Amitabh Bachchan was a great favourite of my mother’s lifelong house-keeper Ramratti. “Do you know, girl,” she once told me, “two people can slay your heart with just a smile: Your baby daughter and that Amitabhua (janyyo bitiya, doo jani gajabai ki muski chhantat hain, tohar bitiya aur Amitabhua)”.
The year was 1980 and Amitabh, son of the great Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was already the Big B of Mumbai. Thereafter, I have binge-watched his films on DVDs, in cinema halls and now on OTT. Amitabh is an actor whose films have steadily chipped away at the most banal received ideas. Zanjeer, Sholay, Don, Coolie or Anand, Abhimaan, Amar Akbar Anthony and Silsila can still convince the most woke that virtue is not restricted to the working classes of the world, any more than honour rests solely with the super rich. Since the roaring ’80s, he has aged visibly, but his roles in films like Piku, Pink, Baghban and Black offer characters who are unique and symbolise an irreducible truth.
Then there is that killer voice — and ah, Ramratti’s favourite muski!
Success took time to come to Amitabh. In a world of chocolate-faced heroes, he was, like the song says, “Just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed/Nothing seems to fit).” Then Fate spun its miracles. Amitabh worked with Hrishi da in Anand who cast him as the stern but soft-hearted Babu Moshai. Salim-Javed used his fluid sexuality and mystery and hardened it into an image of a laid back but clever survivor, a criminal chasing other criminals for a fee. After Zanjeer and Sholay, there was no stopping him.
Today Amitabhuva has done them all: Actor, singer, producer, politician, TV host. All these can be traced to his upbringing in Allahabad with a university don for a father who later moved to Delhi at the invitation of the great talent spotter, Nehru. His father’s autobiography speaks of his-first born and his achievements with great pride.
We were neighbours in Delhi and my mother made it a point to call on the Bachchans in their lovely home, Sopan. When Amitabh was grievously injured on the sets of the film Coolie, Mother was in Mumbai. She rushed to the hospital where the tearful parents and Jaya, his wife, kept vigil, and Bachchan ji recited Hanuman Chalisa non-stop. “Nothing will happen to him,” she said to Jaya, “I am praying to Ma and his father is praying to Hanuman”. When Amitabh came back home, Bachchan ji wrote a note to her thanking her for her prayers. When Mother passed on, Amitabh wrote me a warm letter saying how they all loved and valued her.
From his mother, Teji, he gets those soulful eyes and smile, from Bachchan ji, a deep wisdom on how to face life’s adversities. “Mann ka ho tau achha, na ho tau aur bhi achha (If what happens is to your liking, it is good, but if the opposite happens, it is better)”, he would say.
Amitabh changed tracks after completing his education and became first a Boxwalla Sahib (the normal career trajectory for public school boys then). But he soon quit to come to Mumbai. His initial struggle taught him to watch and absorb the angst of jobless youth and their anger and lust for life. He released all that later on screen.
He realised that in the largely Hindi-speaking north, English was used by Brown Sahibs and the newly rich, at once feared and loathed by those on the streets. No one else could have delivered lines with a deadpan seriousness like: “I can walk Englis, I can talk Englis, I can laugh Englis because Englis is a vherry funny language” (Namak Halal). And: “Hum jahan khade ho jatey hain, line wahin se shuru hoti hai” (Kaalia). He is our desi Groucho Marx and Karl Marx rolled into one.
Around 2014, given a certain right wing tilt in the ads Bachchan was doing, and glimpses of the company he kept, he tried hard to run the gamut of emotions, but it was not convincing. One often feels sorry to see him stretching himself beyond the Janus-faced Amitabhua and Big B.
Mercifully, he can play himself on the TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati. Facing Computer ji and the participant of the day, Amitabh is a natural, confident in his impeccable Hindi and literary lineage. In Kaun Banega…, he has found the lyrical and literary dimension of his father that he misses, and the audiences find in him a father figure with twinkling eyes, full of wisdom and the occasional guffaw.
He refuses to be a bore even in old age. Many happy returns to him on his 82nd birthday. Thanking you for the pleasures given over decades can never be enough.
The writer is former chairperson, Prasar Bharati
