Veteran actor and Gurudaspur MP Vinod Khanna passed away on Thursday in Mumbai. The actor, who was part of several Bollywood hits like Amar Akbar Anthony and The Burning Train, was admitted to the HN Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Gurgaon, Mumbai recently.
His life story is nothing short of a Bollywood script. A handsome young man who left everything at the peak of his career to attain ‘Nirvana’, he returned and conquered Bollywood again. He truly was an enigma and his fans did not just admire his acting, but the way he lived his life.
Khanna debuted in 1968 with Man Ka Meet and is best remembered for his performance in films like Mere Apne, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Imitihaan, Inkaar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Lahu ke Do Rang, Qurbani, Dayavaan and Jurm. He was last seen in the Shah Rukh Khan starrer 2015 film Dilwale.
However, Khanna shocked his ardent fans when he decided to quit Bollywood to follow the path of his guru Osho Rajneesh. That too at a time when he was fresh from the blockbuster success of Feroz Khan’s Qurbani and The Burning Train. Especially after Qurbani, many film critics were of the opinion that if there is one actor who could dethrone Amitabh Bachchan from his Numero Uno position, that was Vinod Khanna, a fact even Mahesh Bhatt revealed while talking to an online source.
But Vinod had something else in mind. According to senior journalist Bhawana Somaya for Quint, “When the news first reached our ears, nobody took it seriously and it was dismissed as a crazy rumor. But slowly, as days went by, directors confided that he had stalled all his new projects indefinitely and producers confirmed that Vinod Khanna was returning signing amounts. This was indeed serious!”
After a sabbatical, Vinod Khanna returned to filmdom with films like Mukul Anand’s Insaaf, Feroz Khan’s superhit Dayavan, Mahesh Bhatt’s Jurm, and Yash Chopra’s Chandni. He was involved in successful films but couldn’t touch the peak that he once left in the early 80s.
The veteran actor’s demise has sent shock waves through the industry, and as a mark of respect, the premiere of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion in Mumbai has been cancelled. Distributor of the Hindi dubbed version of SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2, Karan Johar, took to Twitter to make the announcement. He wrote, “As a mark of respect to our beloved Vinod Khanna the entire team of Baahubali has decided to cancel the premiere tonight...”
Khanna joined politics in 1997 and was elected from Gurdaspur on a BJP ticket in the following year’s Lok Sabha poll. During the time of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, he became Union minister for culture and tourism in 2002. Later, he became a minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs. Khanna lost the 2009 election, but was elected again from Gurdaspur in 2014.
He married Geetanjali Khanna in 1971, but was divorced and remarried again in 1990, this time with Kavita Khanna. He is survived by three sons and one daughter - actors Akshaye Khanna and Rahul Khanna, as well as the younger Sakshi Khanna and Shraddha Khanna.