Mahesh Bhatt recalls Vinod Khanna's state when he returned from Rajneesh's ashram: ‘He was too far gone'

Indian Express

27-04-2025

Eight years without Vinod Khanna?
It's been eight years since he left. But I still hear him—like the sea inside a shell—not because it speaks, but because I am stitched together with memories that stir whenever someone whispers his name. When he died, it was like the way stars vanish when the sun rises—quietly, unapologetically—as if even the light had grown tired of pretending.
Your closest friend?
Yes, I regret not looking into his eyes, not holding his hand as he melted into the abyss of time. Some debts can never be paid. As a dear writer friend once said, 'Insaaan apne karz chuka sakta hai, lekin ehsaan nahi.' His generosity watered my parched life, and made me live again.
Vinod Khanna starred in your first commercial film?
I carry the fondest memories of Lahu Ke Do Rang. Those days when we shot in Hong Kong, they still nourish me. Just the other day, my domestic help—a young woman from Darjeeling—smiled and said she had been a little girl when we filmed the Bappi Lahiri-composed song 'Pyaar Pyaar Pyaar' there. Her words threw me back—back into those enchanted, golden times.
Later the two of you went separate ways?
Later, life took us down stranger paths. After his mother's death shook him, he began searching for answers. And I, broken by my own failures, took him to Bhagwan Rajneesh's ashram in Pune. We would drive from shoots in his Mercedes, stay at the Blue Diamond, seeking some refuge in that mystical air.
Mahesh Bhatt with Vinod Khanna in an old photo.
You gave up on Rajneesh, he didn't?
When I turned away, he stayed—and then disappeared to Oregon. I even flew to America once, to try and bring him back. But he was too far gone. When the Rajneesh dream collapsed, he returned—broken. I met him again in a small flat opposite Jaslok Hospital.
What happened that evening?
We drank that evening till we were smashed. But he spoke little. The old fire was gone. He tried to find his footing in the movie world again, but the dizzying heights he had once scaled remained just beyond reach. He drifted into politics; I stayed with my stories.
No connection thereafter?
He would still call sometimes, usually late at night. His voice softened by a few drinks, still warm, still reaching across the years. Time had taken its toll. Distance had crept in. But the bond endured. And then—just like that came the bad news, as it often does these days. A journalist's voice on the phone: 'Vinod has passed away.' It hit me like a ton of bricks. Now, eight years later, what remains is not his fame, not the applause, but his silence, his charm, his lion-hearted generosity.
He was truly one of a kind. It was a privilege to have known him, to have walked some of life's road with him. And I can say with absolute certainty—I would not have been who I am without having encountered a man as large as Vinod Khanna.