Rajesh Khanna Did Not Care About Anybody

Rajesh Khanna died on July 18, 2012, at his Bandra home, Aashirwad. He was 69, ailing for months, in and out of hospital since April. He was discharged from Lilavati Hospital two days before the end. Fans gathered outside Carter Road that day, as they had gathered outside every gate he ever walked through.

He was India's first superstar — the man for whom the word had to be invented. Between 1969 and 1971, Rajesh Khanna delivered 15 consecutive solo superhits, a record that still stands: Aradhana, Do Raaste, Ittefaq, Kati Patang, Anand, Haathi Mere Saathi, Amar Prem, and the rest. No actor in Indian cinema has matched it.

The hysteria was real and it was new. Fans kissed his car and left it covered in lipstick marks. They lined the roads chanting his name. Women wrote to him by the thousands — reports of the era put the love letters at tens of thousands a week — and some famously married his photograph. In 1974, the BBC made a documentary about him called Bombay Superstar. The phenomenon was bigger than the films; it was a shift in what stardom meant in India, from the ensemble hero to the charismatic individual.

He had the songs, too. The pairing of Khanna, composer R.D. Burman, and singer Kishore Kumar produced a catalog that still plays at every retro evening: "Roop Tera Mastana," "Mere Sapno Ki Rani," "Zindagi Ka Safar," "Kuch To Log Kahenge."

The title of this piece is his own defiance. Khanna did things his way. He married Dimple Kapadia in 1973, when she was barely out of her teens and eight months from her Bobby debut. He entered politics and served as a Congress MP from New Delhi from 1992 to 1996. He watched his stardom eclipse in the late seventies as Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man took over the box office, and he never quite made peace with the fall. Those close to him spoke of a man who could be difficult, proud, and lonely in equal measure. He did not care about anybody's good opinion — or perhaps he cared too much about only his own.

He is survived by his wife Dimple Kapadia and daughters Twinkle and Rinke. Twinkle is married to actor Akshay Kumar.

Superstars come and go in Bollywood. Rajesh Khanna was the first. India will not see another quite like him.