Sanjay Khan Birthday Special: The brief stardom, and then the disaster

Sanjay Khan’s tryst with stardom came to an abrupt end when on 8 February, 1989. Sanjay (real name: Abbas) suffered serious near-fatal burn injuries. He virtually walked out of death’s door after the accident. It aborted all of Sanjay dreams of furthering his career.

In the 1960s and 70s, he had a brief but dense phase of stardom, beginning with Devendra Goel’s Dus Lakh in 1966, which was a runaway hit, thanks to its hit music score by Ravi and songs like (and boy, really like!) Garibon ki suno. Three years later, Devendra Goel scored another hit with Sanjay Khan (whose name appeared in the credits as ‘Sanjay’ only) when Ek Phool Do Mali broke records at the box-office.

Sanjay was paired with Sadhana again in R K Nayyar’s Inteqaam in 1970, a resounding hit with blockbuster music. Interestingly, Inteqaam revolved completely around the heroine’s character, and understandably so since the film’s producer-director was Sadhana’s husband.

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Sanjay held his own time after time in heroine-centric films: Beti and Woh Din Yaad Karo (both with Nanda), Madhavi and Pushpanjali were all talked about films with great songs. In Maharaja, it was the great Nutan who led the cast.

These films gave Sanjay the reputation of being a lucky hero. Mala Sinha who did Dillagi with Sanjay Khan in 1966 recalls him as , “Very handsome, quite a ladies’ man, he was popular star back then.”

His luck continued in the 1970s . His films with Mumtaz—Mela, Upaasna and Dharkan—were all hits.

Mumtaz recalls Sanjay Khan with affection. “I was very close to the entire Khan family. We were like family.I’ve done films with three Khan brothers, Feroz, Abbas (Sanjay) and Sameer. They were all a handsome lot. Sanjay was very popular. When we shot together there would be huge crowds to watch him. Our films together were very successful. Mela and Upaasna co-starred both the brothers Feroz and Abbas (Sanjay).”

Raakhee Gulzar who co-starred with Sanjay Khan in Wafaa, Sub Ka Saathi and Anokhi Pehchaan recalls her co-star with pleasure. “I did three films with him. He was always on time, very disciplined, punctual and cordial. I remember he was very popular when we shot together. I don’t know how successful my films with him were at the box-office. But they were good films within the commercial sphere. That was Sanjay Khan’s market.”

In 1973, Sanjay Khan replaced the then-struggling Amitabh Bachchan in Kundan Kumar’s Duniya Ka Mela. Before Amitabh Bachchan’s Zanjeer turned him overnight into India’s biggest star, Kundan Kumar launched Duniya Ka Mela with Rekha and a struggler named Amitabh Bachchan. Distributors advised Kundan Kumar against what they saw as a foolhardy move. And they were only being rational: until that point of time AB had featured only in superflops like S_aat Hindustani, Pyar Ki Kahani, Bombay To Goa, Parwana_ and Gehri Chaal.

But Kundan stuck to his guns. He even shot a romantic duet Yeh chehra yeh zulfen jadoo sa kar rahe hain composed by the hit-makers Laxmikant-Pyarelal , and filmed on Rekha and the almost-newcomer Amitabh Bachchan.

This is when the distributors threatened to back out of the project. They advised Kundan Kumar to get rid of the wobbly semi-newcomer and replace him with someone more viewer-friendly. The Big B was sacked overnight, and not even informed properly of his loss. He was replaced by the then hot and saleable Sanjay Khan(who appeared in films as only ‘Sanjay’ in the credit titles). Sanjay(with or without the Khan) had delivered a slew of successes in the late 60s and early 70s.

But look at destiny’s devious ways! By the time Duniya Ka Mela was released in 1974, Sanjay Khan’s career was on the downslide and Amitabh Bachchan after Zanjeer took over the entire entertainment industry.

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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