I knew Rajesh Khanna for over a quarter century from 1985 until his death in 2012 but have no photograph with him. Of my own, I have never taken photos with famous and consequential people I have known and interacted with in my long career spanning over four decades as a journalist. I see no point taking pictures with them.
There is a reason why I am mentioning this. It has a bearing on my reminiscence of Rajesh Khanna on his 80th birth anniversary today. It involves an incident sometime in March of 1992 when Khanna was returning to Delhi, where I lived, as part of his preparations for an impending by-election to the Lok Sabha seat vacated by Lal Krishna Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The star was the candidate of the Indian National Congress against a fellow star, Shatrughna Sinha on behalf of the BJP.
By some serendipity we met at the Delhi airport. He knew my office in Jor Bagh was not far from the Ashoka Hotel where he had a suite. By then I had known him very well for over seven years. "No need to take a taxi. I will drop you," he said. "If you have the time, come to my suite. I want to pick your brain about the by-election," he said. Since I was returning from an assignment I was not expected in the office that day. These were pre-mobile phone days in India when one was not tethered to work 24/7. Along the way from the airport to the hotel, about half an hour drive, we spoke about Khanna's prospects against Sinha. My sense was that he would win comfortably.
"Kitne margin se? (By what margin?)" he asked me.
"That's a silly question. How can I predict a margin? It has no scientific basis," I said.
"Forget science. Just speculate," he persisted.
"If you insist, I am going to pull a number out of my ass. It will be 20,000 plus," I said.
"You could have pulled it out of your brain too," Khanna said.
"I often get confused between the two," I said. He smile-laughed, which was a combination of half smile and half laugh, at my response.
(For the record, he went on to win by about 25,000 votes. Mine was a completely lucky guess.)
A point I made during our conversation was that essentially it was a battle between two famous men and which one would out-fame the other would decide the outcome. Khanna was unequivocally the bigger star of the two. It was in the context of fame that we talked about the insane craze he had experienced as a superstar in his 20s. In 1992, he was already 50 and the craze for him had waned a great deal.
"I feel fame has always been around me. Fame, flashes and photographs have been my life for a long time," he said.
As was my wont, for no apparent reason I pointed out that "fame, flashes and photographs" was only a phonetic alliteration because photographs had a 'p' in it . He just looked at me quizzically for offering that information.
We were already at the Ashoka Hotel with two Sardar ushers holding his car door in utter deference. One of them greeted, "Sat shri akaal, Kakaji." The other just saluted. Khanna effortlessly slipped 100 rupee bills in their palms.
By the time we entered the reception area, Khanna had already been checked into his suite and his suitcase already been taken there. About a dozen people came to greet him and gawk at him. As we walked towards the elevator we ran into a family of three--a young couple and their daughter. They froze in their tracks finding Khanna just a couple of feet from them. The young woman looked stunned at first and then started crying while the man just laughed. Then all three touched his feet which Khanna stopped them from doing somewhat unsuccessfully.
No words were exchanged; merely unrestrained exultation was heard from the family. "Camera hota to kitna achhchha hota. (We wish we had a camera)," said the man. Khanna was picture of warmth and friendliness as he tapped the young daughter on her head affectionately, smiled his famous crinkly smile as we got into the elevator. As the door shut the family was still standing looking in until the very last moment.
"I wish they had a camera. What a memory it would be for them," he said.
Before entering the suite, he grabbed me by my arm and said, "You have often wondered what my fame would have been like at the peak of my career. Multiply what you just saw by a lakh or two and that too several times a day."
P.S.: It is only fitting that I carry no photograph with this post.