Rajesh Khanna is called the first superstar of Hindi cinema. One has heard stories of his stardom and his crazy female fan following. The actor passed away in the year 2012. While stories of his stardom are popular, one has also heard stories of his starry tantrums. Many actors have said that Rajesh Khanna would always be late on set. Now in a recent interview Gaiety Galaxy owner, Manoj Desai has recalled what Amitabh Bachchan had said at Rajesh Khanna’s funeral. Desai recalled that he was sitting next to Bachchan at his funeral and that his family was waiting for someone and hence there was delay in his final rites. He said during a chat with Vickey Lalwani, “At Rajesh Khanna’s bungalow, his body had to be taken to the cremation ground, but his family was waiting for someone. At that time, Amitabh ji turned to me and said, ‘I had waited for 2 hours for this man on set, now look at the same man.’ I told him everyone will meet the same fate.” While Bachchan and Khanna shared screen space in the iconic film ‘Anand’, later, there were talks about their rivalry. Apparently, many film-makers started opting for Amitabh Bachchan for their movies as he was always disciplined. Once in an interview, actor Rajat Bedi had revealed how his father Narendra Bedi suffered financial losses due to this rivalry. He had said, “My dad was also facing issues with Rajesh Khanna. He had started 2-3 films with Rajesh Khanna and Rajesh Khanna felt bad that my father was engaging with Amitabh Bachchan and doing projects with him. I don’t know the real story, but my father had taken the unit to Pune for one or two films, and he was waiting for Rajesh Khanna to come. For 10 to 15 days, Rajesh Khanna didn’t come, and my father just shut the projects down. I guess heroes at that time were problematic or something.”Eventually, Khanna’s career started seeing a huge decline. Rajesh Khanna was married to Dimple Kapadia and had two daughters – Twinkle and Rinke Khanna. While Dimple and Khanna never officially got divorced, they started living separately after a few years of their marriage.
