Anand Babu

Dear Readers,

                   Rajesh Khanna's demise has touched all of us and has brought back the memories of his golden years with a new fervor. All the TV news channels have been running special programs commemorating his life time achievements. The famous scene from the movie Anand in which Anand Sehgal breathes his last leaves our eyes moist despite the fact that it is shown repetitively. 

                  Whenever a big star of the tinsel town gets lost from our sight, his/her impressions form the past flash across our minds. As a first reaction, we feel the same sense of joy and being entertained which we usually experience whenever we watch those scenes or listen to those songs. However, on a second thought we realise that the protagonist of all this paraphernalia has departed from this world. We lament this loss in various capacities. We think that this entertainer is no more present amidst us. We speculate what his loss would mean to his loved ones. There is a strong emotional outburst in cases where we happen to be not just fans of that entertainer but associate a very important component of our persona with that actor. We come to acknowledge that that very part of us has died. This leaves us with a strong sense of pain and bereavement.

                   When Dev Anand sahab died I felt sad too. I got reminded of that masterpiece called Guide. The movie has many shots of Udaipur, my dream city. Besides that, the pathos of an impoverished young soul who has lost all that he had for the love of his life, to the extent that he is reluctant to re-enter his hometown, is brilliantly depicted in the opening song. "Musafir, jayega kahan". Tears rolled down my cheeks visualising my state of mind when I would be standing at the threshold of Jodhpur, my hometown, as a man who has failed in his life.

                  Rajesh Khanna's life makes me sad because of what I just mentioned above. We feel sad at the death of a famous actor when we relate to him in one way or the other. In this case, the loss aggravates my fears regarding a lonely death. Fears related to the cessation of a life which reached pinnacles of fame but then became ruthlessly lonesome buried under the burden of professional incapacity. Fears of losing all that I fancy and all that I might also achieve but eventually lose because of an innate self-obsession and self-conceit. May his soul rest in peace but today I cannot find that smiling lover inside me who can charm a damsel with a slight tilt of the neck.