Superstar, Interrupted

No actor in India has commanded mass hysteria like Rajesh Khanna. His rise was meteoric, his decline Shakespearean.

“Upar aaka, neeche Kaka” went the saying in the early 1970s. Roughly translated as “God above, Rajesh Khanna below.” In a country that has always fused cinema and divinity, no mortal has soared as high—or fallen so fast—as India’s first true superstar.

On July 18, 2012, as Mumbai reeled under monsoon rains, thousands lined the streets to bid farewell to the man who had once ruled their hearts with a force that bordered on the supernatural. Between 1969 and 1974, Rajesh Khanna didn’t just dominate Hindi cinema but embodied the collective fantasies of an entire nation. Girls smeared lipstick on his car, married his photos, and reportedly used the dust under his wheels as sindoor. When he once caught a fever, a girls’ hostel reportedly sprinkled water on his photo to help him recover.

Men too fell under his spell. They mimicked his signature nod, his lazy half-smile and above all, his style—be it the guru kurta, the belt slung over a shirt, or the bandana from Dushman. He was a national mood board.

Born Jatin Khanna in 1942 in what is now Pakistan, he was adopted by wealthy relatives and raised in Mumbai. A product of KC College and later FTII Pune, Khanna won the 1965 United Producers Talent Hunt, edging out Vinod Mehra. Even his struggle had a touch of flamboyance—he was the only newcomer who arrived at auditions in a Chevrolet Impala. His debut film Aakhri Khat (1966) made little impact, but by 1969, he would redefine fame in India.

That year saw Aradhana ignite the box office, followed quickly by Do Raaste, Ittefaq, Bandhan, and Doli. Khanna had arrived and with him, a frenzy never seen before or since. Between 1969 and 1971, he delivered 17 consecutive hits—15 of them solo. Films like Anand, Haathi Mere Saathi, Kati Patang, Safar and Aan Milo Sajna transformed him into a box-office juggernaut. The streak was so dazzling it even eclipsed the reigning trinity of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand.

In his wake, older actors like Manoj Kumar and Sunil Dutt faded, while Kishore Kumar’s voice, resurrected and reimagined by being Khanna’s on-screen echo, overtook even Mohammad Rafi’s once-unshakable reign. Such was the hysteria that the BBC’s Jack Pizzey produced a documentary in 1973, Bombay Superstar, calling him “a man with the charisma of Rudolph Valentino and the arrogance of Napoleon.”

By 1972, the glow began to dim. Though Dushman, Amar Prem and Apna Desh were hits, other films began to falter. The industry murmured about his late arrivals and mood swings. Directors grew wary, co-actors irritated. Internally, the machine sputtered even as audiences still yearned for more. It was a classic business parable: the internal ecosystem began rejecting the very product that the market still adored.

Still, he managed comebacks. Daag in 1973 launched Yash Chopra’s solo directorial career, and 1974 brought more hits in Aap Ki Kasam, Prem Nagar, Roti and Ajanabee. But the tide was turning. India, too, was changing. Economic shocks, the Emergency and rising political angst needed a new kind of hero. The quiet, tragic romantic of Khanna’s world couldn’t hold against the angry, brooding Amitabh Bachchan, who came to personify a restless nation. Bachchan himself would later admit: “I became famous just because I was in Anand with Rajesh Khanna.”

Khanna’s refusal to evolve hurt him. His roles remained one-dimensional, even as the audience craved complexity. Films flopped—Mahachor, Bandalbaaz, Mehbooba—and the hysteria curdled into nostalgia. He resurfaced briefly with Amardeep in 1979 and had a second wind in 1983 with Avtaar, Souten, and Agar Tum Na Hote. But by the late 1980s, he was more relic than reigning monarch.

He entered politics in 1992, serving as an MP from New Delhi until 1996, but remained a shadow of his former self. Family troubles, loneliness and declining health followed. He died at 69, but the memory of his superstardom remained vivid.

Amitabh Bachchan, with typical precision, put it best: Khanna’s peak popularity was “ten times” his own. Salim Khan, the writer behind many of Bollywood’s biggest blockbusters and father of Salman Khan, once told his son, “Your popularity is nothing compared to what Rajesh Khanna had.”

In a city known for apathy, his funeral in 2012 felt like a state occasion. Crowds braved torrential rain to catch a final glimpse of the man they had once worshipped. As the chants of “Rajesh Khanna amar rahein!” rang out, his signature line from Anand—“Anand mara nahin karte, Anand kabhi marte nahin”—suddenly felt prescient.

Even in death, the man who embodied hysteria refused to be forgotten.

(The author is a political commentator and a global affairs observer. Views personal.)