Author: Yasser Usman Publisher: Penguin India Pages: 352
Price: Rs 399
Rajesh Khanna was on a roll. He monopolized almost all theatres throughout 1970 with a succession of hit films. This was turning out to be a grand year for him. His roles in Kati Patang, The Train and Aan Milo Sajna were greatly loved by his fans. His movies were not only commercial successes but also musical blockbusters. With Kati Patang, the trio of Rajesh Khanna, R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar became an iconic partnership. Songs like ‘Yeh Shaam Mastani’, ‘Pyaar Deewana Hota Hai’ and ‘Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai’ are signature Rajesh Khanna numbers. Yet again, he was able to outshine Asha Parekh in the heroine centric Kati Patang. He was the golden goose. His charm seemed to be affecting more and more people with every passing day. And the queue of producers lining up to sign him on only grew longer. One of the films he signed in this phase was Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand. Hrishikesh Mukherjee had talked to some other actors for the lead role in Anand, but ultimately he zeroed in on Rajesh Khanna. Being the disciplined film-maker that he was, Hrishikesh wanted to finish Anand very quickly. But Rajesh had no time even to read the script. He was working day and night like a machine. He was overworked and growing increasingly restless during shoots. He recounts in an interview later, ‘Nobody knows this, but Anand was shot during the busiest phase of my career. I was turning hysterical with work pressure. I got a sore throat telling everyone I couldn’t sign more new films, but nobody cared and nobody listened. … Now I had films by kilos and no dates. I was being criticized for being overworked, for being disorganized, for being greedy. I wasn’t any of these. My problem was that I didn’t know how to say “no”… The more fan letters I received the more confused I became. It’s strange, but the true struggle of an actor begins only after success. Because the expectations became too many. Under pressure, Rajesh resorted to having friends over every evening to join him for drinks. This helped him to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. As the drinks flowed, the conversations and laughter deepened. They would take him back to his theatre days where many new ideas and plans had materialized in such sessions. He invited the best from the industry every evening and offered them the best of food and drinks. Even on outdoor shoots, these mehfils continued, with him being the magnanimous host. Senior journalist Bharathi S. Pradhan recalled that if you were his guest, you were served the best. At his parties Rajesh personally ensured that every plate was filled with piping hot food. According to Pradhan, ‘Once, while having dinner at his hotel suite, I was so busy talking that I didn’t notice that every time a fresh hot roti was brought in, Rajesh Khanna would quietly take the cold one from my plate and put it on his own, making sure that the garam rotis came to me. Honestly, I don’t know of any other superstar or even minor celebrity who could play host as wonderfully as Rajesh Khanna did.’ But these sessions were soon growing into an unhealthy habit. Rajesh started depending on them to counter his maddening work schedule. He was in constant need of companionship as his stardom increasingly kept him from living a regular life. These evening drinking sessions would go on generally till late in the night. Rajesh would compensate for them by sleeping till late the next morning and, therefore, he would reach his sets late. Across the country, millions of girls were ready to do anything to win Rajesh Khanna’s heart. But the superstar’s girlfriend was Anju Mahendroo. She had taken upon herself the duty to decorate Aashirwad and spent most of her time there. She was almost like a live-in girlfriend, a concept that was considered quite bold for that era. The entire staff of Rajesh Khanna used to call her ‘memsaab‘. Prashant Roy recalls, ‘Anju memsaab used to look after the entire bungalow. If there was any party or function, it used to be under her supervision. Although Chaaiji wasn’t overtly fond of her. She was very modern… All of us at Aashirwad thought that sooner or later Kakaji would marry her and she would be our boss.’ Their personalities were as different as chalk and cheese. Rajesh was a shy person from a Punjabi family. Anju, on the other hand, was a New Age girl belonging to a modern family where women had an equal say in all the important decisions. In her family, women could pursue their dreams without any restrictions. But when people are falling in love, such matters are rarely discussed or given a second thought. As Rajesh’s success became more and more bewildering with each passing film, perhaps Anju was unhappy with the way her career was shaping up. But Rajesh Khanna never wanted his girlfriend to pursue a career in films. In his Punjabi family, the men would work and the women were essentially homemakers. He had similar expectations from his future life partner. He now believed that being a superstar he had everything, and therefore Anju need not work. Possibly, he could never understand that it was Anju’s dream too to make a successful career in films. This topic became a bone of contention between them. Rajesh being the big star he was could have easily facilitated Anju’s career as an actress. But this never happened. Instead, with regular disagreements on this issue, perhaps Rajesh Khanna began to fear that Anju wouldn’t abide by his wishes. These kinds of disagreements happened even before Khanna’s phenomenal success. A famous anecdote goes that during one such fight with Khanna, Anju happened to meet the famous cricket player Gary Sobers. Those were times when the West Indies was the best cricket team in the world and Gary its star cricketer. Gary and Anju started making public appearances at parties and cricket stadiums together. Anju was still grappling with her new feelings for Gary when something unexpected happened. Gary Sobers proposed to Anju with an engagement ring at a party in Calcutta. When the news reached Rajesh Khanna, he became hysterical. Anju returned to Bombay, and a loud argument broke out between the two. Anju remembers, ‘To tell you the truth, at that time I was in a relationship with Kaka. We had a fight over something and then I had an affair with Gary. But it doesn’t mean that I disliked Gary. I don’t know what would have happened if Rajesh Khanna hadn’t come back in my life. I called up Gary from Kaka’s home and broke off the engagement.’ Rajesh Khanna had distanced himself from the world. But then around this time, came an offer from the famous advertising agency Lowe Lintas. This was an ad for Havells fans, with a novel concept. Rajesh had never worked in ad films even in his heyday, so there was little chance of doing it now at a junction when he had given up on life and cut himself off. The well-known ad-film-maker and director of the awardwinning movie Paa, R. Balki, came on board to direct the ad. Balki strongly felt that there was no other person who could match the profile of Khanna to suit the concept they had in mind. The storyboard of the ad film was shared with Khanna. It was about a man who was surrounded by a huge fan following and ended with the star reminiscing about his glory days with the punch line: ‘My “fans” can never leave me’, with a special emphasis on the word ‘fans’ as a pun with an obvious reference to the Havells fans in the background. For the shoot they needed a huge stadium and the organizers had been able to book this in Bangalore. Surprisingly, Rajesh Khanna agreed to do the ad. Against all odds and against medical advice, Rajesh confirmed his availability and willingness to travel to Bangalore. Rajesh Khanna went fully prepared and had taken along a hairstylist and helper boy. Director R. Balki reached Bangalore the same night. Post dinner they sat down to discuss the script. It was decided that Khanna would use his trademark mannerisms to the chorus of the famous song ‘Yeh Shaam Mastani’ (from his movie Kati Patang) playing like an anthem in the background. Rajesh Khanna loved the idea. In a way the ad film was a salute to Rajesh Khanna’s magical superstardom. It very movingly took the viewers down memory lane when Rajesh Khanna was the uncrowned king of the film industry, and ended with the superstar stating what he always believed – that his fans would never leave him. Khanna very sportingly took the tongue-in-cheek humour in the right spirit. Before leaving for his room a limping Khanna showed Balki his famous walk that was to be used in the film. Seeing his courage Balki just said, ‘Hats off to him.’ Limping from a fracture injury, not being able to stand up straight and constantly fighting cancer with every ounce of remaining energy, the ghost of a superstar was preparing for his last shoot in Bangalore’s stadium with the same enthusiasm as he had for perhaps his first shoot. What was it about the city that almost called out to him? The next day was the shooting. Khanna came to his vanity van and got ready, put on make-up and donned a tuxedo with a white collared shirt and bow. The shoot was to take place inside the stadium and his vanity van was parked at the gates. As it was difficult for him to walk, he traveled the distance on a wheelchair.
Rajesh Khanna - Original Super Star of Indian Cinema 