When Rajesh Khanna made his Hindi film debut in 1966 with Aakhri Khat, a low budget film, few paid attention. Even fewer must have imagined that the 23-year-old would go on to become the first ever superstar of the Hindi film industry and cause mass hysteria of epic, unprecedented levels. Avikit Ghosh's piece, The God Of Romance, in the book Bollywood Top 20: Superstars of Indian Cinema charts the dramatic rise and tragic fall of the Bollywood's first superstar. Here's presenting an excerpt from the essay:

A lot happened in Bombay cinema in 1966. Dharmendra bared his beefcake torso and scored both at the box office and with heroine Meena Kumari in Phool Aur Pathar. Shammi Kapoor, despite a protruding paunch, danced like a dervish to the boisterous tunes of R D Burman in Teesri Manzil. And lyricist Shailendra produced a classic, Teesri Kasam; the movie's failure broke his heart, took his life.

Few paid attention to Aakhri Khat, a low-budget quickie that, in hindsight, appears to be a precursor to Hollywood's cutesy 1994 box office smash, Baby's Day Out. Directed by Chetan Anand (of Neecha Nagar and Haqeeqat fame), the movie was weaved around the escapades of a fifteen-month-old wandering the city streets and vanished like smoke in the wind.

The only thing that endures in popular memory is the melodious track, Baharon mera jeewan bhi sanwaron (gorgeously rendered by the combined talents of Lata Mangeshkar, Kaifi Azmi and Khayyam), that Vividh Bharati plays to this day. The film's hero was a twenty-three-year-old debutant named Rajesh Khanna; it was his reward for winning the United Producers Talent Contest. He played a city-based sculptor who falls in love with a gaon ki gori. She conceives after a hesitant sexual union-as innocent belles invariably did in 1960s' Hindi movies. Complications arise; they separate.

When the hero comes to know through her aakhri khat that his beloved is somewhere in the city with his child, he desperately looks around. The role required the young actor to showcase an array of emotions -- ­tenderness, anxiety, guilt, frustration and he wasn't found wanting. Excerpted with the permission of Penguin Books India from the book Bollywood Top 20: Superstars of Indian Cinema by Bhaichand Patel. Penguin Viking/ Rs 599.

Image: Movie poster of Aakhri Khat