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4 min readmumbaiFeb 5, 2026 09:40 PM IST
A lot has been said about Rajesh Khanna’s gigantic rise to superstardom. But with success comes great responsibility, and that is something filmmaker Ketan Anand, son of the late legend Chetan Anand, recently reflected upon. He spoke about how failure may be easier to tackle, but success is a pill that is often difficult to swallow, with multiple side effects.
In a conversation with Unheard Tales Podcast, Ketan discussed the challenges of handling success. He said, “Look what happened to Rajesh Khanna. He would have been a total legend in his own time, he was, for a few years. His first film was Aakhri Khat, with my father. He got his break with my father. My father always wanted new people.” He then added how, after Rajesh Khanna became a major star, his father, Chetan Anand, chose not to work with him.
“When he became a big hit, dad was not working with him. People used to come to him and say, 'He is your hero, why don't you work with him?' (He is your hero, why don’t you work with him?) Dad said, ‘I don’t work with stars, I work with actors. As soon as we need it we will come back. (When he needs me, he will come back).’”
Rajesh Khanna eventually reunited with Chetan Anand for the film Kudrat, which went on to receive widespread acclaim and remains celebrated as one of their finest collaborations.
Ketan Anand also shared how, later in his career, after experiencing both superstardom and the inevitable decline, Rajesh Khanna returned to work with Chetan Anand. “And he did come back towards the end of his career. They did a film together called Kudrat. What a beautiful film that was.”
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A lot has also been spoken about Rajesh Khanna’s faltering stardom, which coincided with the breakdown of his marriage to Dimple Kapadia, whom he married when she was very young. Years later, in an interview with Pritish Nandy, Dimple reflected, “I think we were two very different kinds of people. And I was probably very young to understand what was happening to this man who was a superstar. I mean, I have never been able to understand stars and their behaviour patterns at all because I am not one myself. It’s very difficult for me to, I couldn’t understand it. I just couldn’t understand it.” When asked if this period was “traumatic,” Dimple simply said, “Yes, it was.”
Rajesh Khanna himself spoke about his downfall years in a candid chat with Movie magazine. He recalled one instance when he came home drunk and said, “One after another, seven films had just flopped in a row. It was raining, pitch-dark, and up there alone on my terrace, I lost control. I yelled out, 'Lord, we poor people have been tested so hard that we have denied your existence.' (God, don’t test my patience to such an extent that I question your very existence).” He continued, “Of course, Dimple and my staff came running, thinking that I had gone insane. It was because success hit me so much that I couldn’t take the failure.”
