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By Aman Basha
A small drop into the ocean of words and wishes surrounding the colossus that strides our age
It is impossible for me to pinpoint the exact moment that I came to know of Amitabh Bachchan. He always seemed to be omniscient, present even in an Andhra town where the last Hindi theater shut shop decades before my birth.
It seems now that I always knew of this greatest of actors, and his most booming of baritones, his name and reputation preceded his introduction. This must not just be me, but also the street hawker boy I once saw, pointing to a newspaper, saying “Amit Bachchan”, and millions of others not just in this country but across the world for whom Amitabh Bachchan was not just an actor, a star or icon, he was culture, a part of our lexicon signifying attitude, daring, height, machismo and much more. ‘Magarayudu’, telugu for macho man, is a description that always comes to my mind when I see the Amitabh of his and cinema’s heyday.
One may have never seen him perform, but his traces are inescapable across cinema in any Indian language, from a Ravi Teja action comedy to a Manoj Bajpayee art film. My brain cells increasingly contort as I try to remember where I had first seen him, was it Sooryavansham on Set Max with my mother trying to coax me into the IAS dream while I thought I could drive a bus to riches as Heera Thakur did or was it KBC where a contestant kept gulping incessant glasses of water and won 1 crore for choosing the Dutch?
The Kaun Banega Crorepati host is the most defining factor of Amitabh today for a certain generation. It is interesting to note that no other edition of this game show seems to have survived as well as this did, and that is entirely the credit of its host. In his majestic work “India After Gandhi”, Ram Guha uses KBC to explain a post liberalization India, where education and knowledge were the stepping stones to success, and Amitabh himself with his transformation from the Angry Young Man to the Icon with a Goatee was document to these changing times.
The game is not just a celebration of India, but of Amitabh Bachchan himself. Contestants talk of the times they heard of his accident, thronged theaters for his movie tickets and more. This admiration cuts barriers of caste, class and even language with the same finesse that Amitabh deploys in switching from Hindi to English, that’d make his Hindi poet, English professor father proud.
The Amitabh Bachchan history is constantly recreated on the small screen as contestants ask for his dialogues, his poetry, his gestures and he winfully recreates, in one particular instance, delivering that great Mandir monologue with seemingly more emotion than in 1975.
Looking at the contestant requests, one can see some of the public’s most favorite Bachchan moments, from Don to Agneepath to Deewar to Sholay to Kabhi Kabhi to Hum. Amidst some of these gargantuan success stories of artistic achievement and audience adoration, there are a few that slipped through, a natural outcome in a career stuffed with such riches and what follows is a summation of what I think are some of the slightly forgotten, mostly underrated gems in the cave of riches that is Amitabh Bachchan’s career. These may be scenes, songs, films or anything else
- Sex in Shakti
It might seem as though I am deliberately idiosyncratic and against accepted wisdom, but consider this: how many actresses have been as unassuming, fiercely talented and incredibly sexy as Smita Patil before or since? There is a Madhubala cult (which I do ascribe to), but I do hope I am not alone in the Smita Patil cult or that’d be a sad sign of the audience today.
Ramesh Sippy’s handling of sensuality is not talked much about, even with Saagar as ample proof. He makes it erotic and sensual without it being vulguar and that in the 80s is a huge achievement. The scene is also the only real intimate scene of Amitabh’s I can think of (others either pre or post coital).
The specific scene I refer to is at the climax of Jaane Kaise Kab Kahaan, where both Amitabh and Smita find themselves drawn closer to the attraction between them until they give in. With that unblinking stare from Amitabh, kehne ko kya baaki raha.
- A Smoke after the Sex
Cigarettes in cinema bring up the instant memory of the most stylish of stars, the bus conductor flicking his smoke to superstardom. Before Rajni, there was Amitabh in Deewar so stylishly moving the bidi across his mouth as he talked to Peter.
This is only a prelude to the most massy and starry cigarette moment in Hindi cinema, in that most unstarry and unmassy film Kaala Paththar. In the scene, the tortured Vijay asks a man to light a match for him, only for Mangal, played by off screen rival Shatrughan Sinha, use it to smugly light his own cigarette. His smugness is short-lived as Vijay comes up to him and uses Mangal’s cigarette to light his own, coolly walking away. Listen closely and you hear a thousand wolf whistles.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JErL9u_q3pg
- Baadshah and the Shahenshah
It is a curious statistic that of all the latter day actors Amitabh has co starred with, it is with Shah Rukh Khan that the biggest hits rained. Perhaps it was the novelty of seeing two culturally significant stars, both in their heyday representing two diametrically opposite strands of thought that gave a special charge to their rather lackluster shared filmography.
But the best SRK Bachchan moment for me comes in their worst film, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. A film that SRK apparently hated and one where the director lost most conviction, Bachchan Junior made the best of this half baked mess as Bachchan Senior had fun playing a Jack Nicholson type playboy. The moment here comes in a dinner table scene where SRK confesses his affair with Rani in a joke to Amitabh’s wonderfully done reaction, lying between annoyance and realization. The subsequent wordless scene with Rani is quite well done as well, rendering Karan Johar’s glycerine stream unnecessary.
- AB=Amitabh-e-Bemisaal
Ever wondered how it would’ve been if K Balachander worked with Rajni after he became the Superstar? The closest parallel to this possibility is Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Jurmana and Bemisaal after Amitabh became the Megastar. And the results are….not quite encouraging. Jurmana is an absolute mess of a film that makes no sense in either its moral crisis, its conclusion or even its beginning. Even Bachchan seems to be visibly making an effort at holding this together. It doesn’t help to have Rakhee as the heroine in both these films, an actress who seems mostly functional to my eyes and not all that stunning as the characters in both films find her to be. Then there is Bemisaal.
Made at a time where Amitabh the one man show increasingly dominated the actor, Bemisaal is also nowhere close to Anand and Namak Haraam at its peak and has an even worse miscasting in Ruby Dutt. Yet the film’s saving grace is its Bemisaal lead character Dr Sudhir Roy. This is a fascinating character, who seemingly enjoys misleading people, always khafa over something. He seems to see himself as a vehicle for settling the debts he owes people, he settles his brother’s revenge, he settles his benefactor’s generosity and finally exchanges his affection for a woman while leaving her forever in his debt. It is his relationship with his Sakhi that is the most fascinating aspect of this film, frequently unsettling the viewer and still leaving them curious. There are several dark moments here, from his insinuating assault to a shocked Rakhee and threatening a woman with a syringe. But his brief portrayal of a madman is pitch perfect, without giving into any hamming. This lesser film is only a case study of how Bemisaal Amitabh is.
- The XX Bachchan
Amidst the disappointments of the post politics phase of Bachchan’s career, the Mukul Anand trilogy stands out. While riddled with problems of logic, consistency and more, Mukul Anand always managed to pack a punch, leave an impact and build some iconic moments for his Supernova star, even winning him his first National Award in what is his most celebrated performance today as Vijay Dinanath Chavan. Hum was the only Bachchan worthy blockbuster and had Jumma Chumma, but Khuda Gawah seems to be unfairly forgotten. It has the best Bachchan album in this phase and has Bachchan the closest to a period setting in his career. The Pathaan Baadshah Khan is simply unimaginable without him then and now.
This is also the only film of Bachchan’s where the heroine had as much a role as he did, and who else would it be but the female Bachchan, Sridevi. What Sri does is remarkable, not only playing Benazir but imbibing enough of Badshah Khan’s mannerisms to pass off as his daughter.
I am unable to choose which moment is my favorite here, Baadshah asking Benazir to smile for him or him striking a pose for Benazir as they reunite? Or just him shouting “Habibullah” so much that he apparently gave my dear great grandmother a panic attack? The only correct answer is him and Sridevi were fantastic, two megastars matching each other, is baat ka Gawah Khuda, Khuda Gawah.
Part-II coming up soon.
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