When Amitabh Bachchan was berated in front of 200 people for fumbling Urdu line: ‘Laanat hai… Harivansh Rai Bachchan ke bete ho tum’

When Amitabh Bachchan was struggling with a line of Urdu in the film Kaalia, Tinnu Anand's father stepped in to direct the scene.

Amitabh Bachchan in a still from Kaalia. (Photo: Express Archive)

Actor Tinnu Anand, who also directed hit Amitabh Bachchan-starrers Kaalia and Shahenshah, recalled stories about working with the superstar. Looking back on the four years that it took to complete Kaalia, Tinnu narrated a story about his father, writer Inder Raj Anand, assuming control of the project for a scene that Amitabh was struggling with. The actor couldn’t get himself to correctly deliver a line in Urdu, leading Tinnu’s father to berate him in front of the entire crew.

Asked if he had any disagreements with the star, he said in an interview with News-18, “The disagreements were mainly about dialogue. My father was the strength of Urdu; no one could argue with him. He was nowhere around set, but there was a party scene, in which Pran saab says, ‘You’ve made a grand success of your life, but the road you’ve taken is made of gold, and that will lead you straight to my prison, or to the gallows. Kaalia, that is your future’. And Kaalia says, ‘Kya naza ki takleefon mein maza, jab maut na aaye jawaani mein. Kya lutf janaaza uthne ka, hargaam pe jab maatam na hoga‘. I told my father when he wrote the line, I said, ‘Dad, what does this mean?'”

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Tinnu anticipated that Amitabh would also struggle with the line, but his father told him to convey one direction to the actor. “Tell him, ‘I wrote this with Sanjay Gandhi in mind’,” Tinnu’s father said. “He died very young, and at every street corner, there were people mourning his death,” Tinnu said. But as expected, Amitabh couldn’t deliver the line properly on set. “Second or third time during his rehearsal, I heard a voice, ‘Theek se kahiye janaab, theek se‘. We all looked behind, it was my father. Amit looked at me and said, ‘B**tard, you called your dad here or what?'”

Tinnu’s father proceeded to take over as director, and told Amitabh, “Beta, yeh Urdu hai, isme wazan hota hai… Laanat hai tumpe. Harivansh Rai Bachchan ke bete ho tum. Unke chhaon mein pale ho, aur tum keh rahe ho ke zubaan nahi hai yeh tumhari? Laanat hai tumpe (Son, this is Urdu, it must be said with force… You are Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s son, shame on you).” Tinnu continued, “There were 200 people, pin-drop silence. Amit said, ‘Uncle, give me 10 minutes’, and walked off.”

Tinnu was worried that he’d just lost his star. “I went to my father and said, ‘What have you done? My hero has walked out of the film’. He said, ‘No, if he’s Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s son, he won’t run away’,” he said. And Tinnu was surprised to see Amitabh rehearsing the line over and over again with an assistant. Amitabh returned, and nailed the line. “My father, instead of saying ‘cut’, came over and embraced him,” Tinnu recalled.

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