Harjap Singh Aujla

 

Rajesh Khanna, one of the all time great heroes of the Indian film industry is no more. Born in the old walled section of the holy city of Amritsar on December 29, 1942, acting super star Rajesh Khanna breathed his last on Wednesday July 18, 2012, at the age of sixty nine years and six months. He was given a hero’s send off by the citizens of Mumbai on Thursday July 19, 2012 and his mortal remains were consigned to flames in the Ville – Parle cremation grounds of the film city. Thousands of mourners joined his last journey, some on foot, some in automobiles.

Two cities in Punjab, Lahore and Amritsar, are known for the continuous exit of their showbiz talent to Bombay. Lahore has been sending its finest talent to Bombay since nineteen thirties, when pioneering music directors Jhande Khan and Rafiq Ghaznavi left for Bombay. Amritsar followed suit during the forties, when playback singers Shamshad Begum, Mohammad Rafi and actress Kuldip Kaur left the city in pursuit of greener pastures in Bombay.  

Rajesh Khanna, born as Jatin Khanna was adopted by a wealthy relative in his childhood, who brought him up in a typically family oriented Punjabi environment. His family had a connection to Lahore too. Rajesh Khanna grew up as a handsome young man. Since his childhood, he was fond of acting. He kept participating in plays while at school. During the nineteen sixties, the family migrated to Bombay. While living away from the Punjab, his command over the national language Hindi improved considerably. His Punjabi predecessors like Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt and Dara Singh had initially encountered great difficulty in speaking Hindi/Urdu lingual franca of the film industry. Even Kuldip Kaur was struggling with Urdu for quite some time.  

Rajesh Khanna had none of his relatives in the film industry. In order to get his acceptance in the treacherous film industry, he went through the rigors of a talent hunt sponsored by Filmfare magazine and a conglomeration of small time film producers in 1965 and topped it.  

A fine galaxy of film critics call Rajesh Khanna as the first ever super-star of the Hindi/Urdu film industry of India, but while accepting the significance of his talent and his immense popularity amongst the opposite sex, I differ with them. To me the first ever super-star of the Hindustani film industry has been another Punjabi actor singer K.L. Saigal. This gentleman amongst the acting fraternity had ruled the Calcutta dominated Hindustani film industry from 1933 to 1941. Later on Bombay replaced Calcutta as the premier centre of Hindustani film industry and after shifting to Bombay, K.L. Saigal dominated Bombay too until his untimely demise in 1947. K.L. Saigal’s period was a time when the film industry in India was in its infancy and hardly any films were made. The number of cinema halls in entire India was less than two hundred to start with. Success during those trying times could not be measured by the present day standards.  

After K.L. Saigal’s death, the baton of male super-stardom of Bombay film industry was passed on to a trio of highly talented Punjab related actors Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. I group Dilip Kumar with Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, because although Dilip Kumar (Yousof Khan) comes from a Pathan family of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa area, but his family spoke Hindco dialect of Punjabi and he himself could speak fluent Standard Punjabi, while interacting with the Punjabis. This famous trio ruled the Hindustani film industry from 1948 up to virtually 1966, when newer stars like Dharmendra and Rajesh Khanna took over the baton of super-stardom.  

Rajesh Khanna was essentially a women’s guy like Dev Anand just prior to his rise. He was not a very fair skinned person like all the Kapoor brothers were and their illustrious father Prithvi Raj Kapoor was. But his off-white color of skin became a rage with the young ladies all across India. His preferred actresses were Sharmila Tagore, Mumtaz, Asha Parekh, Hema Malini and Zeenat Amaan. But he married a very young beauty and a budding actress Dimple Kapadia.  

The story of Rajesh Khanna’s short and sweet courtship with Dimple Kapadia is very interesting. In one inter-city shuttle flight between Bombay and New Delhi in 1973, Dimple Kapadia had a seat in one of the front rows and she was all by herself. Seeing a vacant seat next to Dimple’s, Rajesh Khanna rose from his own seat and went to Dimple Kapadia’s. True to his romantic mannerism, unique acumen and expertise in dealing with the women, Rajesh Khanna with his typical tilt of head and an infectious smile asked Dimple Kapadia, if he could sit next to her. The young inexperienced beauty, who’s first movie “Bobby” had not yet been released, agreed to the proposal from a reigning super-star. Rajesh Khanna was struck by the European color and Caucasian features of this debutant actress. He reluctantly started the conversation and Dimple Kapadia also got instantly impressed by the disarming charm of this super-star. I am not privy what transpired between the two interesting characters. But I know for certain, the result of the two hour chatting session. At the end of the journey, Rajesh Khanna proposed marriage to Dimple Kapadia and like so many girls of her and her senior age, Dimple capitulated without a thought and ponder. Thus at the age of forty one years, Rajesh Khanna married a girl fifteen years younger. The marriage lasted eleven years. Two girls, Twinkle and Rinkie were born. But they did not press for a formal divorce and remained friends even in separation.     

I won’t dwell on the one hundred and sixty three films that Rajesh Khanna did, a lot of these films were box office hits. At one time there were fifteen consecutive hits to his credit. But one thing is worthy of a mention that the trio of Rajesh Khanna, music director R.D. Burman and singer Kishore Kumar was a hit all the way. In fact Kishore Kumar came to be recognized as his voice, just like Mukesh was considered the voice of Raj Kapoor. Rajesh Khanna had a six year tryst with politics too from 1991 to 1996. He contested the election for the lower house of the Indian Parliament, as a nominee of the Indian National Congress, from the elite New Delhi constituency. This constituency represents the cream of the National Capital Region. Most of its voters at one time were the refugees from the Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Peshawar divisions of Pakistan. Now they are the richest and the most influential citizens of Delhi. These folks lapped Rajesh Khanna up as one of their own. Dimple Kapadia also campaigned for Rajesh Khanna and he got elected with a comfortable plurality. After the end of this term, he was offered the nomination from Amritsar City constituency, but Rajesh Khanna declined the offer.   

Hardly any people these days know that Rajesh Khanna acted in a Punjabi film too in 1979. This film was “Til Til Daa Lekha”. This information is being reproduced by courtesy of Sumandeep Kaur of Jus Punjabi’s “The Morning Hour”. In this film he must have spoken beautiful Central Punjabi. He often used the word “Jhaayi ji” for his mother and “Pita ji” for his father, contrary to the present Punjabi generation calling their parents as “Dad”, “Papa” or “Mom”.  

With the passing away of Rajesh Khanna, Punjab has lost another jewel in its crown to the dreadful ailment of cancer. He was not very successful in his later years, but in his hey days he could give run for the money to any acting stalwart in India.