‘Scared’ Dimple Kapadia apologised with folded hands when Rajesh Khanna snapped at her: ‘Ab tum mujhe sikhaogi?’
Dimple Kapadia gave up on her acting career when she married superstar Rajesh Khanna. She was just a teenager when she married him in the 1970s, and he was twice her age. Their relationship fell apart over the next decade, during which Khanna’s career as a superstar spiralled into a decline. She left him in the 1980s and re-started her acting career. Despite the bad blood between them, Dimple supported Khanna as he embarked on a career in politics, and went on to star with him in the 1990 film Jai Shiv Shankar.
In an old interview with Rediff, she reflected on her decision to quit the movies after her blockbuster debut in Bobby, and recalled an anecdote about Khanna from when they reunited for the film Jai Shiv Shankar. “The film shaped up very well, but there were financial problems. One time he was not well while we were shooting and he was supposed to come out on the balcony and wave to the press. I handed him my shawl and sunglasses and told him nicely, ‘Kakaji, when you go out, don’t look straight, your side profile looks better.’” She continued, “He just looked up at me and said sternly, ‘Ab tum mujhe sikhaogi (Now you will teach me?).’ I got so scared, folded my hands and apologised (enacts the whole thing).”
Dimple Kapadia gave up on her acting career when she married superstar Rajesh Khanna. She was just a teenager when she married him in the 1970s, and he was twice her age. Their relationship fell apart over the next decade, during which Khanna’s career as a superstar spiralled into a decline. She left him in the 1980s and re-started her acting career. Despite the bad blood between them, Dimple supported Khanna as he embarked on a career in politics, and went on to star with him in the 1990 film Jai Shiv Shankar.
In an old interview with Rediff, she reflected on her decision to quit the movies after her blockbuster debut in Bobby, and recalled an anecdote about Khanna from when they reunited for the film Jai Shiv Shankar. “The film shaped up very well, but there were financial problems. One time he was not well while we were shooting and he was supposed to come out on the balcony and wave to the press. I handed him my shawl and sunglasses and told him nicely, ‘Kakaji, when you go out, don’t look straight, your side profile looks better.’” She continued, “He just looked up at me and said sternly, ‘Ab tum mujhe sikhaogi (Now you will teach me?).’ I got so scared, folded my hands and apologised (enacts the whole Dimple has spoken often about witnessing Khanna’s decline first-hand, and how it affected him. “It was my first encounter in life with failure,” Dimple told India Today after her comeback. “When a successful man goes to pieces, his frustration engulfs the entire surroundings. It was a pathetic sight when Rajesh waited at the end of the week for collection figures but the people didn’t have the guts to come and tell him.”
At a FICCI FLO event in Jaipur, conducted in 2019, Dimple was asked how she managed to raise her daughters Twinkle and Rinke to be decent people despite her personal troubles. She said, “She must have been all of seven or eight when I got separated. The kind of maturity… She was only wanting to take care of me, to see if I was okay, if everything was alright with me. There are lots of things I can’t say because of you know what…”
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