Rajesh Khanna -- the death of a super star

Do super stars (or for that matter actors and artists) really die?

A moot question, especially when one considers that they are larger than life and part of the make-believe and fantasy, love and romance, histrionics and dramatics and generally escapist world of films?

And, that every role that they may have essayed every film that they super starred in are part of popular culture, (available more or less as and when we want to relive them) and also living in our memories?

I don't really think so; and I also think that when one chooses to be an artist, one chooses to live for a "body of work" and that life subsumes the mortal one.

Either way, in my own peculiar case, Rajesh Khanna hasn't died and will live in my memories and resonate in my being through all those unforgettable songs he starred in, those songs to which he emoted as the one and only Rajesh Khanna could have, as only a superstar could have.

In my peculiar case, my name itself resonates with Rajesh Khanna's most well known movie and it is a song from that movie

...kabhi jab yoon huyin bojhal saanse,
bhar aaye baithey baithey,
jab yoon hi aankhen 
kabhi machal ke, pyaar se chal ke,
chuyey koyi mujhey par nazar na aaye, nazar naa aye...

that comes closest to haunting me, in a sad yet, in its own truthfully welcome way.

And then, while we are on this topic, a confession too -- I haven't yet seen Anand entirely; somehow missed it on the TV on DD whenever it came and never got around to seeing it on DVD, etc.

Maybe someday soon, for the aforementioned song, for the story, for the dramatics and melodrama, and for the lovely song --

Jindagi kaisi hai paheli, haaye
kabhi to hansaye kabhi ye rulaye..

Someday soon, someday soon...

While on this -- what was Rajesh Khanna the person like -- after all he was flesh and blood like most of us too, a considerate human being, a great husband, a good father, etc.?

I wouldn't know, you wouldn't know, but seems like Gautam Kaul did and it makes for compelling reading too. I first thought this to be in bad taste and not really worth publishing, so soon after Rajesh Khanna's demise.

But then, I realised such articles would anyway not hurt the dead, they are beyond all hurt. And then again, in all probability Gautam Kaul is just chronicling things "not that well known" about Kaka.

Read it here.