Heart-wrenching to see Vinod Khanna undergoing treatment in a hospital
At a time in the late 1960s and 1970s, when it was nearly impossible for a “villain”, a “character actor” or an “extra” to imagine a career as a conventional lead, there were three who managed to do that with great élan.
While the spotlight shone directly on Mumtaz and Shatrughan Sinha as they transitioned from a sidekick and a villain respectively to standard leads, Vinod Khanna’s evolution from just another alluring face to a full-fledged hero was silent but more definite.
Khanna was one of the leading new-age villains and in a marked departure from the likes of Pran or Premnath was considered “hero” material right from the time he debuted in Sunil Dutt’s Man Ka Meet (1968).
Dutt had essentially made Man Ka Meet for his mother, who had desired her younger son, Som, who was the lead, to also become a film star like his elder brother, Sunil Dutt. Khanna was perhaps the only one who managed to survive the disastrous launch.
It is interesting that even today the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Khanna is him in a split screen where half features him at his villainous best as Jabbar Singh in Mere Gaon Mera Desh (1971) and the other in his leading man avatar from Qurbani (1980) or Lahu Ke Do Rang (1979) or Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) depending on personal preference.
What made Khanna stand out in the early 1970s was not that he could play a daku in Mere Gaon Mera Desh and a misguided college student exploited by a wily politician in Mere Apne (1971) in a matter of months with the same panache. Neither was it that he could balance it with Sunil Dutt’s Reshma Aur Shera (1971), where he played a supporting role and was also the first time that he and future constant co-star Bachchan shared the screen, or did his first film as a solo hero, Hum Tum Aur Woh (1971).
It was the elegance with which he could do just about any role and yet not make a big hue and cry about it. At a time when Bachchan was being hailed as the next superstar around 1973 when Rajesh Khanna’s fortunes had taken a dip and Bachchan with Namak Haraam (1973) and Zanjeer (1971) had come into his own, Khanna’s changeover from a villain to a leading man was complete.
Perhaps had Khanna not shed doing roles like the one in Aan Milo Sajna (1970) and Mere Gaon Mera Desh, where his swashbuckling bandit Jabbar Singh has been widely acknowledged as the precursor to Gabbar Singh from Sholay (1975), he would have been a greater threat to Bachchan than the others at the time.
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| It might not be totally incorrect to say that Khanna cracked when he was at his peak. |
By becoming a conformist of sorts, which to a great degree is what the typical Hindi film hero is seen as, Khanna had to compete with Bachchan on traditional parameters and this is where he lost.
Many believe that had Khanna not left films at his peak, in 1982, when he chose to join spiritual guru Osho’s commune, he would have been the perfect foil to Bachchan. There might be some truth in it as Khanna was immensely popular and had he continued, perhaps Bachchan might not have transformed into the “one-man-industry” that he did, but was it really the case?
As the 1970s progressed Khanna had become a constant alternate to Bachchan and even substituted him in Feroz Khan’s Qurbani as well as Vijay Anand’s Rajput (1982) but somewhere Khanna might have always remained an afterthought.
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| Vinod Khanna with Feroz Khan in Qurbani. |
Moreover, it might not be totally incorrect to say that Khanna cracked when he was at his peak. In a dog eat dog world this would be a “bad” thing but truth be told, this is what made Khanna more real than his other more accomplished contemporaries.
He was also perhaps one of the very few actors besides Bachchan who managed to stage a successful comeback with Mukul Anand’s Insaaf (1987) and in some ways, his return as the lead in the late 1980s was better than Bachchan’s post politics stint.
Watching the recent images of Khanna undergoing treatment in a hospital is nothing less than heart-wrenching. It brings back memories of Rajesh Khanna waving to his fans with Akshay Kumar and Dimple Kapadia on either side.
That single instance broke a million hearts as it became the last enduring image of the king of romance… here’s wishing Vinod Khanna, the original debonair, a speedy recovery.