'She was the only woman he truly loved'

'Her exit signaled his downfall.'

If Anju Mahendru, who celebrates her birthday on January 11, had accepted Rajesh Khanna's marriage proposal in 1972, his life would have been different.

She was the only woman who could hold him down from self-destruction.

After she quit the relationship, the superstar-like-none-other's life and career spun out of control.

In his heyday, women swooned over him.

But Anju was not impressed, or at least, she wasn't willing to pamper his ego.

She would call a spade, a spade, and the chamchas what they were. As his stardom grew, so did the coterie.

"Anju couldn't bear Kaka's durbar every night. His coterie would gather night after night. The drinking sessions would go on all night. Anju hated it. She had to play the hostess, serving drinks until 2 am. Kaka would have his dinner at 3 am. Never one to mince words, Anju would warn Kaka against the hangers-on, but he was impervious to sensible advice," a source tells Subhash K Jha.

"I think somewhere Kaka loved and admired Anju for her honesty. She told him the truth when the world was flattering him. She was the only woman he truly loved. Her exit signaled Kaka's downfall. The durbar and the drinking got worse. His films began to flop with alarming regularity. It was the end," the source adds.

Why did Rajesh Khanna decide to marry Dimple Kapadia overnight?

"The marriage shocked everyone, Anju the most. They had one of their regular fights, and then Kaka walked out and proposed to 15-year-old Dimple. Bobby was yet to release, so it was not as if Kaka was impressed by her overnight stardom," the source remembers.

"Dimple's father Chunnilal Kapadia had a lot to do with the alliance. Kaka and Chunnilal were friends. In the alliance with the biggest superstar of Indian cinema, Chunnilal saw a furtherance of his ambitions," claims the source.

To her credit, Anju never spoke about what went wrong with Kaka.

Rajesh Khanna and Anju Mahendru acted together in only one film: Narendra Bedi's Bandhan. In the film, they didn't share a romantic relationship.