'Vinod Khanna was a family man first, career came second'

'Though he was senior to me, our careers were uncannily similar: villain, then hero, then politician for the BJP... We made all the transitions together.'

Shatrughan Sinha pays rich tribute to Vinod Khanna.

"I am in a state of shock. I am unable to express myself properly," says Shatrughan Sinha.

The actor is quite overwhelmed with his co-star of many films Vinod Khanna's death on April 27.

In fact, Khanna was much more than a co-star to him.

"He was a colleague and friend. Salman Khan and I were planning to visit him together after Salman's world tours were over," Sinha says.

He visited Khanna at the hospital recently at the Sir H N Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Mumbai, where the actor was being treated for bladder cancer.

"But he was fast asleep. I met his brother and three sons and spent time with them," Sinha says.

Vinod and Shatrughan go back a long way. "Though he was senior to me, our careers were uncannily similar: villain, then hero, then politician for the BJP... We made all the transitions together.

"It was said that there were only two villains in Hindi cinema for whom the audience clapped when they roughed up the hero -- Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha," he adds.

"We did one of our earliest and most important films together, Gulzar's Mere Apne, where we were pitched as friends and enemies," he continues. "Vinod went on to do many other films with Gulzarsaab. They had a rapport.

"I was reunited with Vinod for a buddy film called Do Yaar and then we did Bombay 405 Miles and many other films together. It was always a great pleasure working with Vinod. There was never a sense of competitiveness, rivalry or one-upmanship between us," he says. "He never felt threatened by any actor. He was supremely secure in his own space, so secure that he took a five-year break from acting to live in Oregon with Acharya Rajneesh. When he came back, he was welcomed with open arms. It was as though he was never gone."

He will always remember Vinod as 'one of my most favourite colleagues'.

"My heart reaches out to his family. His three sons are all such fine boys. Vinod was very proud of his children. He was a family man first, career came second," he says.

Photograph: Pradeep Bandekar

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