Avtaar

While Amitab Bachan had ushered an era of action movies riddled with violence and was flying high as a top notch Bollywood icon; there was still some beacon light left in Rajesh Khanna to attract the cine-goers with a real life sentimental social drama which proved to be a Box office hit.

Although the ephemeral limelight stolen by Rajesh Khanna in 1983 with the simultaneous release of "Souten" and "Agar Tum Na Hote" was short lived, still he portrayed a convincingly strong role in Avtaar, when many a times he mesmerizes the audience with his originality while sublimely touching the latent strings of anguished vibes/feelings.

Mohan Kumar as director had the greatest hit of his career with the release of Avtaar. Although, Naseeruddin Shah performed very well in Masoom the same year and won the National Award, it would not be out of place to suggest that Rajesh Khanna was an equally strong contender for this award.

To recapitulate, in 1972 Rajesh Khanna was unjustly superseded by Manoj Kumar for the National Filmfare Best Actor Award for "BeIman", a crappy movie instead of the romantic, evocative and memorable portrayal by Rajesh in "Kati Patang". Nevertheless, just and fair things don't always happen in this imperfect world. The times and response of the audience is a bitter judge of decisions made with a twisted conscience.