First saw him in a film magazine, perhaps Filmfare. He was the winner of the Filmfare-Madhuri Talent Contest, a contest that I had applied to in the coming year and been rejected.

His film Aradhana was my next meeting with him, at the Rivoli Theatre in Connaught Place in New Delhi, which my Mother took me along to see. The packed audience and their reactions to this young handsome man was impermeable.

The early, or shall I say preliminary rejection of my attempt to compete in the Filmfare-Madhuri contest, had made me leave my settled job in Calcutta. I had come away home to seek the possibilities of joining the Industry in some other way. But one look at Rajesh Khanna made me realise that with people like him around, there would be little chance or opportunity for me, in this new profession!.

Bollywood stars and film fans have paid their last respects to one of India's first superstars, Rajesh Khanna, as his body was cremated in a Hindu ceremony in Mumbai.
Khanna's nine-year-old grandson Aarav performed the last rites Thursday after the star's body was carried from his home in a glass coffin by a truck festooned with photographs

The cremation was a private affair and the assembled press were asked by Akshay Kumar not to film the ceremony. Mr Khanna's body was taken to the cremation ground from his home on Bandra's Carter Road in a glass casket to allow his fans, thousands of whom lined Mumbai's roads braving the rain, to pay their last respects.  Bollywood celebrities were largely absent from the funeral procession, with the sole exception of Karan Johar. Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan arrived at the cremation ground later, and their presence caused a stampede of sorts. Yesterday, the Bachchans had rushed to Aashirwad, the Khanna residence in Bandra, to pay their respects. They were joined by Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and others from the film fraternity.

Mr Khanna's estranged wife and veteran actress Dimple Kapadia was accompanied by her younger daughter Rinkie. Elder daughter Twinkle, who is pregnant with her second child and has been advised by doctors to rest, was not in evidence. Ms Kapadia separated from Mr Khanna in 1984, after 11 years of marriage, but never actually divorced
...Back