The superstar who lost his sheen

Aradhika Sharma

Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna
by Gautam Chintamani.
Harper Collins.
Pages242.vRs.499

The book is appropriately titled, because no other actor has been able to match the glamour of Rajesh Khanna, the superstar, and also no other actor went into eclipse quite so rapidly. The life of the star has the makings of a rather dark novel — Khanna was the favoured child of fortune, who would go for the shooting of his films in an imported car during his struggling days and whose good fortune was the cause of his downfall.

Gautam Chintamani, chronicler of the amazing rise and fall of Khanna’s fortunes, realises that the drama of this star’s life does not need any embellished writing. He tells his story in a dispassionate manner, with neither sympathy nor judgment colouring the narrative. It could seem rather brusque to begin with, but as one delves deeper into the book, one realises the wisdom of the author taking a dispassionate tone. The star needs no help; after all, he is Rajesh khanna, the superstar!

Chintamani does not feel the need to glamourise the story with salacious gossip, surmise or details of Khanna’s affairs and relationships, except when it’s most essential. His focus is on the actor’s professional life and how his personality had an impact on the glorious trajectory of his career. Like a supernova, he blazed his way into the starry heights and like a comet, burnt himself out. It was in fact in four years (1969-1973) that he acted in the 22 back-to- back classic hit movies, which got him the glory and the adulation that no other star has seen or is likely to see again.

Yet, he was doomed by his character — his ego, obstinacy and irreverence for discipline and people. Khanna truly started to believe that he was god and that sowed the seeds of his downfall. He called the nightly gathering of friends, fellow revelers and sycophants in his ‘durbar’ and if any of these people disagreed with him, the hapless fellow was banished from his durbar as punishment.

Yet, no other actor has done the roles he dared to play so many decades ago. Seemingly a romantic hero, his repertoire was immense. His very first movie, Akhri Khat was about a young sculptor fathering a child born out of wedlock. He was the first to portray pre-marital sex without guilt in Aradhana. Apart from that, Khanna, as hero got married to two women in Daag, courted a widow in Kati Patang, played the slimy politician in Aajka MLA, Ramavtar, was the woman-hating psychopath in Red Rose. He played the successful man devastated by failure in Swarg and the betrayed, heartbroken father in Avtar.

Khanna is equally remembered for his success as for his abysmal failure. His nemesis came in the shape of Amitabh Bachchan, who in fact represented the changing scenario from the era of romance to the era of revolution. Khanna hated him, even called him ‘manhoos’ but was helpless in the face of changing times that toppled him from the high pedestal of being the golden boy of Bollywood, to an actor who struggled to come to terms with the fact that the best was over. He struggled to reinvent himself, but success, as he had known it, eluded him.

The foreword is by Sharmila Tagore, with whom he gave so many memorable movies to his adoring audiences. But here too, the words are not unmixed. These have a hint of censure, especially when Tagore states that ‘Rajesh Khanna was a man of contradictions and complexities’ and that it was a ‘huge relief’ when her films with him became fewer, because it was difficult to deal with his habit of arriving late for shoots.

A book on Khanna should have been on the shelves ages ago. Finally, it is Chintamani who has transcribed the life of the legend and he has done it with elegance and style.