Bollywood legend and BJP MP Vinod Khanna dies of cancer at 70

As a 13 something year old, I vividly remember a conversation between two family friends, both movie buffs, about Vinod Khanna versus Amitabh Bachchan and how the former was the only actor who could hold a candle to the superstar. The discussion was about a film called Boss – which never got made – which was to be directed by Chandra Barot, who made Don and never made a significant film again. Barot wanted Vinod Khanna in the lead and my knowledgeable friends thought he was better than Big B. Being one of the biggest fans of Bachchan this side of the Arabian sea, I wasn’t too pleased to hear that. Bachchan and Khanna acted together in six films (Parvarish, Zameer, Hera Pheri, Khoon Pasina, Amar Akbar Anthony and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar), but any comparison would be pointless – the fact is that both actors made an indelible mark on Hindi cinema. While Big B was idolised, the actor who passed away on Thursday remained a heartthrob for millions, carving a niche for himself with the variety of roles he played on the big screen.

Born in Peshawar, Vinod Khanna made his foray into cinema as a 22-year-old when Sunil Dutt launched his brother Som Dutt in Man Ka Meet (1968). The younger Dutt’s career didn’t really take off, but, in a negative role, Khanna made an impact. With films like Purab Aur Paschim, Sachaa Jhutha, Aan Milo Sajna, all in 1970, he cemented his reputation by playing the villain.

Long before Gabbar Singh became a household name thanks to Sholay (1975), Vinod Khanna’s portrayal of daku Jabbar Singh in Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) was as menacing as it gets.

The same year, he acted in Gulzar’s directorial debut Mere Apne, which marked a change in fortunes as far as the kind of roles that he got to play. He acted in a bunch of films in the next few years, which met with limited success at the box office.

Thereafter, Khanna acted in multi-starrer films. Shashi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, Sunil Dutt, Jeetendra were among his frequent co-stars. He teamed up with Amitabh Bachchan first in Zameer (1975) where he played a cameo. In Prakash Mehra’s Hera Pheri (1976), they both played conmen but in Khoon Pasina (1977) they were adversaries. The intensity with which Vinod Khanna played Shera against Bachchan’s Tiger won him accolades. The same year, the duo acted in two popular films by the same director: Manmohan Desai’s Parvarish and Amar Akbar Anthony.

Incidentally, Amar is a character name that he used six times during his career. As the grapevine has it, Khanna was paid more than Bachchan for Parvarish, Hera Pheri, Khoon Pasina and AAA. The ‘80s started with a bang for Vinod Khanna, with two big budget films, Qurbani and The Burning Train; one was a hit and the other a flop.

But along with films, Khanna, who was by now married to his college friend Geetanjali Taleyarkhan and was the father of two, was drawn towards the spiritual side as well. He quit films and joined Rajneesh and went by the name of Swami Vinod Bharti. Others called him the “sexy sanyasi”.

After a five-year hiatus, he returned to cinema with films like Chandni (1989), Lekin and Jurm (1990), which received either commercial or critical success. After his celluloid and spiritual journeys, there was a new aspect to the latter half of his life — politics. He became a member of parliament from Gurdaspur constituency but continued to dabble in films.

In 1990, he married Kavita. They have a son, Sakshi, and a daughter, Shraddha.

A few weeks back pictures of an ailing and frail Vinod Khanna were doing the rounds. They were heartbreaking to say the least. The end may not have been comforting but for most of it, Vinod Khanna lived life on his terms.

The author is a Goa-based film critique and cricket commentator