'Anand Mara Nahin...': How Rajesh Khanna's Legacy Continues To Echo Outside Amitabh Bachchan's Jalsa

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan lives in a bungalow called Jalsa. It’s the most-iconic address in Mumbai city, obviously because it houses the living legend. Every Sunday evening, it is outside this bungalow with cream walls, that have Warli art sketches on it and brown, imposing gates, that the Big B does his Sunday darshan routine.

Anand remains eternal

Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna did two films that are evergreen. One is Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand (1971), and the second is Mukherjee’s Namak Haraam (1973). And Bachchan, who was called “babu-moshai” by Anand (Khanna) in the film Anand, had a dialogue that went, “Anand mara nahin, Anand marte nahin.” Now, it seems like a prophecy come true. Khanna continues to “haunt” Bachchan in a good way, though.

Here’s how the current story plays out

Diametrically opposite the Bachchan abode and just a few metres across, where Indian cinema’s biggest legend gives darshan to crazy crowds, week on week, are two buildings named Aashirwad and Aaradhana. The late Rajesh Khanna, aka Kaka’s, bungalow on Carter Road, Mumbai, was called Aashirwad. In Kaka’s lifetime, this bungalow too had seen its share of the limelight because he was a phenomenon in the 70s. Also, Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana (1969) is one of Khanna’s most iconic films.

Building names that have a nostalgia value

Aaradhana and Aashirwad, permanent structures, bang opposite Jalsa, give Bachchan no escape from remembering his arch-rival of the 70s. Of course, at the fag end of Khanna’s career, when Bachchan dominated Hindi cinema, the two actors did become civil with one another and even did a photo shoot together.

Abhi, the Bachchans and Khannas have no ill-will

It is ironic that Bachchan’s daughter Shweta Nanda is good friends with Kaka’s younger daughter, Rinke Saran. Dimple Kapadia and Jaya Bachchan share a bond, thickened by their common friends — couture duo Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla. And, though Twinkle never saw eye-to-eye with the Bachchan khandaan, Akshay Kumar is on extremely cordial terms with the Big B. In recent times, Bachchan’s grandson Agastya Nanda romanced Simar Bhatia, Akshay Kumar’s niece, in the film, Sriram Raghavan’s war drama Ikkis. In other words, the screen rivalry between Amitabh and Rajesh Khanna stands buried deep. It’s more anecdotal now. So there you have it, a heartwarming nostalgic chord for true filmy buffs.