Stardom in All Its Glory and Wreckage

It is written with a journalist's eye for detail and a cinephile's passion. The prose is accessible, the tone sympathetic but never indulgent

- SHANTANU RAY CHAUDHURI

It is strange to write about a book that you have been part of, one that has been one of the glittering successes of your career as an editor/ publisher.

It seems only the other day that Gautam Chintamani walked into the HarperCollins office with a proposal for a book on Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. By the time we finished, QSQT had been put to the back burner, and a new book idea was born. Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna, a compelling, sometimes melancholic, always honest portrait of Hindi cinema's first true superstar, a man who rose like a meteor in the late 1960s, became a nationwide obsession, only to spiral into oblivion, consumed by ego, insecurity, and the very machinery that built him. With a new edition being published by Rupa, this important book gets a much-needed fresh lease of life.