I finally decided I might as well read Dark Star.Īnd ended up being enthralled by it. On the other hand, this man had acted in some of the greatest hits of the late 60s, films that were both extremely popular as well as critically acclaimed. I was not particularly interested in the life of Rajesh Khanna.
So, when I received a review copy of Gautam Chintamani's Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna (Harper Collins Publishers India, P-ISBN: 978-93-5029-620-2 E-ISBN: 978-93-5136-340-8 ₹499 242 pages), I was a little ambivalent. But I wouldn't go out of my way to read a biography of the man. I like him alright I think he's gorgeous in films like Aradhana, and so very poignant in Anand. Yes, I admit it: I am not too much of a Rajesh Khanna fan. And I missed being part of it I was born just after Rajesh Khanna-who had one of the shortest-ever reigns of any superstar anywhere-had come to the last of his fifteen-in-a-row super hit films. I missed inheriting it from my parents, who had been young and film-crazy when Ashok Kumar, Shammi Kapoor and Dev Anand had been in their prime. I like him alright I I was born in an odd generation that somehow missed the Rajesh Khanna euphoria. I was born in an odd generation that somehow missed the Rajesh Khanna euphoria. A singular account of a wondrous life.more Gautam Chintamani's engaging narrative tries to make sense of what it was that made Rajesh Khanna and what accounted for his extraordinary fall. Khanna's career hit a downward spiral as spectacular as his meteoric rise just three years after Aradhana (1969) and never really recovered.ĭark Star looks at the phenomenon of an actor who redefined the 'film star'. Then, in a matter of months, it all changed. The hysteria he generated - women writing him letters in blood, marrying his photograph and donning white when he married Dimple Kapadia, people bringing sick children for his 'healing' touch after Haathi Mere Saathi - was unparalleled. With seventeen blockbuster hits in succession and mass adulation rarely seen before or since, the world was at Khanna's feet. By the time he won the Filmfare-United Producers Combine Talent Hunt, he was already famous for being the struggler who drove an imported sports car. Born Jatin Khanna to middle-class parents, the actor was adopted by rich relatives who brought him up like a prince. Yet, forty years after his last monstrous hit, Khanna continues to be the yardstick by which every single Bollywood star is measured.Īt a time when film stars were truly larger than life, Khanna was even more: the one for whom the term 'superstar' was coined. Like a shooting star doomed to darkness after a glorious run, Rajesh Khanna spent the better half of his career in the shadow of his own stardom. If ever a life was meant to be a book, few could stake a stronger claim. The first-ever biography of the enigmatic Rajesh Khanna, the original 'superstar' Yet, forty years after his last monstrous hit, FOREWORD BY SHARMILA TAGORE FOREWORD BY SHARMILA TAGORE The first-ever biography of the enigmatic Rajesh Khanna, the original 'superstar' If ever a life was meant to be a book, few could stake a stronger claim.
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