Haathi mere saathi rajesh khanna

Till Zanjeer (1973), Anand was Amitabh Bachchan's biggest achievement; and he wouldn't have got the film had it not been for fate. A name associated with flops, Bachchan wasn't even on the radar of Prakash Mehra or Salim-Javed. Had it not been for the horde of names that refused Zanjeer, they wouldn't have noticed him. Raaj Kumar, Dev Anand and perhaps even Dharmendra had refused the script that would eventually give Hindi cinema one of its most loved characters. Salim-Javed had followed up on the promise shown in Haathi Mere Saathi with Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) and Yaadon Ki Baraat, but were finding it difficult to get an established star for Zanjeer. It was Pran and Om Prakash - both of whom incidentally played important roles in Zanjeer - who pitched Amitabh Bachchan to Prakash Mehra. Mehra wasn't too kicked and asked the writers to take a look at Bachchan in Bombay to Goa (1972) which was playing at the time. The climatic action sequence convinced Javed Akhtar that Bachchan could, in fact, make for a very good Vijay and, to quote a clichè, the rest was history. Zanjeer was not the kind of story that one would associate with Khanna but, for the sake of argument, if Mehra could actually entertain the idea of Dev Anand being cast as Vijay, surely, the thought of Khanna as the lead isn't sacrilegious. But despite owing their break to the star, the writers never thought of Khanna for any film they wrote. According to Salim Khan, one of the reasons that Salim-Javed never profe...

Prem Chopra on how Rajesh Khanna became punctual on Haathi Mere Saathi sets He recalled an incident when he was shooting for the iconic Haathi Mere Saathi in Chennai. Prem added that Chinnappa Thevar, the producer of this movie, was a very strict individual and used to send a man to pick up Rajesh at 6 AM. Prem Chopra has played many memorable villain roles and entertained the audiences with his outstanding performance for decades. When Prem was asked how he was still working at the age of 87 years during an interview with Lehren, he replied that he exercises every day and go for physiotherapy. The actor recently revealed in the interview that Rajesh Khanna always used to reach the set late. The 87-year-old added that someone else used to face the repercussions of him being late. Prem said, “Rajesh Khanna was a misunderstood man by some people but he was very genuine where the work was concerned. The only problem with him was that if there was a 9 o’clock shift, he would come at 12.” He recalled an incident when he was shooting for the iconic Haathi Mere Saathi in Chennai. Prem added that Chinnappa Thevar, the producer of this movie, was a very strict individual and used to send a man to pick up Rajesh at 6 AM. Prem continued to say that even then, Rajesh would reach the set by 11 or 12 AM. He said that Thevar would beat and abuse the man after the arrival of Rajesh and ask him why he was late when they were paying him money. Prem added that Rajesh understood what was goin...

Life then was beautiful. Ram Chander was a likeable man. Inexplicably, he seemed unimaginably old. Every morning, he would bring his cycle-rickshaw, covered from all sides, to take me and a dozen other kids to school. We were all young, young enough to be in nursery or kindergarten; small enough for all to squeeze into the rickshaw with our bags and water bottles. Ram Chander was a wiry man with a nice little helipad. Every morning I would vie for the corner seat on his rickshaw, and often succeeded. This was as much to keep other kids from falling over me as to listen to Ram Chander’s songs which flowed thick and fast. As he pedalled across the lanes of Delhi, he would sing, “Chal chal mere haathi…”. To him, the rickshaw was the sole source of livelihood; he looked after it with love and care, hanging little balloons in the handle, little laces on the improvised windows. Over a time, I memorised the song too. Then one day, while coming back from school, he told all kids, “Aaj sham koi khelne nahi jaana. Aaj ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’ ayegi TV par.” Not everybody owned television. Ever a generous man, Ram Chander announced, “Agar kisi ke paas TV nahin hai, mere paas aa jana. Mere paas hai.” He lived in a one-room house where the only room had space for kitchen, bathroom and toilet. Yet he had squeezed in a television. I took his advice, only partly though. We did not have a television at home then. But “Haathi Mere Saathi” could not be missed. After all, it had an elephant in a ...