Sanjay Khan – The lecherous demon behind the “handsome gentleman”

In the world of the 21st century, people often use chameleons as metaphors to denote untrustworthy people. ‘Badalte Rang’ has always been a part of this world. Something along the same lines was the case with actor Sanjay Khan. The way he was portrayed on the silver screen was contradictory to what he actually was in real life.

Entry in Bollywood

Shah Abbas Ali Khan Tanoli aka Sanjay Khan was born in Bangalore in January 1941 to a wealthy Afghan family. His older brother Zulfiqar Shah Ali Khan, better known as Feroz Khan in the movie business, has also been a highly liked Bollywood actor and director.

Shah Abbas made the decision to enter this industry after watching Raj Kapoor’s ‘Awara’. He worked as an assistant in a few films before landing a small but crucial role in ‘Dosti’ in 1964. He did not look back after this. Many popular movies, some of which he also directed, like ‘Haqeeqat’, ‘Dus Lakh’, ‘Ek Phool Do Mali’, ‘Dhund’, ‘Naagin’ and ‘Chandi Sona’ became a part of his collection.

However, as they say ‘not all that glitters is gold’. Very few people could identify Sanjay Khan. Those that did only saw his most horrifying form, much like Zeenat Aman did.

Married Zeenat Aman in secret

Zeenat Aman and Sanjay Khan were first introduced in ‘Dhund’ by BR Chopra and later became friends. With time, this friendship began to develop into love. Already married and a father of two, Sanjay Khan knew that his relationship with Zeenat Aman would create a lot of controversies.

Zeenat Aman and Sanjay Khan got married in secret. Their relationship first came to light while they were working on the sets of the 1980 movie ‘Abdullah’. Sanjay and Zeenat always showed up together at every party during that time.

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Violent nature

Zeenat began working on other films soon after completing Abdullah’s shooting. One day, an angry Sanjay Khan demanded Zeenat to reshoot part of a song in Abdullah. She declined the order stating the shortage of available dates in her hands. This caused Sanjay to vocally abused her over the phone and accuse her of being sexually involved with the makers of the film.

Shocked by the accusation, Zeenat immediately went over to Sanjay Khan’s home. After reaching there she found that he was partying at The Taj Hotel. She immediately went there to talk to him and clear her dates. But as soon as she saw him everything went haywire.

Sanjay took her to an adjacent room to talk to her where he immediately began hitting her. He beat her up, lifting by her hair and continuing to thrash her every time she fell. Zeenat’s jaw was fractured from all the repeated blows she had taken. A few of her ribs were cracked too.

It was a steward who saved Zeenat. She was seen with blood and tears streaming down her face as she was escorted down the lobby. She required eight days of medical attention to recover from this beating. Though her jaw was fixed after a surgery, her right eye could not be fully saved.

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Karma hits back

However, it is said that karma always bites back harder. Sanjay Khan’s transgressions were not ignored. Sanjay Khan went on to produce a serial about Tipu Sultan. Even the biggest directors would have given this project much thought before glorifying this invader. But Sanjay Khan being Sanjay Khan, set out to bring Tipu Sultan back to life. And then one day the set caught fire and he was never the same again.

Given that half of his body was burnt in the fire, how could he have remained the same? He had to spend a lot of money to restore his health. Later, he also made efforts to somehow save his drowning image but nothing could be done about it. He made serials like ‘The Great Maratha’, ‘Jai Hanuman’ and ‘1857 Kranti’. But they failed to regain him his reputation. His mask was already torn apart in front of the whole world to see.