Debarth's Den

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...

  After months of falling prey to a dissuading mind, and succumbing to an innate aversion for a daunting task, I knew that there was no escape from the inevitable; I had to clean out the garage someday, and sooner was the job done, the better. So, suitably attired for the occasion in a coverall and a hood, and armed with a broom, I set about my task with as much earnestness as I could garner. As I gingerly cleared out packages, bundles, bottles, wires and other motley oddments from the racks and shelves and got about dusting and cleaning the cobwebs off the same, I chanced upon a dusty but neatly wrapped bundle of books. On opening the wrapping off the weighty pack to check the contents, what I should find but a stack of comics, long forgotten in the mazy confines of the garage. In the bundle was an assortment of books that formed the very lifeblood of my childhood days, a precious collection of the greatest stories that my puerile fancies were built upon - tales of heroism and str...