Amitabh Bachchan Rajesh Khanna Rivalry Start from Namak Haram

Rajesh Khanna was the first superstar of Bollywood. He was an actor who gave 15 consecutive superhit films from 1969 to 1971. This is a big record in itself. Even Amitabh Bachchan has not been able to break this record. Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna got along well in the beginning and were good friends. By the time Amitabh entered Bollywood, Rajesh Khanna had become a superstar.

Rajesh Khanna enjoyed a lot of stardom but after 1976, his charm started waning. In fact, during this period, many of his big films like Mahachaur, Bandalbaaz and Mehbooba flopped back to back at the box office.

During this time, Amitabh Bachchan was also struggling in Bollywood. Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan worked together in the 1971 film ‘Anand’. Amitabh Bachchan was very happy to work with superstar Rajesh Khanna in this film.

However, when the film was released, it was Rajesh Khanna who grabbed all the limelight. In fact, it is often seen that in a Hindi film where the hero dies in the end, he gets more sympathy than other actors. Same thing happened with the film Anand also. However, Amitabh Bachchan also got recognition from this film.

After this, Hrishikesh Mukherjee signed Amitabh Bachchan for two projects ‘Bavarchi’ and ‘Namak Haram’. Rajesh Khanna played the lead role in ‘Bawarchi’ and Amitabh Bachchan lent his voice in the film. Both of them had worked together in ‘Namak Haram’.

However, since the time of ‘Bawarchi’, Amitabh had started getting irritated with Rajesh Khanna. Actually, Jaya Bhaduri also played an important role in Bawarchi. During this time, discussions about the love between Amitabh and Jaya had also started.

Jaya Bhaduri also started getting irritated by this behavior of Rajesh Khanna. Jaya forbade Rajesh Khanna from doing so and said that the person you are making fun of will one day become a bigger superstar than you and at that time you will be of no use.

After this, Rajesh and Amitabh once again shared the screen in ‘Namak Haram’.

It is said that the character of Sonu played by Rajesh Khanna in this film was first offered to Amitabh and Rajesh Khanna was to play the role of Vicky. But when Rajesh Khanna came to know that a character named Sonu dies in the film, the thought of ‘Anand’ came to his mind. Then he put a condition in front of the film’s director Hrishikesh Mukherjee that he would only kill Sonu. Will play the character and if he does not get this role then he will not do the film.

Later Hrishikesh Mukherjee was forced to agree with Rajesh Khanna. When Amitabh Bachchan came to know that his role has been given to Rajesh Khanna, he was very angry. But he could not leave this film because his film ‘Zanjeer’ was not released in theatres.

However, as soon as Zanjeer was released, Amitabh Bachchan’s fortunes changed. He had become the angry man of Bollywood.

Now Amitabh’s era had started and his popularity had increased so much that Amitabh got the films for which Rajesh Khanna was selected.

Rajesh Khanna’s stardom was snatched away by Amitabh Bachchan in no time.