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Almost all Bollywood stars focus on sustaining their wealth through channels apart from movies, be it real estate investments or dabbling in businesses of their own. Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan attempted something similar with ABCL (Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited), but it wasn’t to be, and the actor filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Bachchan also wasn’t seeing any success on the acting front, and actor Ashish Vidyarthi recently talked about working with Big B while he was staging his comeback.
Talking to Siddharth Kannan, Ashish recalled the tough times Big B was going through and how he was still kind and helpful to the people around him. He said, “I can never forget working with him in Mrityudaata, which was his comeback film. During that time my father was very old, and my mother had recently had a heart attack. So I used to go back to Delhi every night to stay with her, and then I used to take a flight to Mumbai. So I requested Amit Ji, ‘Can you please write a letter for my mother?’ She was recovering from her heart attack, and I read that letter to my mother in the hospital.”
He moved on to the next project that he did with Bachchan and mentioned that no one could tell what that person was going through, and he was as disciplined and determined as ever. “After that I shot Major Saab with him, and his discipline was unmatched. Normally people take off their costumes and the fake moustache or beard in between shots, but he would sit in character all night wearing everything. If at any point, someone feels disappointed with their lives, Amit ji is the most extraordinary example to look at. People from the industry complain about not getting work or being left out, but look at what he went through. He had a hold on the entire country at one point; he was a star. People didn’t eat when he was injured during Coolie. When he went through that bad patch, he dealt with it, and he never used to lament about anything,” said Ashish.
He proceeded to shut the naysayers down and said that Big B has maintained the same level of dedication and class when approaching acting even now. He said, “Even the last time I worked with him in Goodbye, that man took instruction from the director with his head down. He is unbelievable; he is always on time and never makes anyone feel uncomfortable. Never opposes the director if they want to take another shot. You can learn so much by just looking at him, and I don’t agree with anyone who disagrees with his performance. In a world where everyone knows that people in front of the camera are not being genuine, he was able to grip everyone’s attention.”
In an old interview with Vir Sanghvi, Bachchan had spoken about facing bankruptcy and how even his house was seized. “Yes, it was, in fact, attached. All assets, all properties were attached. So when you sign a personal guarantee, then you are personally liable to pay that and so there were about Rs 90 crore to be paid back.” Amitabh said he faced about “55 legal cases and there were creditors on the door everyday, very embarrassing, very humiliating.”
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