Rajesh Khanna Birth Anniversary: Revisiting the best film of the biggest Superstar the country has ever known

India has known no bigger celluloid star than Rajesh Khanna . Among the multitude of blockbusters he did between 1969 and 1974, Hrishikesh Mukherjee ’s Anand stands out. Khanna’s is a pitch-perfect peerless fearless performance of a man who is not afraid to die because, well it’s not about how long you live, but how.

Rajesh Khanna’s unforgettable performance as the dying do-gooder Anand Sehgal who influences friends and befriends strangers because he believes life is not about size but substance, made such a powerful statement on humanitarianism and bridge-building that for years people used the ‘Anand’ motto of ‘Being Human’. In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s scheme of existence you didn’t have to wear the message of ‘Being Human’ on your Tee. You wore it on your heart. Anand was the human embodiment of Facebook.

Anand was based on the friendship between Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Raj Kapoor . Hrishida told me he was so close to Raj Saab that not a day passed when they didn’t meet at least once. So close were the two that Hrishida would often get morbid thoughts about the two of them being separated by death. That’s how Anand was born. In fact Hrishida wanted to make it with Raj Saab playing the role that Amitabh Bachchan finally played. Hrishida got to work with his best friend Raj Kapoor only once in Naukri featuring Rajesh Khanna which was a fiasco.

After the casting of Raj Kapoor as Anand didn’t work out Hrishida’s choice for playing Anand was Kishore Kumar . But we all know how eccentric Kishoreda could be. So Hrishida went to his brother Shashi Kapoor to play Anand. That too didn’t work out. It was Rajesh Khanna who offered to step in as Anand at the peak of his career. The rest as they say is hysteria.

Lalita Pawar who was always cast in vampish roles here played the stern but softhearted nurse D’Sa. This was not the first time that Hrishida had cast the powerful Pawar as a kindly Catholic. She had played one in Hrishida’s Anari as well. This director liked casting vamps in sympathetic roles: Shashikala in Anupama, Bindu in Abhimaan and Arjun Pandit.

Real-life couple Ramesh Deo and Seema Deo played husband and wife in Anand also. Anand Sehgal grows very fond of Seema Deo’s character. On her birthday he says the immortal line on mortality, “Main toh yeh bhi nahin keh sakta ki meri umar tumhe lag jaye (I can’t even say that may my life-span be added to yours).”

The Manna Dey song Zindagi kaisi hai paheli was to be played in background with the opening credits. When Rajesh Khanna heard it he asked Hrishida, “Why do you want to waste it in the background?” The song was shot on Rajesh Khanna at the Juhu beach and became a hit. Songs used as part of the background score were known to flop.

Rajesh Khanna had no leading lady in Anand (or in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi).Sumita Sanyal was cast opposite Amitabh Bachchan. Though there was no song situation for her, Hrishida created one, as he wanted at least one song by his favourite Lata Mangeshkar in the film. That’s how composer Salil Chowdhury composed the timeless Na jiya lage na for Anand.

Anand was ripped off many times by many filmmakers. The most notable of the spinoffs was Karan Johar-Nikhil Advani’s Kal Ho Naa Ho in 2003 with Shah Rukh Khan playing the do-gooder who dies of cancer. The most famous dialogue in Anand was Maut tu ek kavita hai which Gulzar wrote.

52 years after its release, Anand remains the film that best defines Rajesh Khanna’s undying charisma. It is also the most vibrant comment on life’s ephemerality in Indian cinema. It’s not the size that matters. It’s how you use that thing that matters. Life, silly.

Many films adopted this philosophy of life, Salaam Venky being the latest.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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