Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana ………..RIP Rajesh Khanna

The original super star of Bolloywood, albeit for a very brief period, is no more.     The fan-following and adulation, specially by females, which Rajesh Khanna has commanded in late 60s and early 70s was unprecedented and the title of Super Star was coined for the first time for him .   His romantic image was so predominant that every young girl of that era used to have his photo under her pillow and secretly wished to marry him  and many were reported to have got married to his photo itself and adore (a la Meera).  Stories were rife in those days that female fans used to write letters  dipped  in their blood, picking up the dust of the car in which he used to travel and  some young girls committing suicide after listening the news of his getting married to Dimple Kapadia.   Such a phenomena Rajesh Khanna was.       Some of the author backed roles by the then Bengali directors in films like Anand, Aradhana, Amar Prem, Aap ki Kasam, Namak Haraam,  Bawarchi, Kati Patang Daag, Do-Raste and Dushman, with fantastic music by SD/ R D Burman  and singing by Kishore, have catapulled him to super-stardom.    But a series of such hits, later on proved to be disadvantageous with pitfalls like type-casting, stereo typed acting  and over use of mannerism by tilting his head, blinking eyes with camera zoomed very close to his eyes, dialogue delivery which comes like a flow first and then put a sudden break to enable him to blink his eye and tilt his head.    At the peak of his career in early 70s the advent of action movies, thanks to the super duper hit of Zanjeer has seen the birth of another superstar Amithabh Bachan signalled the beginning of his end.     Zanjeer followed by Deewar, Sholay and Trishul establish Amitabh who scorched the screen with his angry young man image and with already established Dharmendra and the then upcoming Vinod Khanna being in the same mould of action has not helped the cause of Rajesh Khanna who has a soft, sober romantic image and/or a tragic image.    His flirting with action movies in Sacha Jhoota, Apna Desh, The Train and Roti have  gone unnoticed.   He never could adjust himself in multy-starrers of 1970s/80s which has promoted even average performers like Sashi Kapoor to stardom.   Come 1980s, Bollywood stars starting taking their dancing skills very seriously with jumping jack Jeetu followed by John Travolta and Michel Jackson's Clown our own Mithun becoming big hits as dancing stars.  Here too Rajesh khana had a disadvantage with having two left foot.  

At that time the only thing which could have saved his career was banking on south-indian remakes which had large number of family dramas with one man-two heroines stories, the super sacrificing elder brother, husband, village head-man etc which were originally done by ANR (who has on top bracket for over 50s years) and Shoban Babu (who was a popular star for over 40 years).    But to his misfortune, the mega record breaking Telugu hit film Prem Nagar (with ANR in Telugu and Shivaji Ganeshan in Tamil) when remade with him in Hindi (with a popular combination of Hema Malini and music by S D Burman)   bombed at the box office.      Few more South Indian remakes like Red Rose, Masterji also bombed at box office Apart from this set back, working in a South India set-up at that time (or even now) means to be highly disciplined, giving bulk dates and ensuring that the film was completed in record time of few months, but with larger than life image, undisciplined and cranky behavior has made him a non-preferred choice and the loss of Rajesh Khann has proved to be Jeetu’s gain who camped himself permanently in Hyderabad at the backyard of Annapurna, Rama Naidu and Padmalaya studios bagging almost all the Telugu remakes of 70s and 80s.   

Though his attempt to come back many times with Avataar, Swarg, Thodisi Bewafayi  and Souten met with modern success, he could never regain any of his past glory whatsoever.     His last movie which was like a semi-porno with an unknown C grade actress and his first and last TV commercial  for Havel fans given the fans more pain than pleasure and many might have wished why he doesn't learn to fade gracefully.     With the age he could not graduate into matured roles and also into the TV as has been done by every star worth his salt.   His disastrous marriage with Dimple Kapadia and negative publicity given for years together by the print media, has eroded his huge female fan following and proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back.

The tragedy with Rajesh Khanna, as he himself admitted in one of his interviews, that like Amitabh Bhachan, he did not have a Super Star before him to observe and take care of pitfalls of super stardom.    He allowed success go to his head and became super-arrogant and took the demi-God status bestowed by the fans too seriously.     As shown in the BBC film on him (a tribute in those days), when he came to know that he has not bagged filmfare award, he hosted a dinner on the same night as that of filmfare awards' night.      But he could not handle the fall from the grace and not adjusted and accommodated himself with changing times and hit the bottle in a big way leading to health complications.  The life and times of Rajesh Khann after that has become a manual for other stars who  followed him to realise how fickle and temporary the tinsel town stardom is and take care and we find most of the actors now-a-days are more sensible and organised.    

It is very sad that, unlike so many Ballywood stars, like Dev Anand, Raj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar and Raj Kapoor who played well within their own limitations and survived for a long time, Rajesh Khanna could not succeed in doing so and his stay at top was like an `Anar’  (flower-pot), very bright but for very short period.  

His captivating smile and innocent face (of Anand, Amar Prem and Bawarchi) will always remain etched in my memory .      Let’s celebrate his life rather than cry for him since as he famously said `I hate tears Pushpa’.

S. Prabhakar
18th July, 2012

SJ on `neglecting of aged parents’

15^th July, 2012 episode of SJ has taken up the sensitive issue of `neglecting of aged parents’.   The entire programme was summed up by one of the participant when he said that there used to be time when a mother used to cry that the child was not eating food and now time has come when the mother is crying because the child is not giving her food.   

Pramila Krishnan made startling revelation that in some parts of Tamil Nadu, the children started killing parents and it has a become a tradition sort and they call it a `talaikutal’ (head bath) and the relatives are also intimated post the act and it is taken as perfect moral way of terminating the `perceived overstay of old people on this earth’.   Some children are kind enough to make it less painful for the parents by getting poisonous injection administered.    A scary and forced mercy killing.   This is done for getting away from the responsibility of taking care of old, frail and diseased old parents/grand parents who are treated as hindrance for the progress in their lives.

Mr. Rath  has practically explained the economical angle.  In many cases the problem comes because people have planned and programmed thinking that their life expectancy will be 60 years whereas it has gone up to around 80 years so 20 years post retirement for a male and another 10 years or so after that for his wife were unplanned which makes them vulnerable with children feeling the burden of carrying for few more years.  Added to this those who don’t have financial independence or innocent enough to pass on the property to children in their life time under bouts of sentiments will invite troubles because there will not be any self-serving motive left for the children to take care of their old parents.  The properties held in the name of parents still acts as carrot for a stage-managed display of love, affection and care, which though made to believe, gives some comfort and solace to parents.  

Loneliness: In advanced age, more specially, if the aged person is a widow or a widower the loneliness, feeling of being neglected, not given importance compounds the problems for the elderly people.  Very interesting statistics revealed that in voting the majority of the voters are above the 60 age of and most of our politicians too are in the same age group.   The expert who appeared was of the view that it is in a way of assertion of their voice, which is not ever heard by anyone else.   The video clippings of `Dada Dadi’ park whose slogan is `Budha hoga tera baap’, where elderly people were shown singing, dancing, and even playing cricket is very refreshing and quite unbelievable and I would definitely like to join one of such parks when I really feel old (if at all I feel).   The humorous part of the programme was the chat with the old couple who got married when the gentleman was 72 years old and enjoying the bliss of married life for the last 7 years.  As pointed out by the aged wife the gentleman was looking aged in the marriage photos but looked healthy now.  An association in Ahemedabad is giving platform for the aged single men and women to meet and forge alliance for live-in relations.  I strongly feel that live-in relations, at a platonic level, will be a reality amongst aged couple only.   

Mr. Narainan Mahajan, 91, has done amazing feats of trekking to a peak of 3,500 feet and has done raffling between two cliffs which earned him a place in Limca Books of records.  His mantra of good health is compared to normal capacity eat half, take water two times, exercise three times, laugh four times.  Lead a satisfied old age for which tension should not be there and if you don’t want tension don’t keep your expectations high.  

Amazingly Mrs. Chandralomo Tomar and Mrs. Prakashi Tomar two very elderly ladies from a small village in UP have taken to shooting at a very advance age and won lot of medals.  Mrs. Chandralomo concluded with a witty punch line that `tan budha hota hai man nahi’.

My take:  No one can deny that parents make their best efforts and make lot of scarifies in bringing up their children and when they grow old it becomes the moral duty of the children to take care of the aging parents to the best of one’s ability so as to ensure that in the last leg of their life they don’t face any discomfort, anxiety and anguish.

The best way to recollect what parents have done for us is by remembering the number of times mother has not slept the entire night taking care of the child running high fever or any other ailments and her not taking any food on all those days on which her kids have not taken food for whatever reason including as a protest for the scolding received from parents for their mistakes.  All the efforts made by father to earn that extra rupee, and beg and borrow for educating the children and get them married off especially the daughters.   I never stop wondering that when the child get infected by chicken pox/small pox, which is treated to be so highly infectious that no one is permitted to go near the infected children and they are confined to one corner of a room in the house, it is only mother who stays with the child till full recovery and she never get infected.  God has gifted the Mother with fantastic immunity apart from other great qualities.

My first exposure, at a very young age, to the neglect, rejection and travail of the aged is a look at the widows who used to struggle to earn two square meals either staying and slogging throughout the day at widow-homes or shuttling from one relatives house to another serving them at the times of marriages and/or child-delivery.   In some cases the children of the widows have washed off their hands on them.  From that time onwards I kept witnessing such acts of negligence of parents to some degree or the other. In many cases it happens because of the children unwittingly turning their old parents as unsung, un-acknowledged and in all cases unpaid ayas (maid-servants) to their children.    Children staying with their parents or keeping the aged parents has this `taking the care of their kids’ angle to it. While bothering about their own children and their comfort, one tends to forget about the discomfort to their own aged parents in the form of their not been able to go to bus stop in hot summer, or thundering and flooding rains or chilling winter to pick up grand children, not been able to take rest in the afternoon, not having their own freedom to decide what to do, where to go at their own will and so on and so forth

The Reality Check:

While undoubtedly advocating that the children should do everything within (or even beyond) their means/disposal to make the lives of their aging parents as comfortable as possible, but aged parents should also take a reality check of their expectations and whether they are in sync with constraints thrown up by the modern jet set age.  Though parents do not make it public the ill-treatment in the hands of their children as suggested in the programme, there is always undercurrents and nagging making the existence very unpleasant. There is no doubt that beyond certain age the parents start behaving like kids expecting too much of attention, care, stubbornness and when the children keep a tab and put restrictions on their movements, eating habits and living styles (in the same way the parents have done when their children were kids for their good), there will be lot of resistance.  Lack of clear and open communication between parents and children airing their opinion, views discomforts, misgivings and misunderstandings and choosing to communicate through taunts and comparisons especially directed towards ‘the fall-guy for all reasons and seasons’ daughter-in-law.   In many house-holds the things takes an ugly turn after this and it will be a one way traffic from then onwards. I vividly remember my wife telling me that she used to find a very elderly uncle known to us in our locality quietly and sheepishly having street food and lightheartedly saying that his kids don’t let him have spicy food at home and that’s why he has to do it.  But the fact was whenever that elderly gentleman used to have spicy food, he used to suffer from indigestion and suffer because of which his children had to keep him under check.   If facts are not known, this could be translated into ill-treatment.  In the same way because of various constrains of modern times like both husband and wife working in high pressure jobs with long and unpredictable working hours children find it difficult to manage time to attend to the needs of their elderly parents despite their best intentions.   In such circumstances if the elder parents are to be put in a well-maintained old-age home with all amenities during the day time or during week days where they get good company, better attention and medical care and security it is dubbed as throwing out the aged parents.  Though no parent or no child likes, we do send our kids to crèches from very young age and no one treats that as abandoning of the children.    Parents, on their part, should be progressive, practical open-minded and adaptable and children should be companionate, compromising, caring and exhibit great degree of patience as they do with their own children since elderly parents tend to become and behave like children.   A better communication dispels lot of misgiving in such matters and there could be peace and happiness.

About Aamir: at the beginning of the programme Aamir tried to exhibit a high moral ground by saying that he is doing this programme as part of discharging his social responsibility.  He is reported to be charging around Rs. 3 cores per episode – what a fancy way of discharging social responsibility.   While he makes appeals to people to send SMS and some part of the revenue goes to some charity and an equal amount being contributed by Reliance foundation,  but till date he did not contribute a single penny from his fat remuneration.   Within 5 minutes into the programme immediately after showing the first video clipping of the plight of old ladies in UP, camera was zoomed on to his face and tears rolling down his cheeks unabatedly.   I really wonder being a seasoned actor how come he finds it so difficult to control his emotions – but if it is part of the script that he has to do so, being a top actor he is doing a great job of it – I have no doubt in my mind that it is proving to be counterproductive and may soon become a laughing stock. While introducing the programme he said that India is the only country where we touch the feet of elders as a mark of respect, but even when he has gone down into audience to meet a 91 years old man he just shook hands and hugged rather than paying respect by touching his feet.  There lies the difference between an Aamir and an Amitabh.  

Satyameva Jayate

S. Prabhakar

15^th July, 2012 

The Original He-man, Rustom-e-Hindi, DARA SINGH    

                                                           

The original he-man, champion wrestler and the incredible hulk with a golden heart DARA SINGH is no more.   Born in 1928 in a small village near Amritsar, Punjab his journey to stardom in wrestling, then film industry, business and to the Parliament is incredible.       Dara Singh is truly to be credited as the person who made wrestling as a profession in India by scaling dizzy heights; he has become the torch bearer to many wrestlers who followed him.    He was the first truly global Indian wrestler with winning Champion of Malasia in 1947, Common Wealth Championship in 1959 and Champion of the World in 1968.   He successfully challenged many wrestlers from Asia, Far East and America.     Few people must be knowing that it was Dara Singh who introduced exhibition wrestling bouts which are akin to the now famous WWF championship on TV.        He used to tour small villages in the nuke and corner of India with his exhibition wrestling matches.   I distinctly remember having seen posters and listen to publicity over mike mounted on rickshaws in my childhood in Vijayawada about Dara Singh bouts with foreign wrestlers with funny sounding names like King Kong and Tiger Choocha and those matches used to jam packed and runaway hits.    I also remember having read incredible stories about his huge diet consisting of 100s eggs, chicken, liters of milk etc., and his `uthak bhaitak and push up’ exercise regime.     

        

To encash his popularity he entered Hindi/Punjabi film industry in mid 1950s predominantly in action movies like Herclus, Samson, Tarzon, King Kong which could exploit his towering physique.    Much before Salman Khan and Sunny Doels have even born, it was Dara Singh who has popularized sporting shirtless body.   He was credited with giving break to Mumtaj as leading lady  in one of his movies and acted with her in 15 movies,  who later went on to become top heroein and acted with top stars like Rajesh Khanna.      He worked in more than 140 Hindi/Punjabi films and his last film was `jab we met in 2007’ in which he essayed very dignified role.    He immortalized the role of Hanuman in various mythological movies made in Hindi and regional languages (albeit with the help of dubbing his dialogues due to his heavy Punjabi accent) and also donned the role of Hanumaan in the famous TV serial RAMAYAN by Ramanand Sagar

He was nominated to Rajya Sabha in 2003 and served full term.   To his credit though he was associated with film industry for more than 50 years he managed to be an extremely non-controversial person and known to be a gentleman with a golden heart.

In India whenever one speak of wrestling it cannot go without taking Dara Singh’s name.  May the noble soul rest in peace.  

S. Prabhakar

12.7.2012      

1^st July, 2012 episode of Satyameva Jayate took up the ill-affects of alcoholic habit which is very close to my heart and I have been advocating against it throughout my life.   

Mr. Vijay Sharma, presently working as a Executive Editor of Thehelka, a well respected journalist explained in great detail how the alcoholic habit, which he never thought to be abnormal got into such addiction that he used to take it daily, go the press club in the vening and even after taking drinks right through used to order for 6 large pegs at the end bell at 10:30 pm.   He started abusing people and parents, started losing focus on the job and ultimately lost the job and to finance his drinking habits, he started borrowing from all and sundry including his maid servant, extort money from politicians and and even police, abandoned by parents, and has come to such a pitiable situation that he used to spend his days and nights on the road including train toilets where even flies could not dare to enter for about 9 months.    In a desperate attempt to finance his drinking habit, he has gone to be extent of striking a deal for selling his kidney.     His father denounced him by writing that `it is a curse to have a son like you’  and till date stays away from mother who has never pardoned him.    He ultimately attended Occar Farera’s de-addition camp, got de-addicted and got married and settled.  

It followed by video clipping of horrifying experiences shared by children and spouses of drunkards, how the male members of the family ruined their lives by uncontrolled drinking habits which lead to severe health problems and death.

Dr. Ashish explained that `alcoholism’  is not a habit but a disease and like any other decease it also requires treatment.    If  people around advise that you should drink less, your habit is affecting them and your day starts with taking a drink or two,  and you get  angry on being advised  are the symptoms of addiction.

Another addict Mr,. Lakshman explained in a very humorous manner – a la kesto mukerjee – his alcohol addiction and squandering Rs. 40 lakhs of his hard earned money, being abandoned by family and friends, borrowing and people shunning away from him and losing the job.    Ultimately contacting Alcho     synonymous de-addiction camp and there too, in the beginning,  demanding alcoholic to listen to their lecture but ultimately following their prescription and completely getting de-addicted and not taking drinks for over 14 years.  

The famous lyricist Mr. Javed Aktar who also dabbled with the habit of alcoholic for 27 years out of which in the  last 11 years used to consume a bottle per day.   He highlighted that in the movies the heroes who consumes alcohol were shown to be glamorous and talking lot of sense, but in the real life  the alcoholic  only looks  `Ghilone, Ghada or both’  - not been able to stand straight, talk incoherently with heavy face, perspirating all the time.     He has a good point when he said that unlike other good habits like taking milk (say two glass per day which remains so all the life) the quantity of consumption of alcohol keeps increasing – going from 1-2 pegs to 5-6 pegs.   He honestly admitted that he did not do any stupid act without being drunk and thankfully he got rid of the habit and not taken drinks for many years.

Mr.  Sumir Anand  father of a young and bubbling 15 years Karan Anand has very painfully explained how his son who went for dinner with a 19 years old friend who was dead drunk  while being  behind the wheel of car which crashed and 3 occupants who have not consumed any alcohol died and the drunk driver got away scratch-less and as always happens got out on bail the very next day of accident.    As he rightly pointed out, the drunken driver behind the wheel is like holding a deadly weapon and when he causes accident resulting in death of any other innocent person,  he should be treated as a murderer and charged for accordingly.    This issue needs a larger debate and a serious look at by the authorities concerned.      What to talk about illiterate or less educated truck or bus drivers even highly educated well to do people go to parties, clubs and hotels get drunk and in that in-hibernated state drive back home many times with friends and family members.    In highly crowded roads with rash drivers all around, when it becomes difficult for a person behind the wheels in full senses to handle how can a person with couple of drinks down can manage?       I never understand what stops such people from hiring taxi (with so many radio taxis a call away) or engage driver, who comes for much lesser than what they might have blown up on drinks, so that they and others can be safe on roads.  

   

Dr Benegal explained about hazardous drinking and in India with about 50% of the people being  hazardous  drinkers.   Against 2 pegs of 30 ml which is treated as social drinking, in India normally people take 5-6 six pegs which is more than upper limit all over the world.    25% injured coming to hospital in a Bangalore are drunk themselves causing accidents and hurting themselves and more than 50% cases are those who are injured by an accident caused by a drunk person.     Once I saw a video clipping of execution of punishment in Singapore for drunk driving wherein the person was taken to jail, tied to a pole, stripped from back and given 10 lashes with a heavy leather belt on the buttocks, with skin getting peeled off with the third lash itself and profusely bleeding at the end of 10 lashes and then literally carried away in an unconscious state.      There can be no doubt even after recovering, whenever he sits to drive a car it will hurt and remind him not to drive rash.     Though such things may sound barbaric but the people by their negligence and overconfidence of being in full control of themselves causing accidents killing people do not deserve any mercy and civilized treatment.  

What is not covered in the programme

Though the programme started with Aamir enquiring from a large number of young people in the studio how many of them take drinks, many, including few young girls confirming that  they do take and they think it to be cool and in-thing and it is one of the ways to announce that they are grown up and trendy.    But for the initial few minutes, hardly any time was spent on discussing and giving solutions to the youth who got into the habit of alcoholism

Last edition of India Today carried a very comprehensive study of the drinking habits of youth in India and given some shocking statistics and revelations.      The average induction to the alcohol habit has come down to ridiculous low of 13 years and 45%  of the school/college going students including young girls are taking to drinking habits without much fuss.    Instances have come to light that school going kids are smuggling drinks in their water bottles and sharing during break.   

Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore name any metro city rave parties are rifle attended mainly by school and college going kids, one kid spoiling inducts few more into such groups and an impression is created that smoking and drinking is a style statement and anyone who is not smoking and drinking is not treated to be modern.   Every restaurant, club and pub serving beer/alcohol beverages is not helping the cause too.    One can always justify that they are just social drinkers and take drinks only when they attend parties, marriages cock tail got-together without realizing that they have become addicts long time back because in a month they attend not less than 15-20 such parties, marriages and cocktail get-togethers.     In places like Delhi it is really a pitiable situation finding highly educated, well placed, well dressed but unfortunately not well cultured and well mannered people  following the `Baraat’ (marriage parties) and right throughout the route consuming alcohol on the cars/vans converted into mobile bar-be-ques and making all rakkas on the roads used by general public.    No need to add that they are never in their senses to realize that they are called for witness a pious event like a marriage and to bless the young couple and where women and children come in large numbers who feel extremely discomfortable .

Gone are the days when children try to work very hard to excel in their studies, sports, performance arts like music, dance, dramatics and painting so that they can get recognition amongst peers and are hero worshipped.     But now-a-days kids are adopting easy ways and means of dressing up scantily, exhibiting brat behavior and getting into bad habits of smoking and drinking to show themselves to be trendy.       Both parents being in good jobs, making disproportionately higher amount available to the kids and not enforcing discipline (erroneously thinking that doing so is putting pressure on them)  just to cover up their own inability to spare time for them is also becoming the route cause for all this rut.  

I can tell by my experience that if a person has self-discipline and self-control no one can get us into these habits with best of their persuasive powers.   No doubt at every stage of life people will try their best to offer (to begin with free of cost) and entice you to get into these habits and undoubtedly say playfully that you are old fashioned if you do not join their bandwagon but beyond one point they too realize that you are a tough nut to crack and give it up and start appreciating your habit of abstinence.        It is very easy to stand stead-fast and resist than getting into the habit then struggle to get out of it.   Whether it is 20s while working in a high salaried PSU job with all colleagues well settled in cozy jobs going berserk with all these habits, in 30s in Merchant Banking days going around India for press and brokers conferences in 5 star hotels where booze used to flow and at present working in hospitality industry with everything is on the house I never felt the temptation to be strong enough to give in.    On the contrary on many occasions, I found many of my colleges who were addicted to smoking and drinking, ruining their health and at advance age struggle to get rid of the habits.  

So it is a question of being strong by habits and character and resist the temptation rather than regretted later.  

S. Prabhakar

1.7.2012