Rajesh Khanna had to be rescued by paramilitary forces after fans in Pune jammed city for 7 hours, co-star recalls: ‘Women held on to tyre of his car’

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“No one has seen or experienced fame quite like Rajesh Khanna, and I have witnessed that with my own eyes. For example, we were shooting in Pune, and his call time was 2 pm, and he didn’t show up. He had a very different relationship with the director, Shakti Samanta. So when he finally arrived at 8 pm, Shakti sir got mad and said, ‘Kya kaka, tu kya bada star ban gaya hai?’ (What is all this? Do you think you are a very big star now?” said Puri.

Puri then revealed the reasoning behind Khanna’s tardy behaviour and said that because of the actor’s arrival, the entire city of Pune had come to a standstill. “Rajesh Khanna stopped him mid-sentence and said, ‘Ask my driver what happened.’ He told Samanta that he landed in Pune at 12:30, but somehow the public got to know of his arrival. From 12:30 to 7:30 in the evening, the entire city was jammed. He couldn’t move. Paramilitary forces had to come and rescue him. He told the director, ‘I’m lucky that I could reach at this hour, otherwise I wouldn’t have reached before 11,” he recalled.

Puri reiterated that despite being a highly revered actor, Khanna was always extremely kind to him and shared an anecdote of how the Anand actor made him feel comfortable during their first scene together. “No one will see this kind of fame ever again. I have seen women hold on to the tyre of his car and cry. They used to take the dust left behind from the car and apply it to their scalp in place of sindoor. I was nervous like hell when I shot with him for the first time, and I even forgot my first dialogue. He realised that I was nervous, so he stopped the shot, got the crew to write the dialogues around the set and told me, ‘Beta, mujhe bhi dialogue yaad nahi rehte’ (Son, even I don’t remember dialogues),” Puri remembered with a smile.