Amitabh Bachchan is 80. Baritone of India is 80 years young. Sometimes I wonder whether he was called Big B as the B stands for Baritone. Amitabh Bachchan has been key part of their life for any kid who was born in 70s, 80s or 90s or for that matter, even now. I have been one of those born in 70s and he has been integral to mine (and number of countless other’s lives).
Amitabh Bachchan was born in an extremely culturally rich family. His father the great poet Dr. Harivanshrai Bachchan had been one of the noted Hindi poets of the country. His mother Teji Bachchan, a childhood friend of the former prime minister of India and of course, he was blessed with their genes but at the same time, he was different than the other contemporaries that he arrived with a baggage of expectations. There was an unwritten anticipation. What set him apart was his rather unconventional looks. He literally stood the tallest amongst his fellow actors, but his face wasn’t as conventionally pretty for a Hindi film hero; he didn’t have the chiseled body that would have the women drooling over him at least for his abs. What is now India’s most famous baritone had faced rejection at one time from All India Radio. The very same voice has been lent to innumerable causes and movies both as an actor or as a narrator, had failed him in his first role. Little did they know that this same baritone would be used for everything under the sun – be it the polio appeal, national anthem, recital of Gayatri mantra or the Hanuman Chalisa or even promoting Gujarat Tourism. The credibility and integrity that voice has helped translate into positive transactions both financially and socially for those various causes.
Amitabh Bachchan the icon has continued to regale the audiences with his famous voice, his equivocal command over both Hindi and English, his uncanny ability to rise above the script and role play any character that was written for him. There have been two phases in this legend’s professional career. There has been a phase in between where the same box office that had swelled and their cash registers had been ringing due to his successes, had decided to write him off only for the phoenix to rise from the ashes again. His second innings has been no less glittery than the first one. Late success hasn’t been a first for the man. He had started off his career with a string of flops and once he got his strong footing with Zanjeer, there was no looking back.
Zanjeer which was penned by Salim-Javed gave birth to the persona of angry young man who represented the plight of middle-class Indian who felt oppressed and their built-in and subdued anger that was vent as a result of the suffering that he and his loved ones were subject to. Amitabh continued to improvise on the angry young man’s portrayal one after the other and never did he make it look like he was being repetitive. Audiences associated his role play with their own lives and he continued to thrive. Being utterly modest, he continued to credit his directors and the writers for providing him the platform to display his histrionics and unearth his massive talent repertoire. This was definitely partly true as an actor is only as good as the script of the direction, but the converse is even more true, and you need an actor par excellence to continually churn out the performances that Mr. Bachchan doled out.
Zanjeer released in 1973 and till mid 80’s, there was no looking back for Amitabh Bachchan or his producers and directors. He even had a near fatal accident on the sets of movie Coolie and was almost declared brain dead but looks like God also loved him like all of us and wanted to watch many more superlative performances from him so he granted him the second life so Amitabh could do what he did best in entertaining people and Amitabh did that. Borrowing from his hugely popular game show, KBC, God gave him the lifeline like no other. Mr. Bachchan time and again has thanked the countless fans who prayed for his health and survival during those tumultuous times and repays their favors after so many years by meeting them every Sunday evening when he is around. Living in Juhu, Mumbai, I have personally witnessed that euphoria.
Amitabh Bachchan always had the enigma which prompted numerous individuals leaving the hinterland of UP/Bihar specially to migrate to Mumbai with the dreamy eyes and the hope of making it equally big. Little did know that this man hadn’t made it big accidentally. What they failed to see was the discipline, the hard work that complimented the natural talent. Obviously, one does need luck and he did have that after a while. But as I said, Amitji was rewarded for his perseverance, his persona, his punctuality, his middle-class values, and upbringing which embodied the very principles that audience perceived in their hero. He was everything that an Indian man saw in his own role model, everything that an Indian woman saw in her man and everything that Indian parents saw in their own child or that Indian kids expected in their parent.
Destiny can ask tough questions off the best and lady luck stopped smiling at Bachchan family for short period as well and they lost their riches and their reputation and their standing. What they didn’t lose was their class, they didn’t lose their credibility or integrity and the proverbial phoenix did rise from the ashes and how. The same man who had once made 70 mm as his playing field received a boost from the unexpected boom in India’s tryst with the television revolution. Adaptation of the famous American show Who Wants to be Millionaire was localized for Indian audiences and Mr. Bachchan was made the mahout of this elephant. Success of this is evident from the fact that this show is still running and putting up high TRP ratings after almost twenty years and Amitji is still its single biggest attraction. Participants are enamored by an opportunity to see the man who once defined their dreams share the seat across the table and just a thought of that Man asking about well-being of your family, or your background is stuff what fantasies are made of.
Amitji’s biggest draw and what keeps him going stems from the fact that there is a whole generation of filmmakers and actors whose career choices had some inspiration or two from watching Mr. Bachchan ply his trade in front of the camera and all these people decided or were inspired by that performance. Now, the same grown-up professionals want to work with their idol and pay their tribute to the man who defined and defied odds in the Hindi film industry (as a respect to the man who I am writing about, I will continue to reference it as Hindi film industry and not the B word it is known by and not approved by the legend himself). Right upto the latest release Goodbye which released couple of days back of this writing has his fellow actors looking at him in awe and marveling at the opportunity of working with him. Producer Ekta Kapoor, television Czarina in her own right has gone on record that it was her lifelong dream to work with the legend. There aren’t too many Octogenarian individuals who can claim roles being written keeping them in mind.
Amitabh Bachchan has achieved the iconic status in India’s folklore as such that if there was an equivalent of Mount Rushmore of India’s popular faces, his face would have definitely adorned that. Too bad, India doesn’t treat its legends the same as the rest of the world does and Indian people have relatively short-term memories. Every time you think of a superhero, and I am not talking about the caped ones, but from Indian mythology or for that matter, mythologies across the world, and the most powerful or revered of them are perceived thinking Mr. Bachchan in mind. He is the ubiquitous patriarch that every Indian family envisions. Every time there is a cause to be discussed about and you want the ambassador for the cause, they have reached out to Mr. Bachchan, and he hasn’t let them down.
There is a saying that one’s impact is measured by the fact if he/she is able to leave any place better than what they got. That is the definition of the value creation and as long as you are able to create positive value, you always leave the world a better place. Mr. Bachchan has surely done that for the film industry and entertainment in India and even globally. Before he joined the fray, hindi film industry had number of stalwarts and many more once he is past his prime but none had a singular impact as he had during a decade or decade and a half as he had. Before him, there were the triumvirate of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, followed by multiple stars such as Shammi and Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Rajendra Kumar, Rajesh Khanna etc. but none had that singular impact. Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, Khans, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan all had their moments of glory in the limelight, but none shone as brightly as he did.
Amitji’s impact was best summarized by his contemporary Jeetendra who said Mr. Bachchan occupies 1 to 10 spots of the industry and then the others can be accounted for. When Amitji had his off days, Jeetendra was asked again if he wanted to change his statement and his answer was Amitji may be down but not out and now he should be top 1 to 6 but still at the top. This was an attestation of sorts from one of his peers who himself had a pretty good run at the box office himself. Other biggest impact if you look at Amitji’s successful films, highest of his films have been considered to be remade. This is the biggest testimony of someone’s work that other top actor fancies himself performing that role. It is always said that when your peers hold you in the highest esteem, you have truly achieved the status and in his case, he has the demigod status.
Amitji has influenced an entire generation and how. Number of them have been influenced by him while growing up and now the young filmmakers are flocking to work with him as if to pay tribute to the man who had influenced their existence in the film industry and to thank the man who influenced their career choice. Likewise, for young actors, who are competing with each other to share screen with their idol. I would like to add as someone who has spent more than half of his life outside of India and having come across number of people from Africa, who never stop short of telling you how they enjoyed Hindi cinema and there was only one name which they all mention and that is Mr. Bachchan’s. He has been a truly a global icon.
Amitji’s career isn’t without lows either. He has had his share maybe even more than number of his colleagues. But how he has bounced back and again has volumes to speak about the man. He has taken everything in its stride be it the slide or the ride. He has continued to reinvent himself, one of the reasons why he succeeded more than some of his fellow septuagenarian and Octogenarian coworkers is his ability to match steps with the younger generation, be it rapping, being active on social media and connecting with the extended family as he calls his fans. This has been the differentiator. Ability to connect with and keeping with the digital generation has been the reason he has been relevant where others faltered.
Lastly, he has been truly one of a kind megastar (superstar is not enough) and I pen this tribute as a thank you for entertaining us with his persona, his acting be it action, comedy, emotion or whatever the genre he was offered, his tremendous ability to sing his own songs (he is the only one other than the legendary Kishore Kumar who lent playback to more than 30 songs and Kishoreda was a singer first). His songs still reverberate in any Indian parties which involves people of my generation who not just sing but also rattle off his movie dialogs and they are a part of folklore. He was rightly conferred the title of superstar of the millennium and one closer look at some of the movies he was “supposed” to be a part of and were never made, would tell you the roles envisioned for him were true to his stature and obviously larger than life for mere mortal. It is extremely sad that those movies didn’t materialize.
Thank you, Mr. Bachchan, for all these years of magic. May you continue to have many many more. As they say, you have etched your place in the true echelon of the ultimate tier entertainers be it in sport, be it in movies globally and you have made all of us Indians proud. What you have achieved puts you among the pantheons of the world entertainers and atop the highest pedestal amongst the Indian counterparts.
