RIP Vinod Khanna

It was the Macho Man vs the Angry Young man in the late 70s Bollywood. The Macho Man was Vinod Khanna who gave some competition and run for money to the rising popularity of Angry Young man Amitabh Bachhan.

Both were tall handaome heroes of the time, though Vinod Khanna was more muscular and Amitabh the taller of the duo. But the later had the last laugh in the big hit MUKADDAR KA SIKANDAR (The master of fate) clinched his Superstardom in 1979, propelling towards being the "One Man Industry". 

The competition fizzles out as Vinod Khanna stunned Bollywood to leave for Oregon, US live in the ASHRAM (Commune) of the controversial Guru of Indian origin - Baba Rajnish, a lecturer in Philosophy from an obscure college in Gujarat and a skilled orator better known as OSHO with his famous motto of "Salvation through Sex".

But Karma caught of with Rajnish. The free sex doctrine by a man living with a fleet of 99 Rolls Royce Cars without paying a single penny from his pocket for them, was frowned upon by the officials.

 Reagan's administration tolerated Rajnish's cult culture for sometime before banishing him at a short notice in 1985. It forced Vinod Khanna back to his motherland.

Post Rajnish, he made couple of decent movies as far as I can remember. One of them SATYAMEVA JAYATE (Truth Always wins) where he played an upright policeman who thinks he is jilted by his lover. The second one was DAYAVAAN ( The Benevolent) where he donned himself as a rag to rich done (A remake of Kamal Hassan's iconic Tamil movie NAAYAKAN). Then he fizzled away from doing leading character roles, continuing to do smaller roles till date.

Vinod Khanna dabbled in politics and was a BJP MP from Gurdaspur, Punjab. Unlike most Members of Parliament from the Cine world who have scant regards for our legislative process and scant attendance in the houses, he did a decent role. (Bollywood actors have a poor history as members of legislative bodies. Notable was Govinda who was an MP was pelted with stones and rotten eggs by his constituents post the Mumbai floods of 2005).

He may not have got the following of the other Khanna, the romance king Rajesh, the status of the tragic hero Dillip Kumar or the Mega star status of Amitabh. But he did carve his niche, and more importantly and different from most of his Bollywood counterparts, did a decent service to the society. RIP Vinod Khanna.