Rajesh Khanna lived life large as India’s “first superstar”. He held a still-unbroken record of 15 consecutive solo hit films between 1969 and 1972 and, over the years, accumulated significant wealth and properties during the peak of his career. He even purchased a sea-facing bungalow on Carter Road, one of Mumbai’s most sought-after locations, and renamed it Aashirwad. The bungalow soon became a landmark and a symbol of his unparalleled stardom. Rajesh Khanna reportedly bought Aashirwad in the early 1970s from fellow actor Rajendra Kumar and paid around Rs 3.5 lakh for it. In his book Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna, author Gautam Chintamani describes how “the facade of being a king was complete” once Khanna moved into Aashirwad. The book details how Khanna would make producers wait in his ‘durbar’ at the bungalow. The actor behaved like a monarch in his own home, sitting on a chair placed on a slightly higher platform than his guests. “Khanna made tens of producers wait endlessly outside the fabled durbar, granting audience only once …