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Vijaya Pushkarna
Vijaya Pushkarna

CINEMA

Vinod Khanna: The eternal charmer

vinod-khanna3 (File) Vinod Khanna with supporters | Aayush Goel

Years ago—was it 1979 or 80?—Vinod Khanna, then on a break from films, arrived in Chandigarh clad in Osho-style dress, to meet and address the followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh, as Osho was called then. Two of us journalists went to interview him. His communication skills were fabulous, and he engaged with us more like friends than as mediapersons. He invited us for dinner at Oberoi Mountview, which is now Chandigarh Mountview. A starstruck me landed there, to find him already there. Whoever said all stars had airs? And what happened thereafter is stuff that will occupy a place of pride in every young girl's diary. The other journalist could not join us for dinner. And I had dinner with Vinod Khanna! It was not an era of cellphones and selfies! All I recall is how good he looked, and how excited—no starstruck—I was.

Years later, I saw him in Pathankot, as part of the Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency where he was the BJP candidate, taking on a five-time Congress MP and a very popular leader in the district, Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder. Her husband was a former police chief of Punjab, and was said to be close to Sanjay Gandhi during the infamous Emergency. But since she jumped into politics, he had helped recruit hundreds of boys from the district into the Punjab Police. For other work she did too, she was extremely popular.

But with Khanna came a star power Bhinder could not match. Men, women and children, cutting across the age divide, flocked to see him, hear him, but seriously to see him. His glares, stole thrown around him, folded hands that are a must for candidates seeking votes, and Punjabi speeches... Khanna was a runaway hit , no less than... say in Dayavaan.

Whatever little wooing of voters was left, Khanna's son, Akshay did.

It was 1998, and J.P. Dutta's blockbuster hit Border was a film people in Gurdaspur district saw many times. It was based on the story of the Battle of Longowal, in Punjab. Among its many stars was Akshay. The film's patriotism and nationalism-oozing song, with its brooding melancholy, talking of the soldiers' separation from families and beloveds waiting, yearning for them, rent the air all over Gurdaspur. “Sandese aatein hain... Ghar kab aaoge” (Messages come... when will you come home?)

The young star was seen with his father on a few days of campaign. Khanna trounced Bhinder, and there was no looking back.

Gurdaspur has a lot of faujis. And it is home to starstruck people. Remember, it is from here Dev Anand moved to Bombay to try his luck in Hindi films. Having elected him, many thought their future too lay in the film industry!

Khanna had promised, among many things, that a film institute along the lines of the one in Pune will be set up. He was elected many times since, but there is no film institute in Punjab. He hardly resided in his constituency, though his wife Kavita seems to have connected with the people there, listening to them personally when she, with her children, holidayed in the salubrious and picturesque Dalhousie nearby. But when one is as charming as Vinod Khanna was, people are willing to forgive.

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Topics : #Bollywood

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