Almost every girl and woman in India, married or unmarried wanted to marry Rajesh Khanna. From 1969 to 1974,he was India’s biggest superstar and remains to this day the biggest ever.
His overnight marriage to the barely-adolescent Dimple Kapadia shocked many, none more so than Khanna’s steady girlfriend Anju Mahendru.
How and why did the 31-year old superstar suddenly decide to marry a 15-year old girl recently made a star in a film called Bobby who suffered from a serious case of girl crush? Myth has it that Dimple decided she would marry the Superstar and none other, the minute she met him through her enterprising father businessman Chunnilal Kapadia.
Rajesh and Dimple were thrown together by her ambitious Dad and ..well.. the inevitable happened. During a seaside stroll the Superstar who induced mass hysteria by simply smiling, popped the question. Dimple was too young, too smitten to say a firm no. She giggled and accepted. The couple celebrated their decision to marry by throwing the ring that Dimple’s rumoured boyfriend Rishi Kapoor had given her into the sea.
That’s not all that Dimple threw away. She also chucked her promising career. After the spectacular success of Bobby she was the toast of the nation. But the ‘toast’ preferred the life of Mrs Rajesh Khanna. The wedding in 1973 invited the kind of attention only royalty gets. The marriage was a disaster from the beginning. Two daughters, and the couple decided to separate. They never divorced. But then what’s a piece of paper in a relationship that was doomed even before it started.
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