The director who saw the rise and fall of two Bollywood superstars

Forty- odd films in 41 years of active filmmaking featuring a virtual who’s who of Hindi film industry… only a genuinely great film director can achieve this distinction. Of course, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, whose 101st birth anniversary falls on August 27 was one.

A career which started in 1957 after a stint as editor and writer began with a film featuring Dilip Kumar and Kishore Kumar. In the next dozen-odd years he made films with Raj Kapoor, Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Dev Anand, Guru Dutt, Dharmendra, Ashok Kumar and Biswajeet.

His spotlight phase was when he was indirectly seen overseeing the rise and fall of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, in the 1970s, when these 30-something actors smoothly took over the mantle from the earlier troika of megastars. ‘Anand’ in 1971, saw a poignant performance by lead star Rajesh Khanna in which Amitabh Bachchan, then an up and coming actor was also featured.

Two years later, the wheels had turned a full circle and Amitabh Bachchan, fresh from the super success of ‘Zanjeer’ and ‘Abhimaaan’ had got closer to the top slot. In Namak Haraam, Khanna had the best Kishore Kumar songs and also the pathos-laden role but big B had made his arresting impact. Another example would illustrate the listing order better as Rajesh Khanna was featured in only one more film by Mukherjee, that too five years later in 1978, titled ’Naukri’ which also flopped. Till 1982, Bachchan remained the director’s preferred choice featuring in 5 films. The final 15 years saw him take up a big star only when his film featured Anil Kapoor in 1998 in ‘Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate’.

This is the centenary birth anniversary year of evergreen playback singer Mukesh, who died on August 27, 47 years ago. Fans will remember that it happened when he was abroad on a concert, which greatly distressed his supporters.

August 30 is the centenary birth anniversary of reputed lyricist Shailendra, whose lines became immortal with the voice of Mukesh and onscreen presence of Raj Kapoor in many of his films. The power of his writing was so effective that he made the music director duo, Shankar-Jaikishan recall his services when they failed to keep up their promise and made the former popular composers use his lines in a sung by Kishore Kumar, which goes like this….. ‘Chhoti Si Yeh Duniya, Pehchane Raaste Hai…