'Rajesh Khanna let his stardom slip,' said Sharmila Tagore

Rajesh Khanna is often called 'The archetypal superstar' of Hindi cinema. His instrumentality pursuing holds nary bounds and particularly among women. People person heard respective stories of his stardom. However, erstwhile helium attained fame, determination are galore of his co-stars who person besides spoken astir his starry tantrums.

He had a estimation of besides of being precocious connected set. Some radical person besides said that helium himself led to the diminution successful his stardom. Sharmila Tagore, who shared the surface with him successful respective memorable films, offered candid reflections connected Khanna’s beingness successful the foreword of Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna, a biography by Gautam Chintamani. In the book, she revealed wherefore she believed Khanna’s stardom slipped done his fingers. “Like his friendships, Kaka didn’t nurture his stardom and allowed it to gaffe from his grasp. He failed to announcement that the assemblage was changing, and that the roles helium had been doing were becoming little and little relevant. Kaka either couldn’t oregon didn’t reinvent himself to stay contemporary; truthful overmuch truthful that helium became astir a caricature of himself, and radical began to mock him,” she wrote. Tagore besides pointed retired however Khanna’s generosity, though admirable, sometimes backfired.

He was known to ablution friends with lavish gifts, including apartments. But, she noted, “in return, helium expected acold excessively overmuch which ended up putting a strain connected the relationship.” Her reflections didn’t halt astatine the nonrecreational front. Sharmila spoke honestly astir immoderate of the challenges she faced portion moving with the superstar—particularly his inclination to amusement up precocious connected set. “But what affected maine personally was his wont of coming precocious to work.

I went to the studios astatine 8.00 a.m. and wanted to beryllium backmost with my household by 8.00 p.m. But this was impossible, since Kaka ne'er arrived earlier 12.00 noon for a 9.00 a.m.

shift. And we could ne'er decorativeness connected time. As a result, the full portion would pressurize maine to enactment overtime and implicit the schedule. This became the norm, and since I had galore films with Kaka, I recovered myself successful a quandary,” she wrote. Through her words, Sharmila painted a vivid picture—not conscionable of a superstar who erstwhile ruled the metallic screen, but of a complex, sometimes flawed antheral who couldn’t rather navigate the changing tides of fame and relationships.