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During a joint interview with Amitabh Bachchan from the May 1990 issue of Movie magazine, Rajesh Khanna spoke about the exact moment when he realized what success did to him read more
 "'I became aware of how mind-blowing...'")
India’s first superstar Rajesh Khanna, who still holds the record of giving 17 consecutive hits, revealed he felt that he was next to god because of his superstardom and success.
During a joint interview with Amitabh Bachchan from the May 1990 issue of Movie magazine, Rajesh Khanna spoke about the exact moment when he realized what success did to him.
“I felt next to God! I still remember the exact moment when, for the first time, I became aware of how mind-blowing success can be. It psyches you totally — or you are not human? It was just after Andaaz (1971), at a lottery draw held at the Vidhan Sabha in Bangalore…,” said Khanna.
When Big B said, “We were working together, in fact, when you had gone there,” Rajesh responded, “Yeah. And I remember because Andaz ka premiere tha wahan. One couldn’t see anything but heads bobbing down the whole road, which was almost 10 miles long. And there was just one echo of the voices – ‘Haaaaa’ You know, it was like a stadium from the time of the Romans. I wept like a baby. I am very surprised, Amit, that success and failure leave you untouched. I mean, I am not a superhuman being. You are not Jesus Christ and I am not Mahatma Gandhi. I remember that once at three in the morning, I was pretty high on spirits and, suddenly, it was too much for me to stomach because it was my first taste of failure. One after another, seven films had flopped in a row. It was raining, pitch dark and up there alone on my terrace, I lost control. I yelled out, Parvardigar, hum gareebon ka itna sakht imtihaan na le ki hum tere vajood ko inkar kar de,’ (Don’t test my patience to such an extent that I question your existence.). Dimple (Kapadia) 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. I remember the next day, Balaji (a South producer) offered me Amar Deep (1958) out of the blue. It gave a second lease to my career.”
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English (US) ·