The pen wielded, at convenience

Aradhika Sharma

In the season of biographies and autobiographies by Bollywood celebrities, here comes one more. This time the narrator is Sanjay Khan.  He dexterously charts the course of his life and career. He recounts his great triumphs as well as struggles and failures, including a long battle for survival. 

Khan shares incidents of his family life (with wife Zarine and children, Sussanne, Simone, Farah and Zayed Khan). He also narrates stories from his film and television days and about his friends — both filmy and non-filmy. Stalwarts like Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar and Sunil Dutt find a mention. In all this, he ensures that he doesn’t hurt anyone’s sentiments. 

In the preface (which has a rather self-congratulatory tone), Khan talks of ‘The vast fortune I had accumulated, lost and regained.’ He also tells that he was heralded as the ‘most handsome star in the Indian film industry,’ till ‘the slings and arrows of courageous fortune’ made him their target. He,  however, overcame life’s challenges with fortitude and determination. 

Sanjay Khan, born Shah Abbas Mehndi Ali Khan, decided to become an actor when he was only 10, after he saw Raj Kapoor’s seminal film, Awaara. His family shifted from Bangalore to Bombay after the death of his father. He began his career by distributing films in small towns until he got a break with Dosti, produced by Tarachand Barjatya.

In two chapters titled The Bollywood Years, he gives charming insights into incidents and his impressions about his co-stars. He beautifully narrates the incident when Raj Kapoor (his idol who ‘encapsulated... the power of films’) rushed into a hotel in Mauritius to tell everyone that he had seen a girl bathing ‘in the buff’ right outside. 

He speaks adoringly of brother Feroz Khan, whom he calls a passionate and macho man, who changed the course of music in Indian films and made pathbreaking films like Qurbani, Dharmatma and Dayavan. Khan talks with affection of Bob Cristo, the Australian commando who later became an actor and would sing for Raj Kapoor till the wee hours of the morning. His reminiscences about his family life in Meeting My Life Partner and The Apples of My Eyes — are touching as well. His near-death experience on the sets of the historical-fiction TV series The Sword of Tipu Sultan forms an entire chapter. A horrifying fire accident had claimed more than 50 lives on the sets.

The pictures that Khan has chosen for his autobiography are a blast from the past. These are replete with nostalgia of bygone days and people. Celebrities of yesteryear pepper the pages. There are pictures with Michael Jackson, Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rajiv Gandhi and Imran Khan, and as many with co-stars Dharmendra, Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu, Shashi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Prithviraj Kapoor, Om Prakash, Balraj Sahni, etc. He narrates one particularly funny incident where in Dharmendra and he were forced to put their hands up by faujis while shooting at the Indo-China border for Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat. They were only let off when a soldier recognised Dharmendra as a native of his village. 

A significant part of the actor’s life that has been glossed over is romance and marriage with Zeenat Aman. Sanjay, married to Zarine and father of three, fell in love with the glamorous actress and was in a relationship with her that lasted for years. The chapter Abdullah and the Arabian Princess that evidently refers to their romance is narrated in hyperbole. The chapter, which takes its name from his film Abdullah seems to be an exercise to whitewash the episode. 

For a book titled The Best Mistakes of My Life, a missing chapter on Zeenat and his relationship is a remarkable oversight. The alleged incident of abuse against Zeenat that took place in the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, in 1980, should not be ignored in this season of #MeToo. Probably, an unexpected fallout of the book for the author is that the memory of the brutal episode has been refreshed.

In a book where Sanjay Khan is bent on proving his perfection as pater familias, this omission mars the telling of the tale.