The Truth about Rajesh Khanna, seedi, saanf story

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lamhejaate

@lamhejaate

Beginner

Posted: 13 years ago

#21

No one has been casting Rajesh as a saint, but then watching his reputation and talent got down, some may stand up against the nonsense.

Poppy that is a good article and gives some hindsight. Yet, all of it cannot be true. The whole article looks like a camp to get down Rajesh.

For e.g, the example with Devyani Chaubal. This is not right. Bhavna Somayaji, another journalist of that time, has openly denied this stating that Rajesh Khanna cultivated her as a good friend. That is common. In absence of Public Relations Representative, most stars of those days did this.

Another split judgement, "Dimple refused to divorce him, leaving him to himself". Well why not divorce a man who she leaves to himself? Wouldnt that be fair on him? Rajesh has been known to be an attentive father, and loved his children, had spent time with them. A man who did not want his wife to enter into movies, would surely have not wanted his daughter to enter movies. Especially after watching the way his wife tried to come up in movies, he surely would not have encouraged his daughters. Dimple had no real talent or looks, by the time Sagar was made, this is the truth, even if harsh. She resorted to roles, not in norm at that time, and some were classified B grade. Which father would let his daughter trot on same lines?

All stars are given to ego. Rajesh, was raised by mass hysteria never seen.

If Rajesh was angry by the negative publicity created by Anju and her mother, who knows what is the truth, and why not? How dependable is the media, unless it is from, people with some integrity to the cinema world? Devyani chaubal, the one who many feared and hated, still had integrity on her articles. And so also, Bhavna Somyaji.

If Rajesh bought Anju's movies, and did the mishaps, it was something against him, but I am doubting the veracity.

Amitabh Bachan, too lived like a superstar, had affairs. But also he had a family who stood by him. Rajesh actually did not have an affair while married heartily to Dimple.

Bachan family is actually cold to Dimple, as per sources. AB denied to act with Dimple, and only Rinky Khanna was invited to Aishwarya's godh bharai. At the same time Amitabh Bachan and Rajesh Khanna actually gave an article , posing together for a magazine, stating that while minor differences may have existed, they have always been close friends, and appreciate each others talents. To this day Amitabh Bachan respects him.

you should read more articles as below, as they are from veracious sources, than just a hyped and confused media, and mixes information today.

Amitabh-Rajesh Interview:
http://tanqeed.com/forum/rajesh-khanna-and-amitabh-bachchan-interview-from-movie-magazine-1990/

Amitabh's tribute to Rajesh:
http://www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1-amitabh-bachchan-s-moving-rajesh-khanna-tribute/20120719.htm

Amitabh Rajesh had no ego clash:
http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_story.aspx?Section=Movies&ID=ENTEN20120209817&subcatg=MOVIESINDIA&keyword=bollywood&nid=245090

9 videos on BBC, taken at his heyday:
http://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/video/videos-1973-bbc-documentary-superstar-rajesh-khanna

Edited by lamhejaate - 13 years ago

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Hetal

@ibelieveinpink

Inactive

+ 5

Posted: 13 years ago

#22

I think he was portrayed this was on purpose...could you imagine all the flak the person would have gotten for "speaking ill of the dead". Plus, no one is gonna criticize Rajesh Khanna now. But I def agree with you all--he wasn't a saint and there was some gossip about domestic abuse between him and Dimple too--not sure if it's true, but if she felt him for Sunny for this reason or any kind of emotional abuse I don't see by she gets all the blame for it.

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poppy2009

@poppy2009

Rocker

Posted: 13 years ago

#23

Another very interesting article on Rajesh Khanna's 'other's side...it gives a rather comprehensive view of how RK himself brought about his own professional failure.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-19/news-interviews/32746469_1_rajesh-khanna-kakajee-haathi-mere-saathi

Rajesh Khanna: there would never be another like him

As Bollywood's first and by far the biggest superstar lost the battle between life and death, the wonder that was Rajesh Khanna begins to seem even more unreal and phenomenal than ever before.

Khanna's golden period lasted exactly three years. Between 1969 and 1971 Rajesh Khanna was the undisputed king of the world. And he never let anyone forget it. As hit after hit flowed out of his repertoire Khanna climbed to a position where all his contemporaries began to feel seriously left out in the rat race. Jeetendra who was a close friend of Khanna openly though goodnaturedly grumbled about Khanna cornering all the plum projects that were available for the Bollywood leading man in the closing year of the 1960s and the opening years of the 1970s.

When Rajesh Khanna ruled,the competition simply vanished.

Khanna's track record during that period was beyond phenomenal. It was staggering! Beginning with Shakti Samanta's Aradhana which came and blew open the box office in 1969, the hits simply flew out like there was no tomorrow: Aradhana was quickly followed by Narendra Bedi's Bandhan, B R Chopra's Ittefaq, Raj Khosla's Do Raaste, Shakti Samanta's Kati Patang, Manmohan Desai's Sachcha Jhutha, Dulal Guha's Dushman and J Om Prakash's Aan Milo Sajna, all within a span of three years.

No star in the history of Indian cinema had so many hits flowing out so fast and furiously. With Chinappa Devar's Haathi Mere Saathi(arguably the biggest hit of his career) Khanna's career peaked. The Khanna frenzy touched the sky. Kids loved their haathi uncle as much their grandmothers adored Anand Babu who hated tears.

Then, it all ended. Suddenly the downslide started. In 1972, six of Khanna's prestigious projects bombed one after another. Epitaphs for his career were written, and not unhappily.Though Khanna bounced back with some notable hits in 1974(Aap Ki Kasam, Premnagar and Roti) the best was behind the nation's beloved Kakajee.

Stories of Khanna's arrogance and high-handedness had begun to gain credence. Manmohan Desai ,a close friend of Khanna after two blockbuster Sachcha Jhutha and Roti switched to Amitabh Bachchan with Amar Akbar Anthony, and there was no looking back for Khanna.

There were stories of how the superstar insisted on setting up projects entirely on his own terms. The music had to be by R.D. Burman and none other, although the combo had run out of steam. By the time Khanna and RD worked together in Alag Alag in 1985 which was directed by the Khanna's loyalist Shakti Samanta for Khanna to romance his real-life love-interest Tina Munim, the creative juices had run dry. The film came after nearly a year of 'together' interviews where the fast-fading star and the pretty starlet spoke about everything they shared, including a lungi and , eeew,toothbrush.

Alag Alag flopped, and so did all the other films that Khanna did with Ms Munim excluding Sawan Kumar's Soutan, the surprise success of 1983, the year when Khanna has a cloudburst of temporary success with Agar Tum Na Hote, Soutan and most notably Avtaar.

The trouble with Rajesh Khanna's career was excessive subjectivity.He not only mixed business with pleasure he even made sure that the business of pleasure was brought home to his famous bungalow Ashirwad where every evening, the Khanna durbar of sycophants and loyalists gathered for drinks and gupshup.

Anju Mahendroo, Khanna's steady girlfriend of seven years and a practical woman, hated the yes-men who crowded Rajesh Khanna's life and allowed him no room to grow. She wanted all the fakes and flatterers to go . When they wouldn't be shown the door, Anju quit the relationship.

Says one of Rajesh Khanna's heroines, "When Anju left Kaka he hurled downhill at a rapid pace paving the way for Amitabh Bachchan to become the next superstar. If Kaka had not allowed the super-success of a spate of films in 1969-72 to blind his better judgement he would have continued as the reigning superstar for at least another dacade and the Bachchan factor may not have happened when it did."

Most of Rajesh Khanna's wellwishers felt his overnight marriage to Dimple Kapadia in 1973 was a disastrous mistake for both of them.

Says a friend of the actor, "Dimple was half Kaka's age. She was completely besotted by him .Kaka was flattered to be getting so much attention from Raj Kapoor's heroine. He always had a fascination for all the things that Raj Saab discovered. When on the spur of the moment he proposed to Dimple she quickly accepted. Kaka made her throw the ring that was gifted to her by Rishi Kapoor into the sea to prove her loyalty to him. Drama was always a constant in the superstar's life."

The stormy marriage to Dimple lasted for 5-6 years . When she walked out with their two daughters to pursue a career,Rajesh Khanna was left in their bungalow Aashirwad with a huge persecution complex and little else to keep him company.

Says a male co-star, "Kaka loved to play the martyr both in his real life and reel. He would justify his transgressions as husband and family man by arguing that he was misunderstand. On screen he repeatedly revealed a death-wish. It's no coincidence that his character died in film after film: Aradhana, Safar, Anand, Andaz, Namak Haraam. He saw himself as a combination of Guru Dutt and Devdas and his roles repeatedly reflected this obsession."

The story goes that during Namak Haraam Hrishikesh Mukherjee was not sure which of the two heroes would finally die.It could have been either Khanna or the Big B. But Khanna insisted on getting the privilege . On the day that the director was supposed to shoot the death scene he placed a garlanded picture of Khanna on the wall.

Getting his way became a matter of habit for Khanna. In his head he remained a superstar, albeit in exile, even when the number of guests at Ashirwad dwindled to nothing. In their defence it must be said Khanna's friends were not treated well.

Shakti Samanta who cast Khanna in almost all his films between 1969 and 1985 was persuaded to cast Rajesh Khanna's sister-in-law Simple Kapadia opposite Khanna in the otherwise-watchable Anurodh. The film bombed. Aradhana not only gave the industry one of its most beloved star pairs(Rajesh-Sharmila) it also started a durable friendship between Khanna and the film's director. Shakti Samanta, music composer R D Burman and Rajesh Khanna became an inseparable trio of friends.

But the 'camp' culture which the slipping superstars patented also isolated him from a major chunk of talent in the industry. Yash Chopra was a very close friend of Khanna from the time the two worked together in Ittefaq in 1969. Naturally when Yash Chopra broke away from his brother B R Chopra to direct and produce Daag in 1973 he cast Khanna in what turned out to be one of the star's bigger and final hits.

But after that the cracks began to show in the Yash Chopra-Rajesh Khanna friendship. Not too many people know Khanna was to play the lead in Deewaar. He demanded some changes in Salim-Javed's script. He was replaced by the Big B.

Career blunders multiplied. In 1979 Khanna launched his ambitious epic production Majnoon to be directed by the Pakeezah director Kamal Amrohi. The project never went beyond the grand mahurat. A few years he later the fading superstar ate back his own words about never working with his wife and invited Dimple to co-star with him in Jai Shiv Shankar (the title tried desperately to evoke the magic of a song that Khanna lip-synched to glory). That project too was aborted. By this time the Khanna phenomenon survived solely on nostalgia.

By the time the 1970s ended the show was over for Rajesh Khanna. But while the superstardom lasted it remained unique in its impact. Churning out a plethora of hits he never shied away from experimenting with characters. Early in his superstardom Khanna played a killer on the run in Ittefaq. In Amar Prem he happily took a backseat to Sharmila Tagore and child artiste Master Bobby. In Anand, considered his best performance, Khanna had no leading lady. In Basu Bhattacharya's Aavishkar the superstar enacted eerily real scenes from a troubled marriage. In Red Rose he played psychotic killer.In Bawarchi he donned a baggy half-trousers to play cook to a dysfunctional perpetually-grumbling family.

Interestingly Jaya Bhaduri who played the lead in Bawarchi was not cast opposite Rajesh Khanna. The two never worked together. And after a guest appearance in Andaz neither was Khanna cast with the other reigning queen of the 1970s Hema Malini until Premnagar when Khanna's career was waning and it was no longer enough to sell a film on his name.

What finally and actually finished off Rajesh Khanna's superstardom was the games he played.He happily apportioned plum roles between his two favourite heroines Sharmila Tagore and Mumtaz and then in an interview he spoke slyly about how one of them would sulk when he spent time with the other.

Understandably the two ladies didn't take too kindly to this sort of true confession. They kept a distance from him thereafter.

So did most of those who loved Rajesh Khanna, including his family and fans who returned just in time for the final chapter in the phenomenon's life story.

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Hetal

@ibelieveinpink

Inactive

+ 5

Posted: 13 years ago

#24

Damn he really had a problem with his massive ego and arrogance. But his behavior sort of paved the way for Big B in many ways as well. I think Big B struggles as a newcomer kept him humble and in-check. But talk about karma.

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poppy2009

@poppy2009

Rocker

Posted: 13 years ago

#25

@Original Poster...who is bringing Rajesh Khanna down? 99% of the articles coming out after his death are only talking about his positive side...infact, they are actually painting a picture of him as this tragic figure, a fallen hero. Only some articles are giving the other point of view. As far as I can see, there has been a wave of nostalgia and admiration for him since his death...I think this is the maximum adulation and popularity he has got since his decline from the movies in the late 1970's.

And the news about the B Family being cold towards Dimple is completely false! Jaya and Dimple's friendship is one of the oldest in B-Town. Dimple did not know Jaya and Amitabh through her marriage to Rajesh...they had been friends before too. (Dimple belongs to a very wealthy and well-known Gujrati Family...her father was quite well-connected in Bollywood!)

There was a rift between Jaya and Dimple, but that was because the B Family had only invited Dimple along with Rinkie and her husband for Aishwarya and Abhishek's wedding and not invited Akshay and Twinkle.

The point is not whether RK was a saint or sinner...the point that you are making (and which is being disputed here) is that Dimple was no roadside tramp either, who piggybacked on her husband's success and then ditched him later on! Rajesh Khanna's stars were already on the decline when he married Dimple in 1974...and one of the biggest reasons for their marriage going to the Dogs was that RK wasn't able to handle his failure.

There has been talk about RK physically abusing Dimple in the 10 year marriage they had...though she has never spoken about it! Many articles printed at that time have hinted at that.

Coming to Amitabh...the reason for his enduring success has less to do with his having a 'supportive family' and more to do with the fact that he was a very career savvy person and made some smart choices which ensure that his success run went on for such a long time. Whereas, Rajesh Khanna, despite his talent and good-looks could not sustain his success for more than 5 years (1969-1974 to be precise)...he wasn't even married to Dimple by the time his films started flopping...so how can she be accused of causing his downfall?😕

Frankly speaking, I don't want to write anything negative against RK...I dont' remember feeling so sad at any other actors' demise as I feel for Rajesh Khanna

...I have been obsessively reading all the articles regarding him since his death and watching so many of his films on DVD and listening to his songs from morning to night...he truly was something else as an artist and an actor.

But as a human being, he did make some rather questionable choices and was pretty much flawed. That's all I was trying to say!

Edited by poppy2009 - 13 years ago

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lamhejaate

@lamhejaate

Beginner

Posted: 13 years ago

#26

What Shabana had to say:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2175585/Rajesh-Khanna-dies-Bollywoods-original-superstar-legend-romantic-hero.html

I call her a credible and an intelligent source!

"Not many people knew he was a large-hearted person who threw lavish parties.Those were the days when stars were known to throw parties at their producers expense, but not kaka. He would invite the entire cast and crew of his films to enjoy the success and would foot the entire bill"

Media changes facts conveniently. Rajesh would have been doing something normal for those times.

If RK wanted to stick to Burman, it gives proof of his loyalty, even at such high risk days! Why not take it that way.

There had been no talks of physical abuse in marriage; Kaka had no affair, when Dimple stayed with him. She had an affair. If magazines had printed about abuse, then it maybe another hyped story, or maybe one time thing at Dimple's behavior. Dimple, who had thrown so much dirt on RK, back then, could not have kept quiet about this one, hence the veracity is to be doubted. On sets of Jaanbaaz it is said, that Feroze Khan pointed he had not seen any girl having so much temper within her as Dimple. Roadside tramp, may not be the case, but RK did not have her loyalty, when he needed it most. She also played on him, by refusing divorce, when she had no desire to offer comfort or company.

Dimple stayed with him in his good days, and left on his bad. She is the closest fair weather friend he had.

kaka said , when Akshay warmed up, that he wants to celebrate Twinkle's birthday, which is on the same day as his, with Twinkle. Akshay had to consider this and arranged for it. Doesnt that tell you that Dimple may even have been controlling when sharing her kids?

In the cinema world Kaka survived from 1969 to 1985, which is a long enough time. Most starts have similar history, tho most are not heartbroken as Kaka.

I had read in one article, that when pancham was in for a heart surgery, Kaka visited the hospital. He asked permission to take Pancham out, and was denied. Then he asked the doctor, "do you have a remedy for broken hearts" or something of the like, and the doctor diplomatically said, 'if such remedy comes, people will stop watching your movies"

Kaka was a sensitive man, and media has turned his image to something that is not fair. It maybe because he himself was not interested in fighting back, or defending himself, in the end, as he had been heartbroken, that media made mincemeat on him. Kaka once requested Nasem Khan to get him home made food. He said he could afford outside food, but craved for some comfort. A sad man cannot defend himself. Media is cruel, when it needs an audience.

Amitabh and Kaka, posed for the magazine together in 1990 and not now.

Another vedio, worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjpgdy6jeyc

Akshay Kumar, the noble man, helped ease some of the unhappiness for Kaka.

Edited by lamhejaate - 13 years ago

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poppy2009

@poppy2009

Rocker

Posted: 13 years ago

#27

Dimple stayed with him in his good days, and left on his bad. She is the closest fair weather friend he had.

Dimple not only agreed to act in a film opposite RK (which he produced and requested Dimple to act in, since she was a bigger star by then), almost a decade after their seperation, she along with both her daughters campaigned for RK for Lok Sabha Elections in Delhi, both times, once when he lost and again when he won. There are pictures of Dimple, alongside Twinkle and Rinky with Rajesh Khanna, campaigning for him during the Lok Sabha Elections which took place in the mid-90's!

RK and Dimple had a lot of bitterness in the beginning of their seperation, but later, they both reconciled for the sake of their daughters and were pretty much on coridal terms. If this wasn't the case, then RK wouldn't have allowed Dimple and his family to be near him during his last days.

Edited by poppy2009 - 13 years ago

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@TheRowdiest

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 13 years ago

#28

in one article i read that someone said Dimple was short tempered and uses foul language etc and that time RK was the one who spoke in Dimple's support right away

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lamhejaate

@lamhejaate

Beginner

Posted: 13 years ago

#29

Poppy,

my reply would be,

"For the publicity. Someone who did not pay any attention to him, so much so that he felt lonely at his last few years, and requested a fan for home made food and company at his unhappy times" goes to say that she would do anything for the publicity.

Also, a correction. Most of Dimple's movies have flopped, the hit ones like Saagar, Jaanbaaz, her acting has not really been that great, atleast, not to match kaka's. She did some art movies... Only kaka can answer why they decided to act together, but it definitely wasn't in good intentions for kaka. She may have been in a short lived fame but her time has been marked with much more superior stars, both in talent and beauty, and their roles were more quality than meaty.

The Rowdiest, you are right. Dimple is known for her foul language, but Rajesh Khanna is too dignified to throw dirt on anyone. In fact, he has defended Dimple, till the end. While Dimple, in most of her interviews claims, "the marriage has been a farce, I would have been very successful if not for the marriage", our Kaka has been saying, "Its just a misunderstanding. Dimple will return some day".

Edited by lamhejaate - 13 years ago