The first real superstar of Bollywood (and maybe India) would undoubtedly be Rajesh Khanna. His rise to superstardom is worthy of a movie in itself-- 3 years (1969-72) and 15 back to back super duper hits. However, as meteoric a rise he had, the fall was equally dramatic.
On the other hand, Amitabh Bachchan, had the worst possible start to his career- 11 failures, one after the other, during the same 1969-72 period. However, what happened after that is part of Indian folklore.
Without going into the reasons for the rise and fall of the two, I would be talking about two of their movies with the same director, the great Hrishikesh Mukherjee, to demonstrate the change in fortune.
Anand (released on 12.3.1971)
The movie is about a man, Anand (played by Rajesh Khanna), who is diagnosed with cancer (lymphosarcoma of the intestine) and has 6 months to live. Bhaskor Banerjee (played by Amitabh Bachchan) is a young oncologist, who is distressed with the poverty all around him and is suffering from depression due to his failure to save the life of his patients. There is a sense of idealism in Bhaskar, which is contrasted with his friend, Dr. Kulkarni (played by Ramesh Deo), who is more practical in his outlook.
Much before Zanjeer released and the cult of Amitabh Bachchan as the "angry young man" was developed and nurtured by Salim-Javed, this movie probably displayed the first signs of this anger towards a faulty failing system.
Anand comes to Bombay (as it then was) for treatment at Dr Kulkarni's clinic, and meets Bhaskar. He immediately takes a liking for Bhaskar (who he lovingly calls Babumoshai) and runs away from the hospital to go and live with Bhaskar. Through the next 1.5 hours we see how Anand spreads happiness and positivity amongst the people around him, while his D-day slowly but steadily keeps approaching.
The climax of the movie is probably the best death scene I have seen in Indian cinema (Bacchan's death scene in Sholay is a close 2nd).
Its a simple scene, where Anand has already died when Bhaskor returns with the medicine, and on seeing Anand dead, breaks down. He shouts "baat karo mujhse, pichle 6 mahine se tumhara bhak bhak sun raha hoon)...when suddenly the tape recorder plays Anand's recorded speech "Babumoshai...." culminating in both of them laughing together.
In this scene Rajesh Khanna does nothing, yet steals the show completely. He smashes it out of the ground. The superstar truly reigned on.
[Exactly, 2.5 years later, Namak Haraam released. In the intervening period, Zanjeer released on 11.5.1973, i.e., 5 months prior to Namak Haraam's release.
However, at the time of casting, AB was still the struggling actor on the verge of oblivion and RK the reigning super star with the Midas touch.]
Namak Haraam (released on 23.11.1973)
Rajesh Khanna once again playing the lead, and Amitabh Bachchan is in the supporting role. The story is about 2 friends-- Somu (RK) and Vicky (AB). Vicky is a rich spoilt brat, who gets into a spat with a union leader (played by the "forever old", AK.Hangal) in his father's factory. He feels humiliated as he is made to apologise to Hangal.
To take revenge for this humiliation, Vicky and Somu plot a plan, whereby Somu will start working in the factory, and become the union leader himself and oust Hangal.
To implement the plan Somu, joins the factory as a labourer. He goes and starts living in factory worker's chawl. There he sees poverty and the hardships faced by the labour class from close quarters. He starts having a change of heart.
This change of heart is depicted beautifully in a scene (comes at 1:26:00 in the movie), when Vicky offers Somu a glass of Chivas Regal whiskey, and Somu enquires about the price. Vicky casually mentions that the bottle costs around 200-250, and one peg would cost around 25 bucks 🤯🤯😝. Somu, poignantly, points out that that's the price for a poor labourer full family's monthly ration.
What a simple, yet powerful take on societal disparity.
Sorry for the digression, coming back to the climax. Ultimately, Somu becomes completely involved in the labourer's cause. To stop him, Vicky's rich industrialist father, gets Somu killed. Vicky on realising what has happened, takes the entire blame and goes to jail. The final sequence is once again, Bachchan alone in jail, mourning the death of RK.
[There is a popular theory, that both RK and AB wanted to have the death scene, as the winning formula was "one who dies wins the heart" (remember Sholay, Deewar, Shakti, etc.). Ultimately, Hrishikesh Mukherjee thought RK's character dying was more appropriate.]
However, despite getting his wish of dying fulfilled, this time round, the transition of the super stardom was complete. AB completely stole the show and broke the formula. The vulnerability and anger shown by AB in the climax made the audience fall in love with him, making him the Star of the movie. On the other hand, RK despite being the hero, got relegated to playing second fiddle.
As Nelson Mandela once said,
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."
Apropos, AB went on to become the BIGGEST superstar. However, Rajesh Khanna will always remain the FIRST superstar.
PS- It's mother's day, and a post on AB was mandatory 😃😃
Excellent summary of the two megastars of Indian cinema! Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Keep ‘em coming!
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ReplyDeleteTwo of my favourite movies,so beautifully summarised. Thanks vakil sahab for reminding me to watch them one more time.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece, Uday.
ReplyDeleteAnand was also a tribute to the friendship between Raj Kapoor and his favourite Editor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The original choice of the doctor’s role, it seems was Soumitra Chatterjee who opted out due to lack of dates. Oh course, Inquilab Srivastav took the role to another planetary level. Those were the days when Amitabh sported his old hair style. The new middle parting, was brought in by his personal hair stylist, Halim Kairnavi, who borrowed the style from his other client Yusuf Khan@ Dilp Kumar. Leaving these hairy tales to another day….lets cut to the music of Anand by Salilda, who was having no work and was roped in by Mukherjee. Another instance of Bengali helping another Bong in Mumbai filmy duniya, where they were pretty strong.
On more story goes as to how Mukherjee went to sign another bong, Kishore Kumar for the film after discussing the project with him.But KK's watchman did not allow him to enter the bungalow. Since KK had instructed him not to allow a Bengali man inside the bungalow who would come to meet him. KK had done a musical concert for a Bengali organizer who did not pay him and they both had a fight. His watchman mistook Mukherjee of being that Bengali man. When the shooting for the film started KK came to know about it and went to meet Mukherjee and asked him why didn't he come to sign him when HM told him the reason. Kishore went and blasted his watchman, who definitely would have lost his job seeing the popularity which another Bong, Manne Dey got, who sang instead. [credit @IMBD Trivia]
Kishore’s loss and definitely ours. But what songs Anand had…..pure magic !
Have added a little more trivia to your piece, though “Anand”, which was filmed in 28 days flat itself can be turned into a book.
In Gulzar’s words ……”Anand mara nahin, Anand marte nahin….”