‘Rajesh Khanna wanted Dimple Kapadia to stay at home, but she wanted to work,’ recalls veteran journalist: ‘She knew she was talented’

Actors Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia tied the knot in 1973 when she was just 16, and he was 32. While the couple never went through a formal divorce, they separated in 1984. Dimple got married when she had just made her debut, and her promising film career came to an immediate stop as Rajesh had banned her from working in films. However, this became a major cause of conflict between the two in later years. Rajesh spoke about the same after Dimple and him had separated and insisted upon the same.

Veteran journalist Pooja Samant who once interviewed Khanna in the 1980s, recalled the conversation she had with him, and what he said about his life with Dimple. She added that Khanna wanted the kind of marriage which was regarded as status quo back in the day, where the husband goes out to earn the bread, and the woman takes care of the house. She told Hindi Rush, “I don’t exactly remember all that happened during that interview, but I do know that at the time of getting married, Rajesh told Dimple that she has to take care of the household and his family. He was on the top of the game, and he was a superstar, and he wanted a wife that would take care of everything. He didn’t think that the household would be the same if his wife worked in films. Now people want both the partners to earn in order to sustain the house, but Rajesh did not need any more money. On the other hand, Dimple knew she was talented, and that’s why she wanted to work, and maybe that’s why they ultimately got separated.”

Before their separation, Dimple gave birth to two daughters: Twinkle and Rinke. Dimple eventually made a comeback in the movies in the 1980s with Ramesh Sippy’s Saagar. In the 1990s, she appeared in films like Rudaali, Lekin among others.

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During the same chat, Pooja also spoke about the craze for Rajesh Khanna where women would pick up the dirt from the street and put in on their head as sindoor. “There was a time when girls and women were crazy after him. Wherever he would go, the girls used to pick up the dirt on which he walked and use it as sindoor. I remember he was set to visit a garden in Santa Cruz, and this was during peak monsoon. People stood in the rain for hours just to see him,” she recalled.

Rajesh Khanna passed away in 2012 at 69.