A delayed tribute to Rajesh Khanna.

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I am quite delayed in paying tribute to Rajesh Khanna, the first superstar and king of romance, being the last romantic hero of Bollywood. Rajesh Khanna died a few days ago at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai. With his death, Hindi cinema has bid farewell to its last romantic icon after Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor. Rajesh Khanna was lovingly referred to as ‘kaka’. Rajesh Khanna was the first superstar on the silver screen of Indian Film Industry. Earlier Kishore Kumar was used as a playback singer for only DevAnand. But it was Rajesh Khanna who made Kishore Kumar topple over Md Rafi, the then number one male playback singer and also to be acceptable to all other heroes so that Kishore Kumar became the sole male playback singer in no time. The trio comprising of Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and R.D.Burman was then a sure success for any film and created a history on the silver screen of Indian Film Industry which may remain unbroken even in the coming days. His debut film was ‘Aakhri Khat’ by the famous director, Chetan Anand. But he rose to fame after the super-duper box office success of ‘Aradhana’, a film by Shakti Samanta. This one film made him the first superstar of Hindi cinema, superseding all the heroes dominating on the silver screen of Hindi cinema at that time and also helped in making Kishore Kumar the number one male playback singer. Then there were hits one after another and people, especially the young women were always very crazy to have a glimpse of this superstar. He was indeed one of the greatest romantic heroes of all time. In 1974, two remarkable incidents took place in Bollywood which had changed his life and career altogether; the first one that he was married to Dimple Kapadia and the married life was never happy and peaceful, moreover, it had a negative effect on his image as a romantic hero and the second was that Prakash Mehra’s ‘Zanjeer’ was released and gave birth to ‘an angry young man’ as a new star who was none other than Amitabh Bachchan and the baton passed silently from a romantic hero to an angry young man. The romantic era was over and a new one started with the angry young man as the new star. Rajesh Khanna is a legend like Amitabh Bachchan. But unlike him, Amitabh was never a great romantic hero. His legacy will never die.