970x125
Actor Rajesh Khanna is very much on the Mount Rushmore of Bollywood stars, but his personal life has certainly not helped his case. His marriage with actor Dimple Kapadia came to an end in 1982, and soon afterwards Khanna found companionship in another actor, Anita Advani. The relationship was definitely rocky, as Khanna’s stardom was gradually declining, and in a recent interview, Advani peeled back the layers of her time with the Hindi industry’s ‘first superstar’, and what all transpired behind the scenes.
970x125
While appearing on the Meri Saheli podcast, the actor talked about how Khanna changed in the later years of his life, and said, “I started living with him in 2000. He was very quiet at that point, but after a few drinks he used to get aggressive and angry. I don’t think it was frustration over his career, but he would just be irritated by little things, and anything said by anyone could send him over the edge. He was just venting at that point, because he had a lot of baggage with him. It had to be vented out somewhere, and no one saw stardom similar to him; he was at the peak. But when you go down from there, you naturally become frustrated and angry.”
ALSO READ: Rajesh Khanna’s alleged girlfriend Anita Advani says he would call her to meet when she was 13: ‘I was too young, he gave me so much attention’
She added that Khanna was alone and was in constant need of engagement or interaction with another human being. “Psychologically speaking, he just wanted a channel to let everything out. He used to tell me, ‘Who am I going to fight with if I don’t fight with you?’ When he used to fight, he used to get irritated by something as simple as me saying that his room was dirty, and then he used to say, ‘Haan ham hi hai dirty, tum hi keval saaf ho‘ (Yes, I am the one who is dirty; you’re the only one who is clean). He never used to physically attack me, but he used to playfully hit me when I used to say or do anything wrong, but he was never violent,” said Advani.
Advani admitted that Khanna’s behaviour used to lead to a lot of altercations, and arguing with him was unavoidable during their time together. She said, “We used to fight a lot, and I can’t even count the number of times we had an argument. I used to write a diary, and I used to think that I only wrote about having arguments with him. I used to run away to my sister’s place, and I would refuse to pick up his phone. Then he used to send a member of his staff, who used to bring a big hamper with a small note. I used to send it back without accepting anything from the hamper or reading the letter. Then after a few days of him making it up to me, I used to give in and go back to him, because even I used to miss him.”
Advani has addressed these issues previously as well, and during a 2013 interview with Rediff, she said, “He was a difficult man to live with. After a drink or two, he could be rude. You had to really know his moves and manage him. I learnt to deal with him. Earlier I would fight and argue with him. But he made me understand. He told me, ‘Even if I am wrong, just keep quiet.’”
Even Khanna’s ex-wife Dimple had a lot to say about Khanna’s declining stardom and how that affected the people around him. “It was my first encounter in life with failure. When a successful man goes to pieces, his frustration engulfs the entire surroundings. It was a pathetic sight when Rajesh waited at the end of the week for collection figures but the people didn’t have the guts to come and tell him,” she told India Today.
Rajesh Khanna died in 2012.
970x125
