Picture Talk
Rajesh Khanna, India’s first superstar, was born in Amritsar, Punjab, and was named Jatin Khanna by his parents. He was raised and educated by his foster parents in K C College Bombay; he also studied in Pune later. He was the finalist in the All India Talent Contest jointly conducted by the United Producers’ Org and Filmfare magazines, in 1965. United Producers’ Org had 12 producer-directors as its members; Shakti Samanta, Bimal Roy, B R Chopra and Nasir Hussain were the contest judges. Incidentally, Rajesh Khanna’s debut film in 1966, Aakhri Khat, was directed by Chetan Anand, the elder brother of Dev Anand.
One of the prominent members of the United Producers Guild, Shakti Samanta made several successful films featuring Rajesh Khanna in the leading role, which also turned out to be blockbuster hits at the box office, like Aaradhna, Kati Patang, Amar Prem, Anurag and many others. Rajesh’s most successful period started with the release of Shakti Samanta’s Aradhna in 1969 and continued until around the mid-seventies when Amitabh Bachchan dethroned him as the superstar. Rajesh also worked with stalwart directors like B R Chopra, Nasir Hussain, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and J Om Prakash, to name a few. Bimal Roy, one of the most successful directors of the time and a judge of the talent contest was perhaps the only one who never offered any movie to Rajesh Khanna.
In the mid-seventies, I used to stay most of the year in Bombay (now Mumbai). When I was beginning my photography career, Rajesh Khanna was already at the top of his as the most successful actor in leading roles who had already delivered several blockbusters. He was a darling of the masses, garnering tremendous adulation from crowds. He was lovingly called Kaka.
Surprisingly though, whatever I had seen of him in the few movies I had watched I was not impressed by his acting, looks or mannerisms, for which he was well-known and created mass hysteria. I had heard the story from many reliable high-ranking media friends that he had paid a hefty sum to a particular woman film journalist who first called him a ‘superstar’ before others picked it up, and that there were several film journalists on his pay role to write and shower superlative praises on his acting prowess, popularity and success. Whether all these stories were true or not, I had no way to confirm, but the people who told me were genuine, not feeding me with gossip. I had often seen that influential lady journalist in her office, but I was never introduced to her, nor did I ever try to make friends with her because every time she came face-to-face with me, she looked haughty and gave me unfriendly looks.
I had seen and shot Kaka in a couple of Bombay studios during film shoots without any introduction or interaction with him. My first face-to-face close encounter with Kaka took place in Chandigarh, where I went on an assignment to cover the shoot of B R Chopra’s film Karm, starring Khanna, Shabana Azmi, and Vidya Sinha in the lead. That trip had many firsts for me. It was my first trip to Chandigarh; I had to take a night bus as I had to attend the next day’s shoots in the morning.
I reached Chandigarh past 3am. The unit was housed in Mount View Hotel, and I shared my stay in a room in the hotel with Dharam Chopra, director of photography and the younger brother of B R Chopra. The room was first in a row of four on the first floor. If I remember correctly, there were only four rooms in a row; yours truly and Dharam ji occupied the first, the next was perhaps for Shabana or Vidya, then a suite for Rajesh Khanna, and the last one at the end was occupied by B R Chopra, his wife, son Ravi and his wife.
The next morning’s shoot was fixed at 8 near Chandigarh Lake, though I was very tired because of the overnight bus ride and lack of sleep. We were all there and ready, the only one missing was the leading man. I had read how notorious Kaka was for not reaching the set on time and keeping the whole unit waiting for him; now I was face-to-face with that fact. It was very odd for me because I was habitual in always keeping my appointed times, and here was a man who had no respect for others, including the director-producer of his film. I do not remember what time he came, or whether the shoot was cancelled or not, but we returned to our hotel dead tired.
I was lucky to have Dharam ji as my roommate, with whom I could talk endlessly and learn from his vast experience. After food, we both were trying to catch some sleep for an early morning shoot the next day when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Dharam ji said Kaka was calling you to his room, which was completely unexpected. ‘Why me at this hour?’ I asked. Dharam ji said, ‘Why not go and ask yourself’?
The messenger waiting for me outside took me straight to Kaka’s room and stopped, pointing me to go in from the closed door in front of me. That was my very first close face-to-face meeting with the superstar. I saw him sitting with a glass in hand busy talking to a guy sitting on his left as I entered his room. He asked ‘Sareen saab?’ On my nodding, he made me sit next to him on his right. I politely declined his offer of a drink and sat next to him. He shook hands and said, ‘Sareen saab, great pleasure meeting you; I have heard a lot about you from B R uncle; I need your help. A girl, an aspirant, is here, I want you to shoot some excellent pictures of her; sorry to bother you at this time.’
It was past 10pm. I said it was my great pleasure to do this, but I would do it tomorrow during the day, as I always shoot with available light. He said he would just request Dharam uncle to arrange lights for me. I couldn’t escape his plea.
It took about half an hour to fix the studio lights in the next room by Dharam ji’s men. The girl in question was very fair, blue-eyed, tall, and big built in a beautiful sari; from her first look, I knew whatever I might do, no good pictures of her were possible, as she wasn’t photogenic or camera-friendly. Moreover, there were space constraints, and no dress changes were possible, nor was she willing to.
She took another hour or so to do her make-up despite my advice against it. Sometime after midnight as soon as I started shooting, a drunk man, who turned out to be the dance director, appeared in the room and started telling her how to stand, holding her arm and waist, telling me he was sent by Kaka to help me show how the girl should pose for me for her pictures. As a principle, I never allow anyone to direct me or tell me how to shoot. That interference from a drunk man was neither acceptable nor expected and certainly not desired, but it was just my 2nd day with the BR unit, and I had to go along with that utter nonsense to fulfil Kaka’s wishes.
I was greatly annoyed, but somehow, I finished one roll of film, took it out from my camera and handed it to the drunk DD. It must have been past 3am. Kaka was still wide awake enjoying his drink and thanked me after I went out.
The next day’s shooting involved Shabana, Vidya, Kaka, and Iftekhar inside a bungalow. The pictures I had taken during the day, I got them processed from a local studio and went to hand them to Chopra ji’s room. Ravi’s wife opened the door with a smile, took the packet of pictures from my hand, and started looking at them. After looking at a few she held and kissed my hand and said, “Thank you so much, you have done such a wonderful job; Shabana is such an ordinary-looking girl; I have never seen such beautiful pictures of her; you have magic in your hand; I will give these to Papa when he comes!”
What a big relief that was for me, a job well done and appreciated.
After finishing the Chandigarh stint, which included some shooting in the bungalow of Kapil Sibal’s father, the unit moved to Dehradun, where Chopra ji inaugurated Madhuban Hotel and the entire unit was housed there. I shared my room again with Dharam ji. If I remember correctly, it was only a couple of days shooting in Dehradun. In between Chandigarh and Dehradun, B R Chopra performed muhurat for his next film, Sohni Mahiwal, where Zail Singh, then Chief Minister of Punjab, was called upon to perform it. Kaka’s wife, Dimple, too was present there. I requested the superstar to introduce me to her for some exclusive pictures of her, but he never did.
The next big part of shooting for Karm was scheduled in Mussoorie. The arrangement for that shooting was that the unit would stay put in Madhuban Hotel and all would be packed in taxis early morning daily and travel there. It took an hour to reach there and return to the hotel in the evenings. I normally travelled with my roommate, Dharam ji, and a couple of unit hands from direction or camera.
One day the superstar asked me to wait and travel with him. Sitting next to him in the back seat of a big taxi, he started asking me if I was also from Punjab like him, the city of my birth, my education, how I had met BR Chopra (which I have described in detail in the story of my meeting with B R Chopra, the producer-director I admired immensely) and other trivia. After finishing his queries or noticing we were getting quite late, he shouted at the driver, ‘Sardar ji chuck deo’, meaning ‘drive fast’, as he was going at a slow speed.
After completing the Mussoorie part of the film, we moved back to Delhi for a day’s shoot next to and at the back of the YWCA building. I again travelled with Dharam ji in his taxi. During the shoot, I saw Kaka leaving while the shoot was on. I asked him why he was leaving. His curt and quick answer was, ‘I’m going for a screw’. He stared at my face for a second, wondering if I wanted to accompany him, or if I had got correctly what he had just said and went away. That was my last interaction with the Superstar in Delhi.
At the end of his career, he became a politician, an MP of the Congress party, and lived for long periods in Delhi, but I never met him.
