Sports-freak & filmy legend Amjad 'Gabbar' Khan's weight gain triggered his downfall

Farhana Farook
·Columnist
·10-min read

“Kitne aadmi the?”

"Tera kya hoga Kaalia?”

“So ja beta, nahin to Gabbar aa jayega!”

“Jo darr gaya samjho marr gaya!”

Bristly and boorish, menacing buckle in hand, he cut a coarse figure against the sun-scorched terrain… Rough as the rocks that hosted him. High on tobacco and tyranny. Brute in payback. Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh in Sholay was savage stardom.

Ironically, Gabbar Singh was so gigantic that it dwarfed whatever the talented Amjad Khan attempted later in his two-decade career. This was the first tragedy of his life. “People don’t talk about any role that my father did. It’s always Gabbar Singh. He’d tell me, ‘I started at 25 floors and couldn’t go any higher because I had started too high’,” son Shadaab Khan once rued the predicament (rediff.com).

The second was the grave accident he met with in 1975. It encumbered him with unruly weight and subsequent health challenges that hampered him as an actor.

The third tragedy was his untimely demise at 51, leaving behind uncharted dreams, an anguished family and of course the invincible memory of Gabbar Singh that’s a reminder of both his triumph and torment.

Born to well-known actor Jayant (Zakaria Khan) on 12 November, 1940, Amjad Khan studied in National College. A brilliant student, he had no qualms taking on opposition if rubbed the wrong way. ‘A good-hearted goonda’ is what he was fondly called.

Well-read, he could quote recite lines from the scriptures; couplets of Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley and rattle off the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Khalil Gibran... Securing a first class in M.A. (Philosophy), he also swept awards at inter-collegiate theatre festivals.

Amjad had already made his foray in Hindi films as a child artiste. His adult debut was in Hindustan Ki Kasam (1973). He had assisted K. Asif on Love And God and played a black slave in the film.

SHOLAY

In the early ’70s, Ramesh Sippy was looking for an unusual villain for his cowboy-inspired chronicle Sholay. So quirky and compelling was Gabbar Singh’s character that it’s believed heroes Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan had apparently envisaged interested in playing it. Danny Denzongpa was in the reckoning for the role of the dacoit. But he’d committed to Feroz Khan’s Dharmatma.

Salim-Javed recommended Amjad to Sippy. Interestingly, Amjad was offered Sholay the day he turned father with the birth of his firstborn Shadaab (Khan) in 1973. The actor referred to Abhishapth Chambal, a book on Chambal dacoits by Taroon Coomar Bhaduri (father of Jaya Bhaduri) for his portrayal. He added his own touches though. The intonation in Gabbar’s “Arre o Sambha!” reportedly came from his childhood memories of a dhobi, who thus called out to his wife as mentioned in Anupama Chopra’s Sholay: The Making Of A Classic.

Sholay wasn’t an easy ride for Amjad. When on his way to Bangalore to begin the film, his flight developed hydraulic failure. After hours of waiting, he took off in the same flight. Later, he developed fever imagining what could have happened had the plane failed again. More so because, he had a two-month-old baby (Shadaab) back home. He was desperate to reach the set as he feared being dropped from the film if he failed to do so.

During the making of Sholay, some misunderstanding arose between mentors Salim-Javed and Amjad. The writers apparently agreed with the filmmakers that Amjad’s ‘weak’ voice needed to be redubbed (the idea was dropped later). A hurt Amjad pledged to never work with Salim-Javed again.

To digress a bit, after Amjad passed away in 1992, veteran Salim Khan graciously mended bridges. “Salim saab said, ‘What happened between your father and me happened a long time ago. Now your father is no more. Let’s put it behind us’,” told Shadaab to rediff.com.

Initially, the audience used to caricatures, didn’t know how to react to the idiosyncratic Gabbar and dubbed him ‘weakest villain’ in Hindi films. But soon there was an inexplicable turnaround. Gabbar Singh had homed in only to become a rage!

The Sunday just after its release, Amjad and wife Shehla had taken li’l Shadaab to Juhu beach, when the actor saw a crowd of people approaching him. Amjad held Shadaab, grabbed his wife’s hand and rushed towards the car. They’d barely managed to get into the car before people began banging the windows. The hysteria had begun in keeping with the forecast of a tarot reader, who had predicted unimaginable heights for Shehla's husband.

A terminally ill Jayant, who passed away just 12 days before Sholay released (August 15, 1975), could not witness the glory of his son. This was a regret that Amjad could never overcome.

AFTER SHOLAY

Amjad featured in a blitzkrieg of films with friend Amitabh including Parvarish, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Suhaag, Yaarana, Laawaris and Satte Pe Satta (between 1977-1982).

Amongst these potboilers came a film, which critics dub as his finest – Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977). Amjad played Wajid Ali Shah, the Awadhi ruler, whose poetic sensibilities made him a connoisseur of arts rather than a shrewd sovereign, who could ward off the British.

Feroz Khan tapped his comic mojo as a bubble-gum chomping law enforcer, Inspector Amjad Khan, in Qurbani (1980). Amjad’s bearded look in Laila O Laila, was inspired by American disc jockey Wolfman Jack.

Years later, Kumar Gaurav’s Love Story (1981) saw him as a clownish cop in chase of the fleeing lovebirds, while Chameli Ki Shaadi (1986), had him as Vakil saab, whose legal shenanigans ensure the hero gets his Chameli.

Amjad ventured into direction with Chor Police (1983) and Ameer Aadmi Gareeb Aadmi (1985). One of his last films, Rudaali (1993) had him play a Maharaja on his death bed.

FAMILY MAN

Coming to his personal life, Amjad and his childhood sweetheart Shehla lived in the same neighbourhood in Bandra.

“One day I was returning from school when he said, ‘Do you know the meaning of Shehla? It means the one with dark eyes’. Then he said, ‘Hurry up and grow up because I’m going to marry you’,” shared Shehla (Filmfare), who was 14 then while Amjad was in college.

Amjad sent a marriage proposal, which Shehla’s father (late writer and lyricist Akhtar-ul-Iman) refused as she was too young. Amjad relentlessly wooed her with wafer chips and movie outings until they got married in 1972. They had two sons Shadaab and Seemab and daughter Ahlam.

Amjad was a devoted father. Once Seemab hurt himself badly and needed stitches on his face. Seeing him, Amjad too started crying. He would address Ahlam as ‘Princess’. When she was operated for appendicitis, he worked his way inside the operation theatre to be with her!

“Though he never went out of his way to show affection, ours was an easy relationship… I’m not the possessive kind; I’m not a clingy person… At home he was Amjad, my husband and the father of my children,” Shehla summed up the trust and respect she accorded him in a throwback interview.

THE ACCIDENT

The steep turning point in their life came when Amjad, accompanied by his family, was on his way to the shoot of The Great Gambler (1976) in Goa. They’d reached Sawantwadi (near Goa) when Amjad took to the wheel to relieve the driver. He went on to flip a cassette when the car crashed.

Shehla was six months pregnant with daughter Ahlam. She was left with a smashed face and shattered bones. Thankfully, Ahlam was born a healthy baby, weighing 10 pounds.

Amjad took the worst brunt. The steering wheel had penetrated his chest and cracked the lungs. Almost 13 of his ribs were broken. His femur bone was fractured for which he had to be operated. From then on began Amjad’s mammoth weight gain.

The fitness freak, who regularly played badminton and was a bull-worker enthusiast, could do it no longer. Reportedly, he suffered a leg injury again. Post that, in 1984, Amjad suffered from Bell’s Palsy due to which he was kept on steroids. All this snowballed into excessive weight gain.

Also, Amjad was a tea-addict. The ‘meetha monster’ couldn’t give up chocolates, rosgollas, gulab jamuns… either! His changed physicality sadly limited Amjad’s choices as an actor.

THE TRAGEDY

July 27, 1992. Amjad had a meeting at 7 pm. He went up to his room to change. At 7.20 pm, he began sweating profusely and fainted. Within minutes he was gone. He died of a myocardial infraction at 51. “There was not a single crease on his forehead. He looked peaceful,” recalled his wife.

Rudaali
Rudaali

But his family was left traumatised. Shadaab, then 18, was overcome with grief. “He picked up every cut glass item in the house and threw it out… Even today... he doesn’t get ecstatic over anything. He doesn’t visit the kabrastan (graveyard). He says daddy’s not there,” confided Shehla (Filmfare).

Shadaab seconded that while speaking to rediff.com, “I was 18 at the time. I took it badly. It took me more than a year to come out of it. I miss my father all the time… We never thought he would go so soon.”

Seemab, who was 10 then, kept asking his mother, “Why are you wearing white? Daddy liked red.”

Shehla couldn’t believe how her world had changed overnight. She took down Amjad’s framed pictures in their home as they reminded her of their time together. Amjad loved luxurious drapes and exotic carpets. Shehla got the décor changed to something he’d never have liked. “I can’t watch his films… Even today I find it difficult to sleep. I can only sleep after fajr namaz (morning prayers),” she was quoted saying.

Grief can linger. But time doesn’t. Shadaab tried his hand at acting and writing (Murder In Bollywood). Ahlam is a noted stage actor and director, while Seemab is a sportsman. “My father was happy and content. But he did not get his due. That still rankles (rediff.com),” said Shadaab his regret palpable.

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