The Man Who Cannot Die
It is hard to believe that Rajesh Khanna is no more. The news gave me a jolt when I first saw it on TV. It was so unexpected and seemed so unreal that it saddened me more than I would have imagined. It felt as if Rajesh Khanna with his departure from the world has also taken a part of my dreamy childhood with him. Rajesh Khanna. The name still has a magical ring to it, even after all these years. The square features, the twinkling smile, the disarming charm, the romantic voice – every one of these characteristics were personified by Rajesh Khanna on the silver screen to such perfection that, even today, it is impossible to think of him as a man separate from the characters he portrayed. There never has been, and perhaps never will be a taller icon of romanticism in Bollywood and Indian cinema. Rajesh Khanna is one of my earliest memories, and someone I had begun to love and admire long before I even began to understand the language of movies. My mind floated back to those