Published date: 4th Mar 1976, Hi Newspaper

“I Think I’ve Just Been Lucky”

“I’M what some people call a teenage star. But re- ally. I think I’ve just been lucky. I’m told that I was born on the night of Dec- ember 28. 1951, precisely at the moment the first star appeared in the sky over Bombay. If so, that star was a good omen because many wonderful, surprising and unexpected things have happened to me.”

So runs the introduction to the book SAJID KHAN – This is my story. Supposed to be an “intimate, revealing self-portrait by Ameri- ca’s sensational new teen idol .. . “. it costs $1.00, and contains “more than 50 candid photographs.”

America’s sensational teen idol is a stranger to many of us, however. From his humble beginnings in ‘Do Ta kl’. Duncan Road, to Mehboob Khan’s ‘Shalimar’, to the United States and five star-spangled years there, and back to relative obscurity in a house that looks like a movie set on Warden Road, Sajid Khan has travelled a long way.

Ten minutes after reaching his place, I sat down to lunch with Sajid. The lunch was fantastic and I lost my appetite for an interview. We got up from the table and Sajid announced that he had in his bathroom a cake of soap that had belonged to the Nizam of Hyderabad and was half a century old. He’d bought it at an auction He added that he had enough soap for the next decade. I tried the soap and found It smelt like half a century.

Sajid suggested we talk on a spacious, tree-shaded balcony. We sat down and Sajid, “Saj or Sajy to millions of teen-boppers all over the U.S.”, looked at me like I was a ghost from Duncan Road. I asked him to tell me about his life ..

“I was two and a half years old when one day Mehboob Khan – he’s the man who has built up Indian cinema . . . his death was tragic … the best person I’ve ever known – sent his emissaries in search of a little boy to act in his Mother India. They met Douglas – he was a famous stuntman in Hin- di movies and stayed on Duncan Road and doubled for Dillp Kumar-and Doug- las told them about the little kid staying at ‘Do Takl’. The next thing I remember. I was in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India.”

Sajid played the young Sunil Dutt in Mother India. Mehboob Khan had “adopted” him, and added him to his five children. That’s how Saj made the transition from ‘Do Taki’ to Meh- boob Khan’s ‘Shalimar’, on Marine Drive; “next to Morarji Desai’s house.”

A couple of years later, Saj had grown into the Mehboob family and the Mehboob Studios, and Douglas and his Tippu Sultan Club for fighters was a hazy memory. But he can even now recall Douglas doing the train-jumping scene in Mr. Rex In Bombay, “some- where near Marine Lines station.”

HE remembers hardly anything about his parents. In This is my story, he says “Because my parents were so poor, they were grateful that their son might have a chance to live a better life.” How he reached this profound conclusion at the age of two and a half is a mystery.

Sajid Khan acted in another of Mehboob’s pictures, Son of India. Then. In February 1964, he was sent to school in Panchgani. Mehboob Khan died on 27th May 1964. Sajid read about it in a newspaper, and he says: “I’m not very clear on the next few hours, I know I cried . . .

In 1965, the King brothers came to India in search of a boy to play the role of Raji in Maya. Once again. “I think I’ve just been lucky” Sajid was chosen to play the role, and so, In December 1965, he left with Mrs. Mehboob Khan for the USA

In early 66 Sajid was once again taken from the Panchgani school and sent to America to do an eighteen-episode television serial on Maya. The serial, shown every Saturday on NBC Tv, shot Sajid and his Ameri- can co-star Jay North Into every fan magazine in the States. Soon after, on the advice of the King brothers, he left India for good. He was 16 when he landed in California.

Life In the United States was strange to Sajid Khan, son of Mehboob Khan, But he “settled in”, joined school there, and became an average American teenager, He also “met American girls for the first time”, and dis- covered that “girls were not only alive,” but that he “liked them.” He was flooded with fan mail and marriage proposals, He learnt to date to order dinner to ice-skate and swim and play base-ball.

He sang too – his acting had plummeted to rock bottom (the Maya serial had for some reason been cancelled), but he appeared regularly in tv production, participated in school plays, and sang. He made quite a few album beginning with “Getting To Know You,” and sang at concert One of his song goes : “Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Hay Ram Pyarra Ram Ram Pyarra Ram Pyarra Ram . . . .

In this country, people would call it a ‘bhajan’. But over there, they swung to it at the “Whiskey A Go Go” disco In Beverly Hills.

Sajid came back to Mother India in 1971. He wasn’t particularly interested in acting then, but now he is. He co-starred with Rehana Sultan and Kiran Kumar in Savera, but his career didn’t emerge from Its andhera. Savera he got through the good offices of “Nargis (Dutt) Mummy”. He told me, while a Jeevesish character served us cake, that Savera’s director V K. Sharma had come to him with his offer “smell- Ing of lavang.” He was im- pressed by the lavang, he says, but later discovered Sharma had “been disguising the fact that he had had a few drinks.”

Last December, his Zindagi Aur Toofan was released in Bombay. Originally titled Meri Kashti, the film died in two weeks. “Because of the Film Festival,” Sajid told me. Z Aur T, he said, “is running to packed houses in Delhi, where I have a lot of fans.” Such movies! always do.

A few of Sajid’s friends were admiring some other boxes of soap he had bought from the Nizam’s estate. “Isn’t it fascinating?” he asked me Then he went on to describe the Nizam’s carpets “They stretched from her to there.” he said, pointing to Breach Candy.

The secretary told me the films Sajid was doing – Mandir Masjid opposite Yogeeta Bali, Dharam Aur Imaan opposite Priyadarshini, Mere Desh Ki Dharti opposite Reeta Bhanduri Sultan-e-Hind opposite Sona (“a newcomer”) and fin- ally Rampuri opposite no one (“the cast hasn’t been finalised.”)

I decided I had enough dope on Sajid Khan, and got up Do leave. He showed me to the door. I left in dejection. I hadn’t been able to nip into Sajid’s bathroom and wash my hands a second time with the Nizam’s Soap