It must be the most delusory media romp into Bollywood’s Serial Superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s phantom life. And, who is Jessica Hines? AB’s Trophy Geek, Giggling Gatecrasher, Room Service Mate or what? All of them except Big B’s Biographer. As we trip into page after page, lurch from hotels and sets, city to country, it’s an unfazed Hines who carries on despite the elusive interview that never comes from AB, except that he agrees to meet her in all the places, keeps his date, but there’s mysteriously no conversation, we are offered none. So, in this chase, well, actually meetings, Hines mostly comes up against a glass wall, AB is moody, broody, droopy, gloomy, but is always at his gentlemanly best when he promises to be “cooperative and supportive” the next time, and invites her to the set, city, hotel, home he will soon be. And, Amitabh, Hines says, has always made good his promises. And what do we get as AB indulges his own Personal Academic (the new Bollywood accessory as Hines very honestly admits as the real reason for AB’s interest)? The same hokum about Mumbai’s diamond and dust life, creamy Berry Biryani at Britannia, the act of creation and insanity in the makeshift studios of Film City, girl talk with new friend Manisha Koirala, mosquitoes, yoga, drifting, apart from the Accident (in 1982, AB had a near-fatal accident which had the whole country grieving and praying, ho-hum), meetings with AB’s colleagues, directors and co-stars, and the only quote you get from AB “Things are really going crazy, am still working out when we could do the interviews.” There is though collectible trivia for Bachchan Hobbyists. His office is covered with hundreds of his own portraits, he smells so good because, he says, he mixes his perfumes, having different scents for different parts of his body, and a special one for his hands. The samosa man who AB acknowledges made a fortune selling them at intervals of his films, even donating a truck to the poor after AB survived the Accident. This is the stuff he tells when he talks. Then the Bus, AB’s motorhome, a ’70s van gifted by Manmohan Desai, who only used AB for his films. Desai jumped from the roof of his house in the early ’90s, and AB has refused to get a new van, for sentimental reasons. We also know he partied hard and drank champagne, but AB gets all crabby when asked about it. Hines’ interviews with producers, directors and co-stars give a glimpse into AB’s life, even though she gets nothing new. No one wants to tell stories on record that might irritate him. Yash Chopra recalls how AB and Shashi Kapoor drifted on their lilos into the sea in Goa, after an evening of “merrymaking”. Kapoor remembers asking AB not to do the Rs 50 crowd role in a Merchant Ivory film.The two women in his life Jaya and Rekha are not interviewed. Hines postpones Jaya till she gets AB, Rekha is elusive until she agrees because Hines was an Indian in her past life. The meeting is promptly cancelled by Rekha’s furious PA and companion, Farzana. And, so, after three years, what does Hines get? A Bachchan habit hard to kick. Great, but we are not hooked.
