Although I like to think that I'm different from most other women, I admit I wasn't different from anyone else when it came to this man. I had his posters in my dormitory at boarding school. I drew and painted him for friends, relatives and even strangers. I spent many an hour dreaming of how I'd meet him one day, what I'd say, how I'd feel. I remember my friends fighting over who'd be my personal secretary when I grew up and became Rajesh Khanna's co-star (Diana, Bena, Rita, are you reading this?).

I moved on to modelling, beauty contests, marriage, motherhood, complete un-blissful domesticity, and then writing and painting (in that order), till, 23 years after my schoolgirl crush, I met the man, who by then was no longer god, but a Member of Parliament.

I had gone with my sister to invite him to be the chief guest at an exhibition of my paintings. To say I was petrified would be an understatement. I had heard and read plenty of stories about his arrogance and rudeness and I was convinced I'd be shown the door within a minute. I almost was. He took me to be another society butterfly who'd come to meet him in the guise of an artist.

Khanna has had enough of these simpering types. ``Once a diamond-dripping socialite came to meet me an hour late. I was fuming when she entered. And what do you think she said? Oh, Mr Khanna, I got late because when I was leaving, my Toyota just wouldn't start. So I had to call my other driver to get my Mercedes instead,'' he said, laughing. ``I was supposed to be impressed with her Toyota and Mercedes. After five minutes, I showed her the door''.

To prove that I was indeed an artist, I pushed my album of paintings right under his nose. He was completely taken aback, with my paintings and my aggressive attitude. He flipped through the album slowly, then looked up and said: ``I can't believe that you've painted these. You don't look like a painter.'' Whatever I may have expected, I didn't expect this. My sister piped in: ``Of course she has. See the reviews and the write-ups she has got.'' Gradually, Khanna started thawing and we ended up spending an hour and a half with the man who had initially given me a 10-minute appointment. Since then, there has been no looking back. Khanna, or Kakaji, is a very good friend today. And in the many evenings he spent with us, we got to know the enigmatic star very well.

Kakaji admires Khushwant Singh, Shobha De and Kamala Das. He's also very prone to mood swings. One day, he may be talking as if there's no tomorrow, but the next day, it may be impossible to get a word out of him. And when he's in the right mood, there can be no one who's more articulate, intelligent, humorous or fabulous than he.

Few people can claim to really know him. Is he really arrogant and difficult? Was he a bad husband? Is he a violent man? These are questions my friends often ask. Well, he isn't easy to understand, that's for sure. He definitely wasn't cut out for a conventional marriage. For, where on earth is that woman who has it all -- beauty, brains, talent, softness, smartness, all this combined with a home-making spirit and who also will understand his unconventional mind? It's not that he was a bad husband or Dimple a bad wife. It's just that God Himself has to create `that special woman' for Kakaji. Even then, I doubt if she'll be good enough.

Many years ago, when I mentioned to Shobha De that Rajesh Khanna was to be the chief guest at my exhibition, she remarked: ``He's egocentric and difficult, yet strangely very likeable.'' She summed him up very aptly indeed. He has a self-imposed barricade around him that only those very close to him can break. But the loyalty and devotion he gets from his staff speaks volumes for the kind of person he is.

``What, according to you, is art?'' he had once asked. Before I could give an appropriate reply, he continued: ``A beggar on the road is not art, but, say, when Rajesh Khanna dons the garb of a beggar and performs well, that's art. Just as a beautiful woman or a beautiful photograph is not art. But when you pick up your paints and brush and create a thing of beauty on canvas, it becomes art. Reality is not art but your interpretation of reality, your flight of fantasy, that is art''.

So, when people think that all there is to Rajesh Khanna is a Dimple Kapadia or a Tina Munim or an Anju Mahendru -- or even outstanding performances in films like Daag or Avtaar -- they couldn't be farther from the truth. He's ahead and beyond all that now. There has never been and never can be another Rajesh Khanna, unless God decides to favour us by cloning him again and again and again!