Quitting at the peak of career: Is Vikrant Massey following Vinod Khanna’s footsteps

Mumbai (The Uttam Hindu): Bollywood actor Vikrant Massey, who has been receiving a lot of positive response for his recently released movie ‘The Sabarmati Report’, has announced his sabbatical from films. This move of the actor, which comes at the peak of his career, is oddly synonymous to that of the late actor Vinod Khanna and actress Mamta Kulkarni both of whom left Bollywood at the highest points in their careers.

However, the reasons behind both their departures remain widely different. Vinod Khanna left the lanes of B-town in pursuit of spiritually with Osho. After losing his mother in 1982, Vinod Khanna felt an emotional vacuum and sought solace in Osho. This move left the entire industry shocked out of their wits as Vinod was one of the leading stars of his time. The late actor had announced his renunciation, and even left his family in his pursuit for filling up the emotional vacuum.

Khanna, who became a disciple of Osho in 1975, initially worked as a gardener at Osho's ashram. However, Vinod Khanna returned to movies after a hiatus of five years with ‘Insaaf’ directed by Mukul Anand.

Mamta Kulkarni too, who shook up Bollywood with a bold photoshoot for a magazine in the early phase of her career, achieved great success in a relatively lesser span. During the 1990s, the actress worked with practically the biggest Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Govinda and Sanjay Dutt. However, the actress suddenly left Bollywood. It was rumoured that the actress was dating Chhota Rajan.

It was also alleged that she had a standoff with director Rajkumar Santoshi during the making of ‘China Gate’, and Chhota Rajan had to intervene.

However, the actress vanished without a trace in the early 2000s, only to emerge in 2016 when Thane Police named her as one of the accused involved in supplying ephedrine for illicit manufacture of methamphetamine to an international drug racket and gangster, intended for trafficking. It is alleged that the actress along with her alleged partner Vicky Goswami and other co-accused attended a meeting in an international drug ring in Kenya in January 2016.

While Vikrant has furnished the focus on his family life as the reason behind his sabbatical, it remains to be seen how things pan out for the actor.