Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan with their respective spouses, Jaya Bachchan and Dimple Kapadia. (Photo: Express Archive)

Late actor Rajesh Khanna’s fall from grace has been well-documented, with many of his contemporaries revealing how bitter he became over the years, once his career spiralled into a decline. Khanna delivered an unprecedented streak of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, and was seen as the greatest movie star of his era, and among the greatest of all time. But when his films started flopping, he refused to make adjustments. This contributed to the arrival of Amitabh Bachchan, who would go on to dominate the landscape for the next several years, with edgier social dramas that stood in stark contrast to the kind of movies Khanna starred in.

In an old interview, the late film journalist Ali Peter John recalled his many interactions with Khanna, and watching his decline from close quarters. “After his marriage to Dimple Kapadia, his career started going downhill, but he did not reduce his price or change his attitude,” he told Rediff. Khanna was particularly wary of Amitabh Bachchan, and would even go so far as to badmouth him to Jaya Bhaduri, who was seeing Bachchan at the time.

Khanna was so insecure of Bachchan, the journalist recalled, he once went to the terrace of his bungalow and ‘cried bitterly’. He would also try to dissuade Jaya from hanging out with him. “Kyun tum is aadmi ke saath ghumti ho? Tumhara kuch nahi hoga (Why are you going out with this man. He is not going to amount to much),” he told her.

 The Sharma family finds its rhythm, thanks to Raghu. (Photo: Express Archives)Despite this, they worked together on the film Bawarchi, but Khanna didn’t hold back. He would ‘insult’ Bachchan, and ignore him when he visited the film’s sets to meet Jaya. John said that he personally witnessed the incident that followed, when Jaya told Bachchan to not pay heed to Khanna’s misbehaviour. “Ek din dekhna yeh kahan hoga aur tum kahan hoge (One day you will see where he will be and where you will be),” she told him.

Khanna’s spiral never ended, and towards the end of his life, he was also offered a chance to appear on the reality show Bigg Boss. Even though he was reportedly offered Rs 3.5 crore per episode, he thought doing TV would be beneath him. When he changed his mind some days later, the channel had ‘lost interest’. In an interview with India Today, Dimple had recalled witnessing these insecurities first-hand. She walked out on him in the early 1980s, and restarted the career that she had stalled after marrying him.