Hindi cinema’s leading men are often remembered for their rivalries, but Amitabh Bachchan’s memory of Rajesh Khanna belongs to a quieter tradition: an established star using his access to help a less secure one.
Bachchan’s recollection, which is resurfacing in the press, centres on a night in the 1970s. Khanna, then the more experienced performer despite being four years younger, was a member of the city’s only disco club at the Taj. Bachchan was not. So Khanna brought him in.
“He’s a big star… but always most humble with selfless concern for others,” Bachchan recalled, adding that Khanna’s generosity included “smuggling me into the only disco club in the city at the Taj.” The memory also included the rides Khanna gave him in a newly acquired yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
A first film and a long screen partnership
The two men started their careers around the same time, though Khanna had more industry experience. Their first collaboration was Sunil Dutt’s Reshma Aur Shera. Bachchan later remembered the project as an early look at how tough and unpredictable the Hindi film industry could be.
Their screen partnership outgrew that first film. They went on to make several of the era’s most rewatched commercial films:
- Amar Akbar Anthony
- Hera Pheri
- Muqaddar Ka Sikandar
- Parvarish
The pairing worked because their styles were distinct; that contrast became part of the enjoyment for audiences.
The disco came full circle
The Taj memory is more than a starry aside. By the 1980s, Bachchan was fronting disco-era hits of his own: “Sara Zamana Haseeno Ka Diwana” from Yaarana, “Disco 82” from Khud-Dar, “Disco 84” from Inquilaab, and numbers in Kaalia and Ganga Jamuna Saraswathi. Mithun Chakraborty’s Disco Dancer gave the genre its national moment in 1982, but Bachchan’s iconic disco moments such as “Sara Zamana Haseeno Ka Diwana” and “Jahan Teri Yeh Nazar Hai” arrived a year earlier.
For readers who follow Hindi cinema closely, the story matters because it reframes that disco image. Before Bachchan was the star of those songs, he was the guest someone had to vouch for at the door.
Source: The Economic Times
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