Cast: Rajesh Khanna, Sana, Sudesh Berry

Director: Rakesh Sawant

The term superstar was coined for Rajesh Khanna. Everyone else, before him, was merely a star. He romanced his heroines much the same way as he fought cruel fate, and other inimical forces of nature: by crinkling his eyes, and charming the socks off the movie-going audience all through the 70s, and the very early 80s.

For votaries of the man, there was no one quite like him. And never has been. At the peak of his career, he appeared invincible. And then came the long, tall Amitabh Bachchan, and the legend of Rajesh Khanna started misting over. And all too soon, the first superstar of Hindi cinema faded into oblivion.

This Friday, he’s been resurrected. And how you wish he hadn’t, even if you were never a fan of the man who was more often than not a sum of his cutesy flourishes, rather than his acting skills.

In Wafaa, he sports dyed hair, pouched eyes, and old skin-desperately-trying-to-look-young. He speaks his dialogue with difficulty, often forgetting that he needs to look at the person he’s talking to. As a cuckold, he has to make nice with a buxom harlot who wears very few clothes, and takes her driver into her bed, saying such deathless lines as “love me, love me more, you are mine”.

This flick is the second directorial venture of Rakesh Sawant, brother of Rakhi, who fulfilled her sisterly duty by doing an item number in his maiden film. She didn’t have to flash any skin this time around, because all the women in the film parade around in their flimsies. Wafaa is soft porn masquerading as a film: Rajesh Khanna deserved a better epitaph.

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