Three Flops and a Turning Point: Rajesh Khanna, 1976, and the End of an Era

In the annals of Indian cinema, certain years transcend box-office arithmetic and assume the weight of cultural turning points. They becom...

In the annals of Indian cinema, certain years transcend box-office arithmetic and assume the weight of cultural turning points. They become moments when popular taste mutates, when stardom is redefined, and when once-invincible icons confront history itself. For Rajesh Khanna—the first and most elemental superstar of Hindi cinema—1976 was such a year. It was not merely a year of commercial reversals; it was the symbolic end of an era. And yet, paradoxically, it was also the year that sealed his immortality, ensuring that even his failures would be remembered, debated, and written about with the intensity reserved for legends.

 

The Unthinkable Collapse of an Unprecedented Star

 

Before 1976, Rajesh Khanna’s stardom bordered on the mythical. Between 1969 and the early 1970s, he delivered an unmatched streak of fifteen consecutive solo hits. His persona—romantic, sensitive, emotionally accessible—redefined masculinity in Hindi cinema. He was not merely a successful actor; he was a cultural phenomenon. His smile could generate hysteria, his songs became confessions of a generation, and his screen presence felt intimate in a way no star before him had managed.

 

Against this backdrop, the notion that Rajesh Khanna could deliver three major flops in a single year was unimaginable. Yet 1976 produced precisely that rupture: Maha Chor, Bundalbaaz, and Mehbooba. These were not ill-conceived or low-budget projects. On paper, they carried everything associated with Khanna’s golden touch—lavish production values, R.D. Burman’s music, and leading ladies at the height of their popularity. Their collective failure signalled not a lapse in Khanna’s abilities, but a far more consequential shift in the emotional contract between star and audience.

 

Maha Chor: Style Without Resonance

 

Directed by Narendra Bedi, Maha Chor was a slick, stylish thriller that attempted to package Rajesh Khanna in a suave, playful avatar. The film featured Neetu Singh and leaned heavily on glamour, intrigue, and visual flourish. R.D. Burman’s soundtrack was typically vibrant, adding to the film’s surface appeal.

 

Yet Maha Chor felt curiously hollow in its moment. Its emphasis on caper-like charm and polished escapism clashed with an audience increasingly drawn to moral conflict and social tension. The cleverness of the narrative could not compensate for its emotional disconnect. In a time when viewers were responding to raw anger and systemic injustice, Maha Chor seemed ornamental—entertaining but irrelevant. It became one of the first clear signs that Khanna’s trademark charm, once revolutionary, was losing its grip on the collective imagination.

 

Bundalbaaz: Fantasy in a Time of Fury

 

Perhaps the most telling miscalculation of 1976 was Bundalbaaz, directed by Shammi Kapoor himself. A fantasy-comedy inspired loosely by Arabian Nights, the film saw Rajesh Khanna sharing space with a flamboyant Shammi Kapoor, with Sulakshana Pandit as the female lead. The film relied on whimsy, special effects, and broad humour—elements that might have found favour in an earlier, lighter cinematic climate.

 

But 1976 was not a year for fantasy. The country was emerging from the psychological chokehold of the Emergency, and audiences were increasingly impatient with frivolity. Bundalbaaz appeared almost oblivious to the prevailing national mood. Its playful tone and escapist ambitions felt tone-deaf at a time when cinema was becoming a site of emotional release and social commentary. The failure of Bundalbaaz underscored a harsh truth: the audience no longer wanted to escape reality; it wanted to confront it.

 

Mehbooba: The Most Poignant Failure

 

Of the three films, Mehbooba remains the most symbolically significant—and the most tragic. Directed by Shakti Samanta, the man who had introduced Rajesh Khanna to superstardom with Aradhana and reinforced it with classics like Kati Patang, Amar Prem, and Ajanabee, Mehbooba was conceived as a grand romantic spectacle. Starring Hema Malini and built around reincarnation, doomed love, and lush production values, it echoed the emotional universe that had once made Khanna unbeatable.

 

R.D. Burman’s music was haunting and evocative, and the film was mounted on an epic scale. In an earlier decade, Mehbooba might have been a massive success. Instead, it became an emblem of a formula that had overstayed its moment. While the film managed a “forced silver jubilee” in Calcutta—testimony to lingering pockets of devotion—it failed to resonate nationwide. Its very ambition worked against it: the grand romanticism that once defined Khanna’s appeal now seemed excessive, even indulgent, to an audience hardened by social and political upheaval.

 

That Mehbooba—a collaboration between Khanna and his most important creative ally—marked such a decisive commercial failure lent the moment a cruel sense of finality.

 

A Nation, a Cinema, and a New Hero

 

The failure of these films cannot be understood without acknowledging the broader transformation of Hindi cinema and Indian society. By 1976, Zanjeer, Deewar, and Sholay had already reprogrammed audience expectations. Amitabh Bachchan’s “angry young man” articulated a collective rage born of unemployment, corruption, and political disenchantment. His characters did not woo the world; they confronted it.

 

Rajesh Khanna’s cinema, rooted in emotional surrender and romantic idealism, suddenly felt misaligned. It was not that audiences rejected him personally; they rejected what he symbolised. The shift was not aesthetic alone—it was existential. Hindi cinema had moved from longing to defiance, from love songs to protest anthems.

 

The Failure That Became Legend

 

And yet, half a century later, Rajesh Khanna’s flops from 1976 are discussed with remarkable intensity. This itself is evidence of a stardom so overwhelming that even its collapse became historic. Few actors inspire such scrutiny of their failures. Lesser stars fade quietly, their unsuccessful films dissolving into obscurity. Khanna’s missteps remain alive because his ascent was once so absolute that its decline became a story worth telling.

 

His downfall is remembered not with ridicule, but with reverence. It marks the end of one cinematic age and the birth of another. In that sense, Rajesh Khanna did not merely lose his crown in 1976—he completed his myth. His rise and fall together form one of the most compelling arcs in Indian film history.

 

Beyond Hits and Flops

 

Ultimately, Rajesh Khanna’s legacy is untouched by the arithmetic of 1976. True superstardom is measured not by uninterrupted success, but by emotional permanence. That his flops are still analysed, defended, and debated decades later is proof that he remains unmatched in cultural memory.

 

1976 (which is 50 years ago) ended Rajesh Khanna’s reign—but it also ensured his eternity. In losing his dominance, the first superstar gained something far rarer: a place in history where even failure is remembered as part of greatness.

 

By Pratik Majumdar (author: Love Coffee Murder and 1975 The Year That Transformed Bollywood)