Rajesh Khanna: Remembering the legend on his 6th death anniversary
An actor, producer, and politician, the indomitable "first superstar" of Hindi cinema left us on this fateful day, six years ago. Such was the charisma of Rajesh Khanna that at the peak of his career in 1960s and '70s, whatever Rajesh Khanna wore, said, or did would become the talk-of-the-town. Here's remembering "Kaka" with 5 of the classics he gifted us.
'Anand' is the all-time highest-rated Indian film on IMDb, and rightly so. The film in which Rajesh Khanna plays a terminally ill Anand Sehgal, is ironically, the one which ends up immortalizing the actor. Rajesh Khanna delivered the performance of a lifetime with the happy-go-lucky, charming, and love-magnet character he played. "Babumoshai, Zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi" defines 'Anand' and Khanna himself.
Based on the 1970 Bengali film 'Nishipadma', 'Amar Prem' tells the tale of a young, school-going boy, and his innocent love with a neighborhood sex-worker. In the Shakti Samanta film, Rajesh Khanna plays a lonely businessman, Anand Babu. "Pushpa, I hate tears" from the movie, is one of the most quoted dialogues in the history of Indian film industry.
A remake of the 1965 Hollywood-film, 'Signpost To Murder', 'Ittefaq' was a pretty bold and unorthodox movie. The suspense-thriller showcases the story of Dilip Roy (Khanna), a painter, who, in a fit of rage, strangles his wife to death, when the latter tries to harm his paintings. Recently in 2017, the film was remade by Abhay Chopra.
Another Hrishikesh Mukherjee-Rajesh Khanna collaboration, 'Bawarchi' is a classic clean-comedy. In the film, Khanna plays the role of Raghu, a cook at the infamous "Shanti Niwas" of Sharmas who have a reputation of not being able to retain a cook, because of their ill-treatment towards the servants. The film was inspired by a 1966 Bengali film by Tapan Sinha called 'Galpa Holeo Satyi'.
'Aradhana' was the first film of the superhit on-screen couple of Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. The film belongs to Khanna's much-talked-about streak of 17 consecutive hits between 1969 and 1971. The Best Film at the 17th Filmfare Awards became a huge critical and box-office success, also saw two remakes made, one in Telugu, and the other in Tamil.
