R.I.P Vinod Khanna Sir . You will really be missed .
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-cBx1EUAAAWnLy.jpg)
R.I.P Vinod Khanna Sir . You will really be missed .
My earliest memory of Vinod Khanna dates back to my childhood, when I would flip through the pages of my father's carefully maintained Filmfare magazine issues dating back to the 1960s.
My father used to be a huge fan of Hindi films, and I would later discover an autographed picture of Vinod Khanna from his study one day. Then, he confessed how he was a fan of Khanna through his college days, which coincided with Khanna's peak, and how he would be inspired by Khanna in his choice of attire and hairstyle.
One of the first Hindi films I remember watching in my childhood was Ravi Chopra's The Burning Train (1980), which was a multi-starrer with Dharmendra, Jeetendra ,Vinod Mehra and Navin Nischol, of course, apart from Khanna among the male leads. Despite Dharmendra's seniority, Khanna was the de facto hero in the film, playing engineer Vinod Verma, the author-backed-role that he performed with finesse.
Vinod Khanna with Feroz Khan. (Credit: YouTube)
Till date, it remains one of my favourite Hindi films, and when I later came to know that it had an average run at the box office, I could hardly believe the fact.
In fact, I don't think there's another film apart from Sholay, from that era, that could have been so technically advanced.
I also remember watching many of his films on Friday/Saturday nights on Doordarshan during my school days, ranging from blockbusters like Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar to Dayavanand Chandni.
It is remarkable how he held his own in multi-starrers, especially with Amitabh Bachchan in his prime, and Dharmendra, towards the latter part of his career. He had tremendous screen presence and charisma, and it's a shame that he took a sabbatical at his peak in 1982 for five years.
Khanna got his first break in films through Sunil Dutt in Man Ka Meetin 1969 and went on to play character roles and the antagonist in many films. It was Gulzaar's Mere Apne in 1971 that turned around his career, and soon he became a leading hero.
Vinod Khanna with Parveen Babi in The Burning Train.
By 1972, he was an established star in his own right and his performance in Gulzaar's Achanak (1973) was as talked about that year as Bachchan's in Zanjeer and Rishi Kapoor's debut in Bobby.
Many people do not know that his association with Osho Rajneesh began much before his sabbatical. He was initiated into the cult as early as 1975 and by the end of 70s, he would spend the weekends at Osho's ashram in Pune.
As Osho had to shift to the United States in the 80s, Khanna decided to quit the film industry and moved to Oregon in the US to join his "guru". He called a memorable press conference at Centaur Hotel in 1982, to address a stunned gathering with the announcement that he was quitting films altogether.
His wife Geetanjali and sons, Rahul (8) and Akshaye (5), were by his side and he disappeared from limelight after that for a period of five years.
I also recall reading in an interview that the toughest decision he had to make in life was to return to India in 1987, to resume his career and saying "No" to Osho when he was asked to take care of the Pune Ashram after his return.
According to many people, if he hadn't quit the film industry at that crucial time, he could have given Amitabh Bachchan a run for his money as he was the only contemporary who managed to hold his own with Bachchan in the frame.
Although he played what could be described as "second lead" in many films with Bachchan, Khanna somehow ensured that he got an equal share of the pie.
Can anyone forget that famous scene in Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), where a fight sequence between Amar (the character played by Khanna) and Antony (Bachchan) culminates with Bachchan falling unconscious and Khanna carrying the 6-foot-3-inch giant on his shoulders? That one scene will linger on in anyone's memory even if you have watched the film just once.
After making a comeback in 1987 with back-to-back hits, his career got a second wind when Feroz Khan cast him as the hero in the 1988 superhit Dayavaan with Madhuri Dixit as the female lead. That performance was hugely appreciated and Chandni (1989) directed by Yash Chopra was also a blockbuster in the latter part of his career.
He launched his younger son Akshaye as a hero in 1997, shortly after his own career as a lead hero came to an end in the mid-nineties, and in the same year, he joined politics.
In 1998, he contested as the BJP candidate from Gurdaspur and defeated the incumbent five-time Congress MP to win the election. He retained his seat in 1999 and 2004.
In 2002, he was made the minister of state for tourism in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government and then had a stint as the junior minister in the external affairs ministry. He lost his seat in 2009 to Congressman Partap Singh Bajwa by a slim margin of less than 8,000 votes, though he avenged his defeat in 2014 by trouncing the latter with more than a lakh votes.
Millennials " who may have watched Khanna only in films like Wanted and Dabangg " could watch his films like The Burning Trainor Qurbani to realise his calibre as an actor. He was a performer par excellence.
A huge loss to the world of art and entertainment. Not to mention public service.. #RIPVinodKhannaji I wish for courage to the family.
Dishy villain-hero who gave it all up, then made a comeback |
Bharathi S. Pradhan |
Vinod Khanna When actor Vinod Khanna passed away on Thursday at Hurkisondas Hospital in Mumbai, the Net quickly noted the coincidence that April 27 happened to be the exact date on which his friend and colleague Feroz Khan had also died in 2009. It is strange that FK too died of cancer and his family had also put a lid on any news of his condition till he succumbed to it quietly and far away in Bangalore. Strange because Feroz and Vinod were very close when they made two films together. In fact, Feroz's Qurbani (1980) was one of Vinod's glossiest and biggest successes where he easily overshadowed the filmmaker who had cast himself as the hero too. It was also a film that emphasised VK's suave good looks and added to his overflowing kitty of female admirers. FK and VK became such close friends that when Feroz remade Kamal Haasan's Nayakan as Dayavan (1988) in Hindi, Vinod bought the distribution rights of the film. Dayavan with Vinod in a dhoti failed. But his stardom was largely unaffected. A stardom built on his appeal as a ruggedly handsome actor (Mera Gaon Mera Desh in 1971) who could also be a soft man in love ( Haath Ki Safai in 1974 and Chandni in 1989). For a man admired by both genders for his striking good looks, he had a repertoire of films that any actor would covet. Vinod took off with Man Ka Meet (1969), a film that Sunil Dutt had made solely to launch his own brother Som Dutt as hero. When Vinod was born on October 6, 1946 in Peshawar, the stars must've been in auspicious alignment for luck favoured him all through his life. Som Dutt failed while Vinod, for whom it was not a tailor-made launch, went on to become a star. He strode through a variety of films - from the sensible like Gulzar's Achanak (1973) to the blatantly mainstream like Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), Parvarish (1977) and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978). Apart from making a successful transition from villain to hero, Vinod could also walk away from the glamour world as he did when he followed Rajneesh to Oregon in 1982 and return to it in 1986 with an industry willing to welcome him back. More success in the form of Insaaf(1987) and Satyamev Jayate (1987) followed. Vinod would also join the BJP (1997) when it was on its upward swing, win the Gurdaspur seat and be its sitting MP when he passed, be an MoS in the culture and tourism and external affairs ministries, and play Salman Khan's father in Wanted (2009) and Dabangg (2010). He was a man who saw it all, had it all, and stayed intensely spiritual till the end. Vinod's rugged good looks and the accompanying attention from the opposite sex were a source of good-natured envy for many of his colleagues. When Gulzar signed up Sunil Dutt's discovery for Mere Apne (1971), his co-star Shatrughan Sinha secretly admired him for his tough physique and lady-killer looks, a fact SS admitted in his recent biography. Amitabh Bachchan had his own humorous way of handling it. Once, when driving with Amitabh and Vinod from the hotel to the location at the outdoor shooting of Ravi Chopra's Zameer (1975) in Bangalore, a female colleague and I had gone overboard in discussing Vinod's sex appeal as the bespectacled professor in Imtihaan (1974). To which AB had dryly asked: "Anybody got a pair of specs here?" Vinod's heroines were not immune to his charm either. From Shabana Azmi, who was romantically cast opposite him in half-a-dozen films including Amar Akbar Anthony and Shaque (1976) to Smita Patil, they were smitten, the latter rather openly especially during the phase he wore orange robes and followed Rajneesh. Vinod was also in a relationship with Amrita Singh, long before she married Saif Ali Khan. A confirmed South Bombay man, his home with first wife Geetanjali Talyarkhan in Sumangal on Malabar Hill is a stone's throw from Il Palazzo where he lived with second wife Kavita Daftary. An actor who marched to his own unconventional beat, Vinod's heart was as impressive as his biceps. At an outdoor shooting of Suryaa (1989) in Rajasthan where he got the spacious royal suite in a palace-turned-hotel, he entertained friends and went for after-dinner walks with many of us. But at the end of the stay, he went quietly to the reception and asked for the liquor and telephone bills and settled them without burdening the producer with his personal expenses. A cosmopolitan Mumbaikar, Vinod was extremely proud of his Punjabi roots too. He'd often talk about sitting in his mother's kitchen and helping them make rotis or watch how the food was cooked. Rajma, he'd say, like a typical Punjabi, must be slow-cooked for hours to be perfect. And raw onions, he'd swear, shouldn't be cut but smacked with a strong fist to get its true taste. The father of four (two from each marriage) was characteristically indulgent with his children and once told me: "However old and successful they may be, they still remain kids for me." His second son Akshaye Khanna is on a comeback spree, busy with films like Ittefaq and Sridevi's Mom while the third, Sakshi, is on the threshold of an acting career. Vinod was keen to write his autobiography, he'd even discussed it with Shobhaa De, he said to me. Alas, that remained an unfinished assignment. His own favourite book, he once told me, was Autobiography Of A Yogi, which had riveted him in his youth. It speaks for the kind of man he was. RIP Vinod Khanna, a man I was privileged to know. |
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