khanna
22
Rajesh Khanna was the heartbeat of the nation
24
When Rajesh celebrated wife Dimple’s 16th birthday
at the Hilton, London
26
Pakistani fans pay tribute to Rajesh Khanna
28
Dialogues that will keep Rajesh Khanna around forever
29
Memories of a superstar
We used to gossip in Parliament: Mamata on Rajesh Khanna
31
Bollywood twitterati remembers Rajesh Khanna
32
Five things you did not know about Rajesh Khanna
33
Flashback:
Flashback Rajesh Khanna:
35
The death of an icon
Rajesh Khanna: Last knight
from cinema’s age of innocence
He defined romanticism the way Dev Anand did, the
way Guru Dutt defined pathos and later on Amitabh
Bachchan defined anger.
Akshaya Mishra, Jul 18, 2012
I
t was Hindi cinema’s age of innocence. The
leading men didn’t trade fisticuffs with
dozens of baddies as a matter of habit, they
said it all with a tilt of the head and the mischievous twinkle in the eye. They were vulnerable,
prone to heartbreaks and used to losing the
women they loved to closest friends. They loved
and lost. You loved them because they were
such graceful losers.
It was not the age of the angry superhero — he
burst into the scene after Zanjeer. The leading men were not primed to wage private wars
against the unjust system. They were supposed
to be ordinary, well, sometimes maybe a little beyond ordinary. He was the guy you could
relate to, identify yourself with. He did not
overwhelm you, he just sought your undivided
attention. Anger just did not suit him.
Rajesh Khanna was the last link between two
different eras of cinema. And what an exquisite
link he was! Forget the movies he did post 1973
— he was playing on alien turf then. Hindi cinema had discovered action, a new way of telling
the story and shifted trajectory. The old school
romance did not fit in here. Remember him for
the three years between 1969 and 1972 instead.
He was at his best then.
He defined romanticism the way Dev Anand
did, the way Guru Dutt defined pathos and later
on Amitabh Bachchan defined anger. It is pointless to discuss who romanced better, Dev Anand
or Rajesh Khanna, since comparisons are a vacuous exercise of the ignorant, unappreciative.
Both brought their own signature styles into
what they did. The shy, harmless, endearing
demeanour fit perfectly into the latter’s persona,
as did that sly smile, the tilt of the head and his
awkward, seemingly untrained, dance steps.
Superstar? It’s debatable. And it’s only an
epithet. Probably there were far more accomplished actors around when he ruled the roost,
delivering hits in amazing frequency and making women swoon all over the country. Dilip
Kumar and Raj Kapoor were certainly far bigger when it was about acting. How can Rajesh
Khanna be considered a superstar among them?
Probably that is what stardom is all about. His
phenomenal appeal made him a star, a darling
of adoring fans and more importantly, a bank-
able proposition. Stardom is after all a commercial proposition. No other contemporary had as
much bankability as him. They were good but
according to popular expectations not better
than Rajesh Khanna. He set the benchmark for
the succeeding generations. They simply had to
be bigger and better. But stardom is also a trap.
He realised it too late.
He does not leave the footprint as a brilliant actor. He won’t be recalled with the same respect
as many of his contemporaries for his brilliance
at histrionics. His contribution to cinema is limited too. But yes, when he burned bright he just
outshone everyone around. He brought his own
distinct charm to filmi romance, made himself
bigger than his movies, a trend still not common
in filmdom then. In simple words, he had the
charisma, that unique property that separates
the successful from the super successful.
How does one remember him? Well, let’s remember him not as the ‘star’. Let’s remember
him by the old world, vulnerable, all-too-human
characters he portrayed with such elan, as
someone who represented Hindi cinema’s age of
innocence with such vivacity.
Beyond the songs: His awaaz
was Rajesh Khanna’s pehchan
It is hard to think of Rajesh Khanna’s face without
Kishore Kumar’s voice. His songs will keep Rajesh
Khanna alive. But Sathya Saran will miss the caress
of Rajesh Khanna’s real voice.
Sathya Saran, Jul 19, 2012
G
ulzar wrote “Meri awaaz hi pehchan
hai.” Lata sang those words in Kinara.
That film did not star Rajesh Khanna but those
words were definitely true of him.
Look at the facts: he had talent, and some kind
of looks: nice eyes, an expressive face. But
despite the backing of the magazine which had
“discovered” him, choosing him over many others, Rajesh Khanna did not make serious waves
at first. Akhri Khat his launch film did not mark
him out as a star, definitely not one who would
streak across the filmi sky leaving a trail of
swooning fans gasping for breath. Other films
followed, Do Raaste, Baharon Ke Sapne… with
similar results.
Even in Aradhana, the film that put stardom
within his grasp, he still looked rather callow,
his expressions somewhat masked by makeup.
But the magic of the film, the locales, the music, the romance that seemed to sizzle between
Sharmila and him, and the double role did
their bit. Besides, Rajesh Khanna died half way
through the film, and any actor’s on screen
death makes the Indian audience teary-eyed.
The women wept with Sharmila over her beloved’s death and the ‘sinful’ state she was in, but
quickly dried their tears when the unborn child
presented himself as his dead father’s spitting
image. Hearts were won, sighs of relief went
through the hall, more songs, and an icon was
born.
Like his idol Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna made
a fine art out of dying on screen. Anand, Safar,
Andaz…he would die in them all, and in other
films like Aap Ki Kasam, Roti, Amar Prem,
Avatar, he would suffer for long cinematic
years, singing songs that wrenched the heart.
Yet there were films when he laughed and made
others laugh, Anand being one of them, as was
Bawarchi, or even Haathi Mere Saathi. Or he
could be righteously angry as in Namak Haram
and take the audience with him.
tion and tone almost indistinguishable from the
actor’s style. They layered their skills to create a
symphony of sound that moved from speech to
song and back to speech. Rajesh Khanna’s titled
teasing glance, and his lovelorn eyes did the
rest.
What made that magic happen?
The combination was box office gold. Dress designers togged up Rajesh Khanna in ridiculous
clothes, he has sported fur caps, and turquoise
blue safari suits as he cavorted about with his
heroines, but the song on his lips, in Kishore
Kumar’s voice won the moment for him.
Coldly speaking, Sanjeev Kumar, with whom he
acted with in Aap Ki Kasam was a better actor.
Amitabh Bachchan, in his first cameo in Anand,
had more screen presence. Maybe only Feroz
Khan who was his co-star in Safar failed to
equal or surpass him as a co-star in a film. Yet
Aap Ki Kasam is remembered for Rajesh Khanna. Not for the ebullient Mumtaz, nor the quietly underplayed role by Sanjeev Kumar. Even
in Andaz, in the brief cameo, Rajesh Khanna
managed to overshadow the redoubtable Shammi Kapoor.
The magic was in the voice.
Rajesh Khanna, as he grew into stardom and the
confidence it brings with it, developed a style
of speaking all his own. The roles were gentle,
romantic, or fun filled, but there was an element of caring in them all. And in a mileu fast
changing to where it was each man for himself,
where there was little time to care and share, a
character who could caress with his voice, with
his words, and the way he spoke them could not
but win!
The films he starred in were not dialogue heavy,
but the roles he played demanded and got songs
that he would mouth. Verily, he got some of the
best songs of the seventies. From Anand to Safar, to Aap Ki Kasam to Aradhana, and Dushman…the list is endless.
Which brings us to his singing voice: Kishore
Kumar.
Kishore Kumar’s rise coincided with Rajesh
Khanna’s popularity graph. Mainly because,
mimic that he was, taking a cue from the actor’s delivery style, the singer too brought in a
warmth, a tenderness that made his enuncia-
“Kishore Kumar is my soul, I am his body”,
Rajesh Khanna said in an interview. He did not
realise it then, but generations to come would
separate the soul from body. And while they
would hardly know the man who charmed an
entire generation of fans, the voice that sang his
songs would be identified with him.
But that does a disservice to the speaking voice.
If the endless replaying of his Anand death
scene on TV screens is any indication, it is his
speeches, delivered as only he could deliver
them, that have made them among the best remembered in cinema. Ask the love struck women of his heyday and they would come up with a
string of such one liners from the Babumoshai
line in Anand to “I hate tears” in Amar Prem.
Who knows how bright and long the star would
have shone in cinema if he had not nurtured in
himself the tragic qualities of a meteor? Perhaps
he would have tided the angry phase or adjusted
himself to it? Would the charm of his voice have
held in such a case?
Hard to guess. It is enough to note that almost
forty years after he blazed out, when Rajesh
Khanna made his only appearance on screen for
an ad, he was almost unrecognisable.
Only the voice when it sent out its caress, made
some hearts miss a beat…meri awaz hi pehchan
hai…
I rest my case.
Rajesh Khanna’s last words:
‘Time ho gaya hai. Pack up!’
Amitabh Bachchan recalls how he overcame his
angst about playing the final scene in Anand with
Rajesh Khanna - and other interesting anecdotes
from their lives.
FP Staff, Jul 19, 2012
L
egendary actor Amitabh Bachchan has,
in a heartfelt tribute to Rajesh Khanna,
recalled some interesting anecdotes from
their film careers and lives.
Bachchan recalls, for instance, that the final
scene in the film Anand – where Anand Sehgal,
the character played by Rajesh Khanna, dies
– gave him much cause for worry. Dr Bhaskar
Banerjee, the dour character played by Amitabh, breaks down at Anand’s death bed and
pleads with him to speak. (It’s the same footage
that’s been on endless loop on television channels all of Wednesday, causing immense anguish to Rajesh Khanna’s many fans.)
Bachchan recalls on his blog (which you can
read here) that he was unable to “find a method
in my own very limited acting experience” to
convey the pathos of that moment. He therefore
sought advice from actor-director Mehmood, in
whose house he was then living.
Mehmood’s advice: “Just think Amitabh, R-aj-e-s-h K-h-a-n-n-a is dead!! and you will get
everything right.”
Bachchan reckons that Mehmood wasn’t just
giving him a tutorial in acting; he was acknowledging Rajesh Khanna’s giant stature as the
megastar of those times.
Bachchan also recalls that on Wednesday afternoon, when he went to pay his respects to
Khanna soon after learning of his death, a close
associate of Khanna’s came up and confided
that his last words were, ”Time ho gaya hai!
Pack Up!”
Read Bachchan’s other endearing recollections
of Rajesh Khanna here.
No more Anand: The endless
death of Rajesh Khanna by TV
Rajesh Khanna was Bollywood’s first superstar. And
Anand was his iconic film. But there’s something morbid
about endlessly spooling that famous death scene on
television, milking its filmi tragedy for all its worth.
Sandip Roy, Jul 18, 2012
T
he family was having lunch when Rajesh
Khanna died. My mother stopped midway through ladling the dal to stare at
the screen with dismay.
“Oh no,” she said shaking her head. “Oh no.”
On the television screen, on channel after channel, Rajesh Khanna lay dying on his Anand
deathbed. He tossed his head from side to side,
he gasped for breath. But the visual was minus
its filmi soundtrack. There was only the voice
of the announcer talking about his death, interviewing sundry colleagues and stars about their
memories of the man.
Strangely that gave it the feeling of hushed reality as the split screen showed the images of his
house on one side and his filmi death bed on the
other. That death bed had become the substitute for the place the intrusive camera dared not
go – his actual death bed.
A few months ago there was a heated debate
about exploitation when Havells fans featured
Kaka in an ad, gaunt, frail and emaciated, but
still gamely trying to put on the Babumoshai
charm. “(T)he Havells fans commercial made
me weep. As much for Rajesh Khanna as for
myself,” wrote Shobhaa De. The ad was “insensitive” groused others, stripping him of his
dignity and exposing him to a new generation
who knew him only as Akshay Kumar’s rickety
father-in-law.
But if that Rajesh looked like a shadow of himself, it is infinitely more morbid to surf from
channel to channel and see the old young
Rajesh dying over and over again. He seems to
be trapped in the throes of death, spooling endlessly on every channel without any respite.
When breaking news of disasters come without
enough footage we see the same clips over and
over again. That’s what happened with Rajesh
Khanna’s death. His Anand death from 1971
has become the stand-in for his real off-camera
death in 2012.
It was inevitable that Anand would become
part of any television obituary of Rajesh Khanna. His famous line “I hate tears” would be
woven into every remembrance. He had so
many songs with “zindagi” in it that one would
be hard-pressed to choose one for any Rajesh
Khanna tribute. But that death clip from Anand
overwhelms the zindagi of Rajesh Khanna.
For generations of Indians, Rajesh Khanna
was romance. When RD Burman and Kishore
Kumar died, a large part of that romance died
with them. Now with Rajesh Khanna’s passing the curtains have come down with finality.
The young women who were ready to slit their
wrists for him are now matronly, many of them
grandmothers. If they had once hidden a picture postcard of Kaka in their schoolbooks, that
postcard has long crumbled to dust. They will
mourn Kaka as much as they will mourn the
idea that once they were foolish enough to think
about slitting their wrists for him.
Rajesh Khanna was the star of the first Hindi
film I ever saw though I confess as a little boy I
went to see Haathi mera Saathi because of the
elephants. And I got caught up, like the rest of
the country, in the Rajesh Khanna wave that
bowled over men and women.
In a Bollywood filled with Bengalis, he managed
to pass himself off as a babumoshai to Kolkata’s
delight. “In a dhoti&kurta you showed the rest
of India how truly elegant Bengal was” tweeted
Rituparno Ghosh today. But at the same time
Rajesh Khanna didn’t forget to give his salaams
to Bengal’s own superstar Uttam Kumar.
He apparently watched Nishipadma dozens of
times before it was remade as Amar Prem. “But
still hats off to Uttam Kumar,” he said and thus
won my mother’s heart. Over the years Rajesh
Khanna had become a crinkly-eyed caricature of
himself, the superstar who thought he had made
a pact of Amar Prem with his audience. Yet despite his ups and downs some of that affection
stayed. It made my mother sad to watch him do
his Havells fan ad.
As she watched Rajesh Khanna die in Anand
over and over again today, my mother said
“Why did he have to do that film?” as if that
1971 film somehow was a curse that reared its
head in 2012. She was right in a way. That film
was a classic but we don’t need to milk its tragic
ending for tears anymore.
Rajesh Khanna is dead. We should mourn his
passing and celebrate his life and what he
meant to us. But can we do that without killing him over and over again on our televisions
screens? That is nothing short of death by a
thousand cuts of the same clip.
Bachchans, SRK, Salman Khan
pay homage to the late Rajesh Khanna
Rise and fall
Rajesh Khanna: The Superstar
who could not handle success
Superstardom was something that Khanna could not
handle. “At one point, Rajesh Khanna was a god, but
the trouble with him is that he started thinking he was
one,” Ali Peter John, a film journalist, told Open
magazine around a month back.
Vivek Kaul, Jul 18, 2012
S
ometime in March this year I was taking
a Tamil aunt of mine around Mumbai.
As we went around on the Carter Road
in Bandra I showed her Rajesh Khanna’s bungalow, Aashirward. “My sister even named
her son after him,” she told me. “Such was his
craze”.
Rajesh Khanna died today after years of loneliness and a drinking habit he couldn’t overcome.
Actors often enact death scenes in movies and
Rajesh Khanna enacted a particularly powerful
scene in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand. In this
scene Anand (the character played by Khanna
is dying) is dying due to the lymphosarcoma
of the intestine and there is tape playing in the
background which has Babumoshai (played by
Amitabh Bachchan, someone who would be-
come Bollywood’s next superstar) speaking the
following lines:
Maut tu ek kavita hai ..
mujhse ek kavita ka vaadaa hai milegi mujhko…
(Death you are a poem..
a poem has made pact with me that I shall meet
her .. )
Death and Khanna finally came together today
on a rainy afternoon in Mumbai.
Khanna’s first movie was Chetan Anand’s Aakhri Khat, a movie which everyone has forgotten by now except for the rather soulful number
“baharon mera jeevan bhi sawaron” sung by
Lata Mangeshkar and set to tune by Khaiyyam.
The movie which set Khanna on his superstardom was Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana. There
was no looking back after this as Khanna delivered one hit after another. Such was his craze
among women that they would wait for hours to
have a glimpse of him, marry his photographs
and even name their sons after him (as was the
case with my aunt’s sister).
was composed by his son RD Burman, though
he wasn’t credited for it.
The story goes that Khanna used to clear a tune
only if he remembered it a few days after the
composition had first been presented to him.
Also he made LP and RD Burman compete for
his films, getting the best out of both in the
process.
The lyric writer Anand Bakshi wrote some of his
best lines for Rajesh Khanna. Even bad films
like Aap ki Kasam had great songs like zindagi
ke safar main guzar jaate hain jo makaam wo
phir nahi aate.
As Sharmila Tagore said in interview to Indian
Express, “Women came out in droves to see
Kaka (Khanna). They would stand in queues
outside the studios to catch a glimpse, they
would marry his photographs,they would pull
at his clothes. Delhi girls were crazier for him
than Mumbai girls. He needed police protection
when he was in public. I have never seen anything like this before and since.”
But unlike Amitabh Bachchan who followed him
or Dilip Kumar who preceeded him Khanna’s
movies hardly had any great dialogue. As Avijit
Ghosh writes in Bollywood’s Top 20: Superstars of Indian Cinema “Rajesh Khanna became
an actor without his best lines.” The only dialogue that people probably remember till date is
a line from Amar Prem: “Pushpa I hate tears”.
And that after mimicry artists have used it over
and over again over the years. Other than this
his dialogues from Anand are well remembered
till date.
The movies of Rajesh Khanna’s may not have
had the best of the lines but they had brilliant
music composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal (LP)
and RD Burman. This was a huge reason for his
success. The music for his first big hit Aradhana
was officially composed by SD Burman, but
since the senior Burman was taken ill, the music
His superstardom also revived the singing career of Kishore Kumar and together they formed
a hit pair. Some of the most soulful numbers of
Kishore Kumar from chingari to ye lal rang kab
mujhe chodega to my all time favourite Kishore
number jab dard nahi tha seene main tab khak
mazza tha jeene main were filmed on Khanna.
Such was the Rajesh Khanna craze that he had
15 consecutive solo super-hits between 1969 to
1971, a record which the biggest superstar of
Hindi cinema Amitabh Bachchan also could not
break. And like most of the batting records set
by Sachin Tendulkar it is likely to remain unbroken, the Khan superstars of this day and age
notwithstanding. But superstardom was something that Khanna
could not handle. ““At one point, Rajesh Khanna was a god, but the trouble with him is that he
started thinking he was one,” Ali Peter John, a
film journalist, told the Open magazine around
a month back. Jack Pizzey, who made a documentary titled Bombay Superstar on Khanna
described him as an actor who had the “charisma of Rudolph Valentino and the arrogance
of Napoleon”.
Success got into his head. And the first victim
of this was his girlfriend of seven years Anju
Mahendru. After the breakup Khanna married
Dimple Kapadia before the release of her first
movie Bobby, on the rebound. The story goes
that he got his baraat to go in front of Mahendru’s bungalow (which was actually Khanna’s
bungalow). They did not speak for nearly 17
years after his marriage.
With success came a group of hangers on, who
kept reminding Khanna that he was the superstar. “Although those were the days when Khanna was ‘friends’ with nearly all his colleagues,
the regular darbar that he held at Aashirwad
had only small-timers in attendance. Among
those he hung out with were the producers
Mohan Kumar and Johnny Bakshi, writer VK
Sharma and villain Roopesh Kumar (claimed to
be a cousin of Mumtaz). Do these names ring a
bell?” wrote Shaikh Ayaz in the Open sometime
back.
In 1973, four years into Khanna’s success everything changed. The year saw the release of
Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer. A script written by
Salim-Javed and which was rejected by seven
different actors (including Dev Anand) before
Amitabh Bachchan finally took it on. The movie
was a smash hit and saw the birth of the angry
young man. Before Zanjeer the maar-dhad
films were not a part of the mainstream of Hindi
cinema and were referred to as stunt films,
which had the likes of Dara Singh in the lead
role.
Zanjeer changed all that. And Khanna was
anything but the angry young man. He was
the boy next door. Thus started the decline of
Rajesh Khanna. He made several attempts at a
comeback and had occasional hits like Souten in
which he was paired opposite Tina Munim.
When Bachchan was on his way up Khanna
tried to brush his success aside. As Ayaz points
out in the Open magazine “Aise attan button
aate jaate rahenge, lekin Rajesh Khanna ko koi
chhoo bhi nahi sakta. Main kya aise aire gaire
logon se darr jaaunga?” But with the rise of
Amitabh Bachchan, Salim-Javed and the angry
young man, Khanna’s superstardom had well
and truly ended.
Khanna briefly moved onto politics representing the New Delhi constituency for the Congress
party between 1992 and 1996. The comebacks
also continued in the meanwhile. The most
embarrassing of them all being the 2008 movie
Wafaa: A Deadly Love Story in which he
starred opposite the now supposedly dead Laila
Khan. The story goes he also almost entered
the Big Boss house and his son-in-law Akshay
Kumar got the deal scuttled.
Rajesh Khanna’s life closely resembled the life
of the lead character in the 1950 Hollywood film
The Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond is a
long forgotten lonely film star of the silent movie era in the movie. She still can’t get over the
fact that her days of superstardom are over. And
she is trying to make this one last comeback.
Things go wrong and in the end she shoots her
paramour Joe. In the classic last scene of the
movie news cameras have arrived at her house.
Norma is hallucinating by then and thinks that
the news cameras are actually film cameras. She
descends the grand staircase of her house and
says the famous last lines of the movie.
“I can’t go on with the scene. I’m too happy. Do
you mind, Mr DeMille (a famous film director
in Hollywood during those days), if I say a few
words? Thank you. I just want to tell you how
happy I am to be back in the studio making a
picture again.You don’t know how much I’ve
missed all of you. And I promise you I’ll never
desert you again, because after “Salome” we’ll
make another picture, and another and another. You see, this is my life. It always will be.
There’s nothing else — just us and the cameras
and those wonderful people out there in the
dark… All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my
closeup.”
Rajesh Khanna rest in peace.
Tragic hero: The song that
summed up Rajesh Khanna’s life
This song from Aap ki Kasam might not make
it in the list of the five best Rajesh Khanna songs
but it sums up the story of his life, before and
after superstardom, like no other.
Gautam Chintamani, Jul 19, 2012
I
f there were ever an actor who’d be remembered more for the songs that were
associated with him than anything else,
it would be Rajesh Khanna. Those who didn’t
know Hindi cinema better wouldn’t believe that
sometimes it is the songs associated with an actor that make him truly everlasting. And Rajesh
Khanna had more classics to his name than any
other star.
In his death, everyone will come up with the
most memorable Rajesh Khanna songs – and
they have plenty to choose from gems from
films such as Aradhana, Safar, Anand, Amar
Prem, Kati Patang. There will be, ironically,
many songs with zindagi in them – Zindagi Ka
Safar Hai Yeh Kaisa Safar or Zindagi Kaisi Hai
Paheli Hai or Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana.
But nothing can tell the story of Rajesh Khanna
as well as a single song from Aap Ki Kasam
(1974).
Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hai jo
makaam (watch it here) might not make it to
the top-five lists of Rajesh Khanna melodies,
but that one song is nothing less than his life
story. Released at a time when the Amitabh
Bachchan juggernaut was gaining momentum
Aap Ki Kasam is one of the last great Rajesh
Khanna hits. The song comes at the end of the
film about a man whose life is destroyed because of his inability to look beyond his brittle
ego. Kamal (Rajesh Khanna) is convinced that
his wife Sunita (Mumtaz) and his friend Mohan (Sanjeev Kumar) are having an affair and
doesn’t stop till he is consumed by it.
If you look closer at the words penned by Anand
Bakshi, the song is eerily like Rajesh Khanna
finally understanding the wrongs he committed.
And it foretells the story of the lonely superstar
he would become. Khanna’s meteoric rise to
stardom was so sudden that no one, least of all
him, knew how to handle the superstar status.
There are many tales of how he treated people
like day-old newspapers, convinced that his
fame was invincible.
Bakshi was almost echoing that when he wrote
Waqt chalta hi rahta hai rukta nahi, Ek pal
mein ye aage nikal jaata hai (Time marches
on, it does not pause, in one moment it races
ahead). When he sings the line Ek baar chale
jaate hein jo din raat subah sham, Woh woh
phir nahi aate, (Once they pass away, days and
nights never come back), it is a rumination on
the transient nature of fame. His inability to
accept people who spoke their mind in front of
him are echoed in the lyrics Kuchh log ek roz jo
bichhad jaate hain, vo hazaron ke aane se milte
nahin (Hundreds tomorrow won’t be able to fill
the space left empty by a few who left you that
one day).
Legend has it that Khanna was so disturbed by
Amitabh Bachchan, the new kid on the block,
that he repeatedly ill-treated him on the sets of
Bawarchi (1972) when Bachchan used to visit
to meet Jaya Bahaduri. In its course, the song
seems to suggest Khanna’s reluctant acceptance of Bachchan – Aadmi theek se yeh dekh
paata nahi, Aur parde pe manzar badal jaata
hai (One barely sees what’s in front of him
and the whole stage changes). There are many
people that Khanna ill-treated when the going
was good and most of them never forgot that.
Later he tried to make amends but Bollywood
is very good at remembering the bad – Umra
bhar chahe koi pukaara kare unka naam Woh
phir nahi aate, woh phir nahi aate (You spend
a lifetime crying out their names, but those who
deserted you never return).
There are superstars and then there is Rajesh
Khanna. Sharmila Tagore once said that she
hasn’t seen fame like she had seen Khanna’s
ever before or ever since. For the while that
he was at the top, Rajesh Khanna was nothing
less than an emperor and this is what made
him banish people from his durbar rather than
simply breaking away from those who didn’t
agree with him. He had the habit of surrounding himself with yes-men and believed whatever
they said to inflate his ego.
This song even uncannily sums up his relationship with his wife, Dimple Kapadia – Kal tadapna pade yaad mein jinki, Rok lo ruth kar unko
jaane na do. Baad mein pyaar ke chahe bhejo
hazaaro salaam, Woh phir nahi aate, woh phir
nahi aate…(Tomorrow you may regret remembering those who may leave you today… stop
them from giving up on you… For later, even
if you tried to call out, those who forsake you
never come back).
This song might predate many of the events that
unfolded in Rajesh Khanna’s life, but looking
back, it is unnerving just how closely it mirrors
the star’s life. The manner in which the song
was filmed, Kamal’s realisation that his suspicion has killed their marriage forever, sees him
wander aimlessly, regretting his actions for
the rest of his life. That is sadly how the screen
legend’s real life turned out. A better part of his
life, post his glory days, was relegated to being
in almost social exile; it’s only in his last few
months that Khanna was surrounded by the
people he learnt to value the most.
In his death, Rajesh Khanna finally gets a second chance that life never really gave him. The
tragedy is that he did not take the lyrics of his
own song to heart before they came true.
One day the flowers stopped coming:
Rajesh Khanna on not being a star
According to director Mahesh Bhatt, the actor said
he realised he was no longer a superstar when he
stopped getting truckloads of flowers on his birthday.
FP Staff, Jul 19, 2012
Bhatt was also all praise for the actor’s films but
ajesh Khanna knew when he was a
superstar but also realised when he was said it didn’t hurt the actor’s prospects that his
films had some of the industry’s most memoraa spent force, and according to Mahesh
Bhatt ,once candidly admitted that it was on one ble songs.
birthday he came to know how far he had fallen.
“I think he was lucky to get great music and
great stories,” he said.
“I remember asking him once a question: when
did it dawn on you that you are a spent force,
that the best years are behind you? He took a
So what led to the actor’s downfall? According
to Bhatt, it was his inability to rise above the
painful pause and he said, Mahesh one day the
flowers stopped coming. Aashirwad (Rajesh
persona he had managed to create on screen.
Khanna’s bungalow in suburban Bandra) used
“When you have one hit after the other you
to have truckload of flowers on my birthday.
become invincible. He did precious little to get
And one day there were no flowers,” Bhatt told
out of that persona which had found resounding
CNN IBN.
success. Obliviously there was no reason to look
for a new persona because it was working magic
“Anybody who had the power to reflect on that
painful moment, perhaps can materialize the
and one day suddenly he woke up and discoventire Rajesh Khanna narrative and realise that ered that he kingdom he ruled did not exist,” he
said.
there wasn’t to be a resurrection, and that the
tragedy is a part of his person,” the director
said.
R
Why Rajesh Khanna was special
Why no SRK will ever
out-romance Rajesh Khanna
Rajesh Khanna, even for generations who
didn’t know him in his prime, will be the
epitome of romance.
Piyasree Dasgupta, Jul 18, 2012
W
hen you’re born to a generation that
was destined to save its favourite
middle school memories in Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai pop-up cards, you would expect
Rajesh Khanna to remain relegated to the odd
non prime time movie on TV, paper cut-outs
tucked under the mother’s mothballed sarees or
a bunch of LPs catching dust under old dictionaries and math books.
Only, I was born to a family where the father
risked losing a full-head of hair to get a lacquered lock to lay exactly the way it did on
Rajesh Khanna’s forehead in Aradhana. A
family where the aunt is said to have rejected
Bengali doctors and engineers for the not-so-
elaborate uncle who has the names of all Rajesh
Khanna movies neatly arranged in his head in a
frighteningly accurate virtual catalogue. Where
the uncle rattles off product numbers of all EPs
and LPs of Rajesh Khanna movies he sold after
he joined the biggest music production company of those times.
Rajesh Khanna, and this might be true for several Indian families, was a lore that our generation grew up with. And despite generous doses
of classical British literature and nineties boy
band pop, Rajesh Khanna, would form the bedrock of all definitions of romance that life would
bring forth.
I had Roop Tera Mastana by heart by the time
I was ten, which had led to several family embarrassments in scores of Tagore-worshipping
Bengali family gatherings. I saw Aradhana on
Doordrashan, just a couple of days after I read
my first Mills and Boons. I was 14. It was to become one of those films I would always go back
on a sick day at home, on a hung-over Sunday
afternoon, on a dozen Valentine’s Days I never
had a date.
Khanna’s films defined romance like it possibly
could be in an average Joe’s life – sans Switzerland, sans Hindi pick-up lines, sans waxed
chests and a hero singing in a crowded-withfirangs, disco-balled, pub. Suspension of disbelief was probably so much easier – with a little
help from a mush-magnet called Mere Sapnon
Ki Rani, it was almost easy to fancy a guy in a
jeep running after your toy train. Or believe all
great romances start with the rains on the hillside with a cosily lit cave in the vicinity.
And then college happened with its customary denunciation of Bollywood candyfloss. But
Rajesh Khanna remained. From the delicate
relationship between a world-weary, ironyspewing babu and a beautiful prostitute in
Amar Prem brought alive by some of the most
stunningly written songs ever (Kuch to Log
Kahenge, Yeh Kya Hua, Chingari Koi Bhadke)
to Kati Patang, a sharp, engrossing take on the
Bollywood staples of love, betrayal and lust,
Rajesh Khanna films made romance so believable, that it made a card-holding communist
want to fall in love – of the rains without warning, dahlia in spring kind.
Khanna’s LPs are the only showpieces in my
modest Kolkata living room. They are not dusted by the domestic help. My father does it every
weekend because he says it gets songs playing in
his head. And it’s yesterday once more. Strangely enough, I understand.
Rajesh Khanna was the
heartbeat of the nation
The songs that Kishore Kumar sang for Rajesh
Khanna, composed by RD Burman, were the
beat of the nation much like Rajesh Khanna
being the heart beat of the nation.
F
Ayaz Memon, Jul 18, 2012
or those of you who have grown up
the late sixties and seventies, Rajesh
Khanna’s death takes away a big and a
very important chunk of our lives because he
just kind of haunted our generation. While it is
always said that he was the first superstar, you
have to understand what he really meant the
people specially fans.
I haven’t seen the craze like I saw for him ever.
There have been bigger stars, bigger actors
before and after him. Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand — the trios of the 50s and
the early sixties… nobody has been bigger than
Dilip Kumar as an actor and for sheer length
of time, there is nobody to beat Amitabh Bach-
achan. The craze now we see for Salman Khan,
Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan, but for a short
spell of a time between 1968 and 1973, Rajesh
Khanna, kind of, overwhelmed everyone.
It is difficult to say what really triggered off that
kind of mania for Rajesh Khanna. Was it just a
fresh approach? Was it just the waning of earlier superstars and the other guys who could kind
make it to the top like Sunil Dutt, Dharmendra,
Manoj Kumar. They all lived in the shadow of
Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand. Rajesh
Khanna was the first guy who actually measured
up the popularity or exceeded that of any one.
There were story of girls marrying his photographs or when he got married to Dimple Ka-
padia, some of them slashing their wrists and it
didn’t seem as far stretched.
When I was in school, in the 10th and 11th
standard every girl in our class was a Rajesh
Khanna fan. There would be all this battle between Dilip Kumar die-hard loyalist like me and
Rajesh Khanna loyalists like the girls.
To really encapsulte what Rajesh Khanna wave
meant I will give you an example and its no exageration at all. I remember going to see a rerun
of Phool aur Phathar the Dharmendra-Meena
Kumari classic at Alankar theatre in Mumbai.
Post the interval there was a trailer of a Rajesh
Khanna movie Aan Milo Sajana. And the
minute he came on in the song Accha Toh Hum
Chalte Hai , the entire audience went into raptures. People were hurling money at the screen.
Then, there was the movie Dhushman which
released in the twin theaters, Ganga and Jamuna. These were the theaters that came into
being with that movie. Both the theater showed
the same movie, those were the single screen
days. And both theaters were houseful for an
entire week. That was craze Rajesh Khanna had,
unprecedented. Nobody else I think has enjoyed
that kind of a craze in the Indian film industry.
And not that he was a terrific actor. He had
terrific performances only when he had good
directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Bhattacharya perhaps a Shakti Samanta otherwise
he could be quite a pedestrian. But there was a
wave, a tsunami wave. The Rajesh Khanna era.
There was whole syndrome that came along
with it. RD Burman as a music director, Kishore
Kumar’s second coming so to speak with Aradhana. The songs that Kishore Kumar sang for
Rajesh Khanna, composed by RD Burman, were
the beat of the nation much like Rajesh Khanna
being the heart beat of the nation.
He had his favourite female co-stars and he
made some winning combinations. Sharmila
Tagore and Mumtaz were his favourites.
And just as suddenly the Rajesh Khanna wave
disappeared. It just kind of waned. Its difficult
to explain why. He was not a method actor or a
studied actor or somebody who took too much
attention to reaching great histrionic levels.
When he had a terrific director to guide him
along, he put up some terrific performances.
Anand, Namak Haram, Bawarchi these are all
Hrishikesh Mukherjee films. Some of them were
pretty melodramatic but he made a big impact.
Amar Prem with Shakti Samanta. Ittefaq was
one of his earliest big hits with Yash Chopra – a
song less film were he played a escaped convict.
The are lot of stories about he found it difficult
to handle his super stardom. He lived the life of
a spoilt rockstar. His marriage to Dimpla Kapadia, which broke millions of hearts of women in
India, didn’t last too long.
And suddenly, you found Rajesh Khanna, who
was pretty much the pre-eminent number one
star by far in the Indian film industry, had almost vanished from the screen.
He lived in his small private world of his own
which may or may not have been a happy world.
Sitting from outside one really doesn’t know.
But he just couldn’t make the comeback one expected. Especially now one feels that Bollywood
having become so big for the last 10-15 years,
almost every actor who you could think off had
a second or a third chance. Whether it is films
or television. But Rajesh Khanna somehow just
couldn’t make that come back and that is one of
the sad parts of the life.
He enjoyed that kind of superstardom or probably didn’t enjoy. He became a non-entity of
sorts. But what will remain forever in my mind
certainly, and in everybody’s elses mind who
grew up in that generation, is that we all witnessed this tidal wave, this phenomenon as he
was called Rajesh Khanna. I think he was once
in a lifetime occurrence.
If you ask me to define is career as well as his
life, I would define it by those two stanzas of his
famous songs. One is from the film Andaz, were
he plays a guest role motor-cycling down Marine Lines.
The stanza is – Zindgai ek safar hai suhana,
yaha kal kya ho kisne jana. And other one is
from the film Safar – Zindagi ka safar, hai yeh
kaisa safar. And everything else that comes in
between.
When Rajesh celebrated wife Dimple’s
16th birthday at the Hilton, London
As the world mourns the death of India’s legend,
the quintessential king of romance Rajesh
Khanna, here’s a list of lesser known facts about
his real life romance and subsequent wedding
to Dimple Kapadia.
Rubina A Khan, Jul 18, 2012
R
ajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia’s
romance is legend, never mind the
ups and downs the couple weathered
in their time together. The undisputed king of
romance, Rajesh Khanna died a married man –
married to his wife, Dimple, who he’d married
just as soon as he’d met the teenaged beauty.
Here’s a list of lesser known things about the
most talked about romance and subsequent
wedding in film history:
1. Rajesh Khanna met the “soon-to-be-teensensation” on celluloid, 15-year-old Dimple
Kapadia when she had just broken up with her
boyfriend, the adorable Rishi Kapoor, also a
teenager, who she was filming Raj Kapoor’s
Bobby with at the time. Contrary to popular
belief, Dimple did not leave Rishi Kapoor for
Rajesh. She was single when the superstar met
her and she was completely swept off her feet by
his charm.
2. Rajesh Khanna married Dimple, 16 years his
junior, at the zenith of his superstardom at her
father, Chunnibhai Kapadia’s family bungalow
in Juhu, Mumbai in March 1973.
3. The grand reception of the 70’s star and his
sweetheart was held at Hotel Horizon in Juhu,
Mumbai. It was overflowing with actors and
stars and all things glitzy and was one big party.
honeymoon in London at the same time. Rajesh
invited them to Dimple’s birthday. The Bachchans were the only film stars present aside
from Rajesh and Dimple at the non-filmi party.
4. Since Dimple filmed a large part of Bobby
after she married Rajesh Khanna in March
1973, the couple had to defer their honeymoon
to June.
7. Whilst Dimple was filming Bobby after she
married Rajesh, the mehndi on her newly-wed
hands had to be hidden during the shooting
schedule of a key song in the film.
5. The glamorous couple went to Europe for
their honeymoon, but not alone. They were accompanied by his close friends, film producer
Raj Bathija and wife Nirmal, and Baldev Pathak,
father of actresses Ratna and Supriya Pathak,
who are married to actors Naseeruddin Shah
and Pankaj Kapur respectively.
8. Rajesh and his elder daughter, Twinkle Khanna, who is married to Akshay Kumar, share the
same birth date, 29 December and shared a
close relationship.
6. Whilst on their honeymoon, Rajesh Khanna
threw a big party for Dimple at the Hilton hotel in London on 8 June to celebrate her 16th
birthday. The same year Amitabh Bachchan
had wed Jaya Bhaduri and they were on their
10. The superstar, whose real name was Jatin
Khanna, died a married man as he never legally
separated from his wife, Dimple.
9. Rajesh Khanna used to address Dimple as
Dimpy and she called him Kaka.
Pakistani fans pay tribute
to Rajesh Khanna
Hundreds of Pakistani fans of the late actor
recalled some of his famous dialogues.
IANS, Jul 19, 2012
I
slamabad: Fans in Pakistan paid rich tributes to Bollywood actor Rajesh Khanna,
who died in Mumbai Wednesday, with
some recalling “Arrey oh babumoshai…”
Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn had a separate
section “Zindagi kay safar mein: Remembering
Rajesh Khanna” where readers could write in.
the great star has gone for ever but has left his
memories in our hearts and minds!”
KDP said that “one of the most memorable
movie with sensational dialogues was Anand”
and provided a link to selected dialogues from
Anand.
Another comment was a philosophical one from
Wahid, who wrote: “In my platonic learning:
What is seen is not a reality. The reality is ideal,
real impressions of the legend’s characters living in minds, love, respect and honour for him
are reality. Rajesh Khanna! You are cherished
and that is reality. May your uper wala bless you
peace endlessly.”
Jack recalled Rajesh Khanna’s “babumoshai”
dialogue: “Arrey o babumoshai, hum to
rangmanch ki kathputliyan hain jiski dor us
upar wale ke haathon main hai kab, kaun kahan uthega ye koi nahin janta“.
“By far my favourite actor. His style was very
unique, and he stands out as an actor in an era,
where there were so many other superstars
acted, like Amitabh, Dharmendra, Shashi, Rishi,
Sanjeev, etc. I loved every movie of his and my
favourite was Alag Alag. May God bless him, he
will be missed, wrote Farrukh Siar.
From Canada, Mohammad wrote: “And so,
Another post from Seoul was of the same dialogue: “Babumoshai..Zindagi ek Rangmanch
hai, aur hum sab us Rangmanch ki kathputliyan… Jiski dor upar wale ke haath me hai…
Usse na aap badal sakte hain na hum‘”, adding” “Anand mara nahi, Anand marte nahi…”
“The man is gone. But the memories will live on.
RIP KAKA”
APJ too recalled the same dialogue.
Dialogues that will keep
Rajesh Khanna around forever
The original superstar of Bollywood had many
dialogues that fans memorised. Here are some
of the most memorable ones.
FP Staff, Jul 18, 2012
R
ajesh Khanna, who passed away today
at age 69, was known among his adoring fans for his songs and for his dialogues delivered in a style that he made his own.
The first superstar of Bollywood, Khanna had
numerous fans mouthing his dialogues across
the country as they attempted to emulate the
heartthrob.
Here are a select set of dialogues from some of
his memorable films:
‘Kab, kaun, kaise uthega ye koi nahin bata
sakta hai’
- Anand
‘Babumoshai, zindagi aur maut uparwale ke
haath hai. Usse na aap badal sakte hain na
main’
- Anand
‘Main derr se aata nahi hun lekin kya karu, der
ho jaati hai. Isliye maafi ka haqdar hu, agar
phir bhi kisine na maaf kiya ho toh main yahi
kehna chahta hoon, Humko maafi dedo saahib’
- Ram Balram
“Main marne se pehle marna nahin chahta”
- Safar
“Yeh toh main hi jaanta hoon ki zindagi ke aakhri moor par kitna andhera hai”
- Safar
Kisi badi khushi ke intezaar mein … hum yeh
chote chote khushiyoon ke mauke kho dete hain
- Bawarchi
Yeh lo, phir tumhari aankho main paani!
Maine tumse kitni baar kahan hai ki, Pushpa
mujhse ye aansu dekhe nahi jaate. I hate tears.
- Amar Prem
Iss ek glaas main ek majdoor ki ek mahine ki
roti hai aur parivaar ki saans. Kabhi socha hai
ki iss ek glass ko pite hi hum ek parivaar ko
bhooka maar dete hai
- Namak Haram
Memories of a superstar
We used to gossip in Parliament:
Mamata on Rajesh Khanna
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
today said that Rajesh Khanna was a symbol
of romance and in his death the film world
has lost a “pole star”.
PTI, Jul 18, 2012
K
olkata: West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee today said that Rajesh
Khanna was a symbol of romance and in
his death the film world has lost a “pole
star”.
“Rajesh Khanna was always a symbol of romance. His smiling face and the ability to connect with people at ease had made him popular.
We lost a big pole star in the film world today,”
Mamata said while paying tribute to the Hindi
films’ first superstar whom, she said, she knew
personally.
The chief minister said, “Rajesh Khanna was a
legend and his acting has delighted cinema-lovers across many generations. It’s a very sad day
and his demise is a colossal loss for the Indian
cinema. May his soul rest in peace.”
Recalling the days when the Bollywood superstar was an MP, Mamata said, “I had known
him personally. We used to gossip in the Central
Hall of Parliament. His smiling face is still fresh
in my mind.”
Reflecting on Khanna’s lighter side, the chief
minister said, “I had once invited him for a Trinamool Congress party rally in Kolkata. He had
told me in a lighter
vein ‘I would go well-dressed.”
The chief minister conveyed her deep condolence to Dimple Kapadia and other members in
the departed actor’s family.
Bollywood twitterati
remembers Rajesh Khanna
Many actors of Bollywood took to twitter today
to express their grief on hearing the news of the
death of Rajesh Khanna
FP Staff, Jul 18, 2012
M
any Bollywood actors tweeted about
Bollywood’s original superstar,
Rajesh Khanna – simply the phenomenon to some – who died in Mumbai today,
leaving behind memories cast in celluloid of
that famous crooked smile. Here are some of
the tweets
Rahul Bose RIP Rajesh Khanna. The Phenomenon. Thank you for the magic.
Kunal Kohli The word SuperStar was used
first for Rajesh Khanna.His style.His Ada.His
charm.His smile.His songs.His films. He.Will
always live on
Tusshar Kapoor Rajesh Khanna ji, our 1st
superstar is no more! I worked with him in kyaa
dil ne kaha & learnt a lot just talking to him!
May his soul RIP!
Kailash Kher Superstar of our fathers generation is gone from this world, he was beyond ths
word called(Actor) true Icon World will miss
forever, prayer
Prateik Babbar Zindagi ka safar..hai yeh kaisa
safar..koi samjha nahi.. – aap shayad samajh
gaye..RiP RajesH KhannA SahaB..upar SmitA se
zaroor milna..
Madhur Bhandarkar The epitome of superstardom is no more amongst us. There was none,
there is none & there won’t be any like you
kakaji. You will be missed.
Arshad Warsi RIP KAKA…. God bless n have
mercy on his soul….
Farah Khan Just hrd the saddest news.the 1st
Superstar of india is no more.bt the legend that
was Rajesh khanna will live eternally thru his
films.
Sophie Choudry: RIP Superstar,Legend
Rajesh Khanna Sahib. Ur magic, ur movies & all
the incredible songs u were part of shall live on
in our hearts 4ever
Raima Sen A final salute to star Rajesh Khanna, he who defined stardom…
Neha Dhupia: RIP Rajesh khanna Saab … U ,
ur stardom, ur magic will live forever!
Dia Mirza “Babumoshai eto bhalo bhasha
bhalo na…”Anand, Kati Patang, Bawarchi and
many more… What a legacy you’ve left behind.
RIP Rajesh Khannaji
Five things you did not know
about Rajesh Khanna
Many actors of Bollywood took to twitter today
to express their grief on hearing the news of the
death of Rajesh Khanna
D
FP Staff, Jul 18, 2012
ubbed India’s first superstar, Rajesh
Khanna was the undisputed king of
Bollywood in his time.
In recent times, he drew flak for appearing in an
ad for Havells fans directed by adman R Balki.
The ad was a spoofish take on his huge fan following.
But here are five other things you may not have
known about him.
-Born Jatin Khanna in Amritsar on 29 December 1942, he was adopted. His foster parents
were relatives.
-In recent days, he bought land in Shirdi along
with some foreign investors for a religious resort.
-He became an MP for the Congress Party. He
won the 1992 by-election from New Delhi. He
was a serious MP and took up no acting assignments during his stint in Parliament.
-He was a finalist in the 1965 All India Talent
Contest organised by United Producers and
Filmfare, topping over ten thousand contestants.
-He idolised another superstar, Dilip Kumar,
and often said so publicly.
-Just when his career kickstarted, Rakesh
Khanna fell in love with fashion designer and
actress Anju Mahendru. He shared a seven-year
relationship with her. After their break-up she
did not contact him for 17 long years.
Flashback:
Flashback Rajesh Khanna:
His role in Anand won him many fans. IBN-Live
A screenshot from the movie Aradhana. IBN-Live
During an election campaign in 2003. AFP
His recent appearance at his bungalow. Firstpost
A screenshot from his last commercial. IBN-Live
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