• Home
• /
• Lifestyle

An insider's perspective on the life and times of Amitabh Bachchan

Khalid Mohamed on the phenomenon that is Amitabh Bachchan - and his personal association with (arguably) the subcontinent's greatest superstar

Now that his valentine to advanced age, 102 Not Out, is before us, I'm tempted to look back through a personal prism, at the one-man entertainment industry: Amitabh Bachchan. Without a shadow of doubt, over the course of my own chequered journo career - with its crests and troughs - the actor has loomed larger than life.
On the big wide screen in the good 'ole celluloid days and now in the shift-over to digital hard disks and streaming channels, the 75-year-old actor has sustained his persona of a superstar who can be down but not out.
He has endorsed practically every consumer product imaginable, shone a light on the dim-witted television scenario with his long-running stretch on the quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati?. When it comes to chaste Hindi diction alloyed to that baritone voice throw, there's been no equal.
On occasion, the transition from the much-vaunted 'angry young man' of the tumultuous 1970s to the authoritarian septuagenarian of the 2000s, has been turbulent. There was the life-threatening accident on the sets of Coolie (1983), hospitalisation following the onset of myasthenia gravis, and an emergency surgery, with the nation collectively praying for his brisk recovery.
Shrill allegations of involvement in the Bofors arms scandal during the 1980s and '90s were countered with fortitude. Two years ago, reports about the Panama Papers leak were refuted with the statement, ".It is possible that my name has been misused. I have paid all my taxes - including on monies spent by me overseas. Monies that I have remitted overseas have been in compliance with law, including remittances through LRS, after paying Indian taxes. In any event, the news report in the Indian Express does not even suggest any illegality on my part. Hope this clears the matter once and for all."
In retrospect, it's curious that, in his heyday, Bachchan was identified as the anti-establishment pugilist despite his proximity with the family of Mrs Indira Gandhi, who had imposed the Emergency in 1975-'77. A paradox? Go ponder.
On the political front, the actor, at the exhortation of his friend Rajiv Gandhi, plunged into an area of darkness. By his own admission, he was a misfit as an elected Member of Parliament. He quit that scene.
However, once bitten always shy. He has treaded on the side of caution - or at least attempted to. At one time, there would be photo-ops with Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray. Now, the actor serves as brand ambassador of Gujarat and is one of the high-profile faces of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan programme. However, no categorical ideological or partisan pronouncements have been posited.
Any statement could be blown out of proportion. In fact, once upon a time, mea culpa. sort of! Circa 1985, when I'd interviewed him during his tenure as a Lok Sabha MP for the Sunday Review section of The Times of India, all hell had broken loose. His quote "I was flown from Bangalore to be dumped into the cesspool of politics" was the headline. Immediately, insiders within the Congress camp tongue-lashed: how dare he call politics a 'cesspool'?
The quote was denied by Bachchan. Mercy be, I was away in Los Angeles. Disneyland was on my schedule, not the furore that was rocking New Delhi then. Some months later, I did ask the stoic Bachchan if he had denied the quote. "Let's forget it, if you don't mind."
I didn't. How could I? My critical faculties were high on the screen performances of an actor of spleen and due diligence. Dozens of fan-boy interviews continued; I've lost count of them. He could be deeply self-analytical or he could be bottled-up. Yet, when it comes to being articulate, no one has ever compared to him.
Humility personified, Bachchan has credited writers Salim-Javed for creating roles which proved to be the springboard for superstardom: notably Zanjeer (1973), Deewaar (1975), Sholay (1975), Trishul (1978) and Don (1978). And he has paid due homage to directors who were his ticket to show-town: from K.A. Abbas and Hrishikesh Mukherjee to Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra and Prakash Mehra.
For me, a steady diet of Amitabh Bachchan interviews was packed with all the requisite proteins - culminating with the coffee-table book, To Be Or Not To Be: Amitabh Bachchan (2002), published by Jaya Bachchan to mark the actor's 60th birthday. Accompanied by a wide-eyed team, I'd filmed a documentary on Bachchan's life and cinema, following him to Europe, complete with a photo-shoot in Monte Carlo and Paris.
Many of those clicks made for terrific photo-spreads in the book. The documentary, edited from some 40 to 4 hours, was scrapped abruptly by Jaya Bachchan. I still can't fathom why. The chronicled material must be rotting somewhere. Just one of those disappointments I've had to forget with a metaphorical shrug.
It would be pointless to go amnesiac, though, about another kind of hell which broke out minutes after my review of Bhoothnath (2008) expressed my horror (honest!) on his performance. The actor wasn't in his usual form, and I didn't wish to mince my words. I'm a journalist, right? Not a courtier in a Bollywood superstar's durbar (by the way, the actor doesn't approve of the Bollywood word, with the logic that comparisons are odious).
Thanks to the aforecited review, far-out, wild words were exchanged on blogs and in print. Exit: Jalsa and Prateeksha, the swanky Bachchan residences in Juhu, where I've never stepped in again - and am the saner for it.
Like the aggravation sparked by the denial of the "cesspool" quote, these had to be dealt with, used as bookmarks in novellas. faded and forgotten. Down the ages, I suspect every superstar-journalist equation has gone up and down like a seesaw. In the event, it's best to stay grounded.
And dare I say this? Of late, more than ever before, interviews with superstars as well as the new kids on the B-block have become dispiriting exercises. From AB to Z, these are orchestrated by the PR machinery with the star's assent to allocate half-an-hour to individual answer-hunters on the eve of a film's release.
The drill is calculated to spark a buzz which will push ticket sales during a film's opening weekend. Or else, the tendency is to ward off conversations with a "I have nothing to say: wait for the right time."
Fortuitously, Amitabh Bachchan rocks on - indefatigably not out.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com