'My name is Amitabh Bachchan!'
From the book AB, The Legend: A Photographer's Tribute by Pradeep Chandra
I had been waiting for some time in his dressing room in one of Mumbai's studios when I was hit with that line; he walked in dressed as a Pathan, having just completed a scene with the beautiful Sridevi for Khuda Gawa, probably his last major hit as the angry hero.
My own introduction obviously had nowhere near the same resonance. I doubt whether any other name of that time had the same recognition quotient. In the decade since then, that recognition quotient has only gained in strength and vigour. The phenomenon, he was called then. The phenomenon he remains today.
I was as much a fan of Amitabh's as anyone else during his heyday. In those days, an Amitabh movie would be booked in advance for weeks. It was the delight of the black marketeers outside Delhi's cinema halls. Watching an Amitabh movie on the first day of its release was something of a coup. As a very junior hack in Delhi, I still remember getting to see his movie Naseeb on the first day. It needed a police escort from the local police station to get me that much-prized ticket. A face-to-face meeting with Amitabh was still in the realm of dreams then. And it actually happened only many, many years later.
That first meeting with Amitabh Bachchan was for a cover story we were doing on him. Till then, he had remained aloof from the media. But his brief stint with politics and his name being dragged into the Bofors controversy, I think, made him want to give his side of the story. I think that interview to me and The Week was the first time he really spoke his mind about his political foray and the insinuations that were being made about him and his family with regard to the gun deal and his brother's pharma company in Switzerland. He became far more accessible to the media after that. But now, as then, it was more a case of the media needing Amitabh, rather than him needing the media.
Amitabh was never the boy-next-door kind of person. And neither did he try to cultivate that image. He had the advantage of his family pedigree that got him the initial entry into Bollywood. He understood as well as anyone else how cruel and heartless the industry could be to a struggling young actor. He had his share of heartbreaks and failures. But once he made it to the top, he was obviously determined to make it last long. He had seen others shoot to stardom and fade away. A fate he knew could befall him too.
Luck or design, or a combination of both, has ensured that Amitabh has been able to grow old gracefully as an actor. It is a transition that few of his predecessors were able to make. But Amitabh has not only made the transition successfully, he has in the process managed to reinvent Bollywood's traditional formula in the kind of roles older people play. To the extent that he remains the main crowd puller for his films even today.
Fame and fortune, those most fickle and demanding of companions, sit lightly on Amitabh. He has made his share of bad life and career decisions. He has had his share of personal misfortune. But at the end of the day, he has emerged from those episodes in his life with dignity. In an industry that is either at one's feet or at one's throat, Amitabh is one of the few good guys, having somehow steered clear of Bollywood's legendary jealousies and viciousness — an icon for all age groups. Respected and admired, and no doubt envied, but in a genteel sort of way.
Life at the top cannot be easy for him or for anyone else. All the simple and small freedoms the rest of us take for granted is denied to someone in Amitabh's position. Privacy needs to be guarded fiercely. Family protected from a raucous media. His movie Abhimaan with wife Jaya could well have been a metaphor for one chapter in his life story. Silsila was generally regarded as a depiction of another story from his life. True or false has little meaning in a world of tinsel and hype. One needed to guide perception. However he did it, Amitabh did manage to make himself seen as an intensely private person, without being a recluse, and a devoted family man.
Never a Bollywood party person, Amitabh worked hard to keep away from the filmi media frenzy and, in recent years, from the Page 3 madness. He has lent his name to some public and social causes, carefully orchestrating each and every public appearance. But from the very beginning, he has made it clear that once he finished work for the day, he wanted to be left alone.
What drives Amitabh today? The busiest actor in Bollywood and probably the most expensive brand ambassador for any product, what peaks are there left for him to climb? Should he get more choosy about the kind of films he does? Should he exercise more care in selecting the brands he endorses? Is there still any life for him outside the world of cinema and advertising? Should he get into TV serials? No doubt he has asked himself these questions often in recent times. If he has found an answer to any of them, he is keeping them to himself. Not surprising that, really.
This article first appeared in AB, The Legend: A Photographer's Tribute by Pradeep Chandra
