Rajesh Khanna’s death wish haunted him to his end

Rajesh Khanna loved to die on screen. His romance with mortality began with Aradhana in 1969 where his character passed away and was reborn as the son. A year later he played a terminally ill hero in Asit Sen’s underrated Safar and a year after that, in 1971 he was back smiling in the face of death in Hrishikesh Mukherjee ’s Anand. The same year Khanna defied death on mobile singing Zindagi ek safar hai suhana yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana in Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz. In 1973 Rajesh Khanna stole the ‘privilege’ of dying on screen from Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Haraam. The following year he died twice in the cinemas, in Aap Ki Kasam and Roti, both co-starring the luscious Mumtaz . Both big hits. Speaking on his fascination with death, Mumtaz says, “I never noticed it. Now that you mention it, it is true. He loved to play the martyr preferring death at the end. I don’t know why, maybe to get public sympathy. In Roti we both died at the end. Maybe he believed his fans liked to see him die. Woh mare toh picture chali (if he dies the film runs).” Whatever the reason, Rajesh Khanna repeatedly revealed a death wish. It’s no coincidence that his character died in film after film. He saw himself as a combination of Guru Dutt and Devdas and his roles repeatedly reflected this obsession. There is an interesting story behind Rajesh Khanna’s death sequence in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Namak Haraam. By this time Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan were arch-rivals. But Mukherjee was sure his two protégées would behave themselves. Sure enough things went smoothly during the shooting until it came to the climax. The question that cropped up was, who among the two stars was going to die at the end? Khanna who suffered from a death wish on screen , felt the ‘privilege’ was rightfully his. On the other hand the Bachchan felt his character’s death made more sense in the plot. So what did Hrishida do? He sorted the problem by withholding the information on the death scene from the actors. He didn’t reveal who was going to die to either of the two stars until the day when the death sequence was to be shot. On that day he announced the ‘privilege’ by putting a garlanded photograph of the chosen one on the set in the morning before shooting. Rajesh Khanna repeatedly played characters who went bravely and defiantly to their death. In another of his celebrated roles in Safar, he sang in his playback Kishore Kumar’s voice, _Zindagi se bahot pyar humnein kiya maut se be bhi mohabbat nibhayenge hum/Rote-rote zamanein mein aaye magar hanste hanste zamanein se jayenge hum…_Rajesh Khanna’s love affair with death began in his career-making film Aradhana when the airforce pilot Arun perishes leaving behind his pregnant girlfriend to face stigma and ostracization. Khanna romanced the most beautiful women on screen but went to bed with death. After Aradhana, Khanna made a career out of playing doomed characters. A year later in Asit Sen’s underrated masterpiece, Safar played an artiste, painter dying of cancer. This was the second film after Aradhana that proved how comfortable the actor was doing death scenes. He virtually relished the moments when his character gasped his last. During the same year as Safar he again smiled his way through cancer into death in Anand, immortalizing his career by taking on death headlong After the trilogy of great tragic roles, Rajesh Khanna did the spectacularly successful guest appearance in Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz. In the 1974 marital drama, Aap Ki Kasam an entire mythology of mortality is woven around the song Zindagi ke safar mein guzar jaate hain jo maqaam woh phir nahin aate. The penitent husband travels from place to place seeking atonement for his mistaken belief that his wife was unfaithful. He dies at his daughter’s wedding venue. The entire episode echoed Ashok Kumar’s journey and death in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Aashirwad. With the help of directors from the Bimal Roy school of filmmaking like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Asit Sen, Shakti Samanta and Raj Khosla , Rajesh Khanna repeatedly created the persona of the tragically doomed hero. A post-modernist Devdas. In 1974’s blockbuster Roti, Khanna is gunned down at the Indo-Pak border as tries to cross with his girlfriend Mumtaz. By this point in his career, Khanna was unnecessarily imposing mortality on his characters. In several of his post-superstardom films in the 1980s like Prem Nagar, Amar Deep, Avatar, and Dard we can see Rajesh Khanna struggling to bring his characters’ lives to a tragic closure merely out of habit. He had forgotten Anand Sehgal’s philosophy. Zindagi badi honi chahiye lambi nahin.The same goes for mortality. The death wish cannot be used as an extended tool for artistic impact. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. 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