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

Table of contents

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 mischie-vous 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 lead-ing men were not primed to wage private wars

against the unjust system. They were supposed to be ordinary, well, sometimes maybe a lit-tle 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 cin-ema 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 point-less to discuss who romanced better, Dev Anand or Rajesh Khanna, since comparisons are a vac-uous 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 accom-plished actors around when he ruled the roost, delivering hits in amazing frequency and mak-ing women swoon all over the country. Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor were certainly far big-ger 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 commer-cial 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 ac-tor. He won’t be recalled with the same respect as many of his contemporaries for his brilliance at histrionics. His contribution to cinema is lim-ited 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 re-member 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 oth-ers, 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 mu-sic, 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 belov-ed’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.

What made that magic happen?

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 Khan-na. Not for the ebullient Mumtaz, nor the qui-etly underplayed role by Sanjeev Kumar. Even in Andaz, in the brief cameo, Rajesh Khanna managed to overshadow the redoubtable Sham-mi 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 ele-ment 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 Sa-far, to Aap Ki Kasam to Aradhana, and Dush-man…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 ac-tor’s delivery style, the singer too brought in a warmth, a tenderness that made his enuncia-

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.

The combination was box office gold. Dress de-signers 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.

“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 re-membered in cinema. Ask the love struck wom-en 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 Am-itabh, 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 chan-nels all of Wednesday, causing immense an-guish 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-a-j-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 acknowl-edging Rajesh Khanna’s giant stature as the megastar of those times.

Bachchan also recalls that on Wednesday af-ternoon, 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 mid-way 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 chan-nel, 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, inter-viewing sundry colleagues and stars about their

memories of the man.

Strangely that gave it the feeling of hushed real-ity 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 substi-tute 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 “in-sensitive” 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 him-self, 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 end-lessly 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 Khan-na. 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 pass-ing 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 pic-ture 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 de-spite 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 kill-ing 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

http://www.firstpost.com/

http://www.firstpost.com/

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 bun-galow, Aashirward. “My sister even named her son after him,” she told me. “Such was his craze”.

Rajesh Khanna died today after years of loneli-ness 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 mu-jhko…(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 Aa-khri Khat, a movie which everyone has forgot-ten 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 superstar-dom was Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana. There was no looking back after this as Khanna deliv-ered 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).

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 any-thing 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: Super-stars of Indian Cinema “Rajesh Khanna became an actor without his best lines.” The only dia-logue 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

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.

His superstardom also revived the singing ca-reer 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 un-broken, the Khan superstars of this day and age notwithstanding.

But superstardom was something that Khanna could not handle. ““At one point, Rajesh Khan-na 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 docu-mentary titled Bombay Superstar on Khanna described him as an actor who had the “cha-risma 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 Mahen-dru’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 super-star. “Although those were the days when Khan-na 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 eve-rything 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 represent-ing 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 mov-ie 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 an-other. 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 re-membered 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 ac-tor 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 be-cause of his inability to look beyond his brittle ego. Kamal (Rajesh Khanna) is convinced that his wife Sunita (Mumtaz) and his friend Mo-han (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 accept-ance 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 surround-ing himself with yes-men and believed whatever they said to inflate his ego.

This song even uncannily sums up his relation-ship with his wife, Dimple Kapadia – Kal tadap-na 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 remem-bering 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 suspi-cion 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 sec-ond 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

R ajesh Khanna knew when he was a superstar but also realised when he was a spent force, and according to Mahesh

Bhatt ,once candidly admitted that it was on one birthday he came to know how far he had fallen.

“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 painful pause and he said, Mahesh one day the flowers stopped coming. Aashirwad (Rajesh Khanna’s bungalow in suburban Bandra) used to have truckload of flowers on my birthday. And one day there were no flowers,” Bhatt told CNN IBN.

“Anybody who had the power to reflect on that painful moment, perhaps can materialize the entire Rajesh Khanna narrative and realise that there wasn’t to be a resurrection, and that the tragedy is a part of his person,” the director said.

Bhatt was also all praise for the actor’s films but said it didn’t hurt the actor’s prospects that his films had some of the industry’s most memora-ble songs.

“I think he was lucky to get great music and great stories,” he said.

So what led to the actor’s downfall? According to Bhatt, it was his inability to rise above the persona he had managed to create on screen.

“When you have one hit after the other you become invincible. He did precious little to get out of that persona which had found resounding success. Obliviously there was no reason to look for a new persona because it was working magic and one day suddenly he woke up and discov-ered that he kingdom he ruled did not exist,” he said.

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

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 diction-aries and math books.

Only, I was born to a family where the father risked losing a full-head of hair to get a lac-quered 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 com-pany of those times.

Rajesh Khanna, and this might be true for sev-eral Indian families, was a lore that our genera-tion grew up with. And despite generous doses of classical British literature and nineties boy band pop, Rajesh Khanna, would form the bed-rock 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 em-barrassments 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 be-come 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 Swit-zerland, sans Hindi pick-up lines, sans waxed chests and a hero singing in a crowded-with-firangs, disco-balled, pub. Suspension of disbe-lief 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 hill-side with a cosily lit cave in the vicinity.

And then college happened with its custom-ary denunciation of Bollywood candyfloss. But Rajesh Khanna remained. From the delicate relationship between a world-weary, irony-spewing 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 believ-able, that it made a card-holding communist want to fall in love – of the rains without warn-ing, dahlia in spring kind.

Khanna’s LPs are the only showpieces in my modest Kolkata living room. They are not dust-ed 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. Strange-ly 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.

Ayaz Memon, Jul 18, 2012

F 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 Ka-poor, 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 earli-er 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 photo-graphs 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 be-tween 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 ex-ageration 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 rap-tures. People were hurling money at the screen.

Then, there was the movie Dhushman which released in the twin theaters, Ganga and Ja-muna. 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 Bhat-tacharya 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 Arad-hana. 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 Kapa-dia, 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 al-most 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 ex-pected. 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 prob-ably 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 wit-nessed 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 Ma-rine 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-teen-sensation” 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.

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.

5. The glamorous couple went to Europe for their honeymoon, but not alone. They were ac-companied 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.

6. Whilst on their honeymoon, Rajesh Khanna threw a big party for Dimple at the Hilton ho-tel in London on 8 June to celebrate her 16th birthday. The same year Amitabh Bachchan had wed Jaya Bhaduri and they were on their

honeymoon in London at the same time. Rajesh invited them to Dimple’s birthday. The Bach-chans were the only film stars present aside from Rajesh and Dimple at the non-filmi party.

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.

8. Rajesh and his elder daughter, Twinkle Khan-na, who is married to Akshay Kumar, share the same birth date, 29 December and shared a close relationship.

9. Rajesh Khanna used to address Dimple as Dimpy and she called him Kaka.

10. The superstar, whose real name was Jatin Khanna, died a married man as he never legally separated from his wife, Dimple.

Pakistani fans pay tribute to Rajesh Khanna

I slamabad: Fans in Pakistan paid rich trib-utes 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.

“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,

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 liv-ing 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 ka-han uthega ye koi nahin janta“.

Another post from Seoul was of the same dia-logue: “Babumoshai..Zindagi ek Rangmanch hai, aur hum sab us Rangmanch ki kathput-liyan… Jiski dor upar wale ke haath me hai… Usse na aap badal sakte hain na hum‘”, add-ing” “Anand mara nahi, Anand marte nahi…”

“The man is gone. But the memories will live on. RIP KAKA”

APJ too recalled the same dialogue.

Hundreds of Pakistani fans of the late actor recalled some of his famous dialogues.

IANS, Jul 19, 2012

R ajesh Khanna, who passed away today at age 69, was known among his ador-ing fans for his songs and for his dia-

logues 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 aa-khri 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

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

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 “polestar”.

“Rajesh Khanna was always a symbol of ro-mance. His smiling face and the ability to con-nect 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 Hindifilms’ first superstar whom, she said, she knew personally.

The chief minister said, “Rajesh Khanna was a legend and his acting has delighted cinema-lov-ers 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 super-star 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 Tri-namool Congress party rally in Kolkata. He had told me in a lightervein ‘I would go well-dressed.”

The chief minister conveyed her deep condo-lence to Dimple Kapadia and other members in the departed actor’s family.

Bollywood twitterati remembers Rajesh Khanna

M any Bollywood actors tweeted about Bollywood’s original superstar, Rajesh Khanna – simply the phe-

nomenon 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 Phenom-enon. 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

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 Khan-na, he who defined stardom…

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 genera-tion 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 supers-tardom 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.

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

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

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

D 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 fol-lowing.

But here are five other things you may not have known about him.

-Born Jatin Khanna in Amritsar on 29 Decem-ber 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 re-sort.

-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 assign-ments 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 contest-ants.

-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.

Five things you did not know about Rajesh Khanna

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

Copyright © 2011-12 Firstpost — All rights reserved Copyright Network18. All rights reserved.

iPhoneiPad

Scan QR code or click to download our iPad / iPhone app