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Rajesh Khanna: ‘When I saw Namak Haram, I knew my time was up.’
‘I told Hrishida, “Here is the superstar of tomorrow”.’
IMAGE: Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna in Anand.
Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna have rarely shared a platform. But when they have, Bollywood’s biggest superstars certainly know how to pull off a show.
So their joint interview for a 1990 edition of the Movie magazine was a read for the ages.
Here’s another interesting excerpt from their conversation, as told to then Movie editor Dinesh Raheja.
Amit, in my esteem you are a very good actor. But you’ve become typecast as the angry man. Do you agree that you’ve become a victim of your own image?
Amitabh Bachchan: Absolutely. It’s sad because every time something else was tried out, it didn’t succeed.
Eventually, you know, we are all going to end up doing character roles!
Kaka has been a romantic all his life, so perhaps he will continue to play romantic roles.
But I will not be able to. So it’s pack up time for me.
Rajesh Khanna: No, I don’t agree with you at all. A good actor never says die.
I saw just two reels of Deewar and honestly, I said, ‘Wah kya baat hai!‘
Talent was there in Anand or Namak Haram too. I mean handi mein se agar chawal ka ek daana nikalo to pata lag jaata hai. But talent needs the right break.
After Deewar, I always envied him.
Only thing is, I smiled each time he slipped because he made the same mistakes that I once made.
I would like to ask you a personal question. People say that Rajesh Khanna is a very calculative person. Was I ever mean as a senior to a junior?
Amitabh Bachchan: We never ever bickered or argued or tried to upstage one another in any manner.
When Hrishida asked me to work with Rajesh Khanna in Anand, it was a dream come true for me.
The hysteria that be evoked was witnessed for the first time in the history of Hindi films. I got famous purely because I was working with Rajesh Khanna.
People came and asked me questions like ‘How does he look?’, ‘What does he do?’
So I became very important, thanks to him. I have always had the greatest respect for Kaka.
IMAGE: Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna in Namak Haram.
How do you feel about the fact that you replaced Rajesh Khanna at the Number 1 position?
Amitabh Bachchan: It’s just a question of economics. It’s not that somebody outshone the other.
And you, Rajesh? How did you feel about his ascendancy directly dislodging you?
Rajesh Khanna: When I saw Namak Haram at a trial at Liberty cinema, I knew my time was up.
I told Hrishida, ‘Here is the superstar of tomorrow.’
When it was Amitabh Bachchan at the top, no other star came anywhere near. You were Number 1 to 10, the next one was Number 11.
Before that, there was only Rajesh Khanna.
IMAGE: Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna in Anand.
Both of you married talented actresses who stopped working after marriage. Why did you curb them?
Rajesh Khanna: I had no problems about my wife working.
But when I married Dimple, I wanted a mother for my children. I didn’t want them to be brought up by servants.
And I had no idea of Dimple’s talent; Bobby was still not released.
Recently, when I told one of my daughters Twinkle, that if she would like to act in a film, I would produce one for her.
She said, ‘You will let me act, but to mummy you say no.’
I said, ‘For the simple reason that I am your father and not your husband.’ To curb talent is cruel. By the time I saw Bobby our first daughter was already born.
Amitabh Bachchan: I feel that how I want my married life to be conducted should really be between Jaya and me.
Anyway, I have never objected to Jaya working in films.
But she herself said, ‘I don’t feel nice working in films.’
Rajesh Khanna: Why did she work in Silsila?
Amitabh Bachchan: I left it entirely on her. If she wanted to work, she did.
Rajesh Khanna: When you say you are finished, I don’t agree because a good actor is never finished. I don’t like your pessimism.
Amitabh Bachchan: I am not renouncing acting.
But that kind of hysteria, that mystique, the adulation surely cannot exist forever.
Rajesh Khanna: Listen to me, recently I attended a show with you and you were superb.
Amitabh Bachchan: Maybe I should meet you more often Kaka! You are very complimentary!
