An ode to Shahenshah of Bollywood

Today Amitji turned 77 years.  As I was driving back home, I heard songs of Amitabh Bachan being played and interspersed with tidbits about his film life. I was suddenly being transported in my mind to different movies of his and recollection of different scenes of his movies and in no particular order.

I though why not write a poem in Hindi piecing together his dialogues and his movies names. I realized, I am no good in writing Hindi poems and only good in appreciating Kader khan and Salim Javed dialogues.

What to do ?  I had a strong urge to write something about the shahenshah.  Why not write in Hinglish where I can express both in Hindi and English. ( Pardon me Bhaiyon or  Bahono)

My earlier recollection of his movie was Sholay in 1975. I was in High school at that time only Gabbar role  was discussed in the entire country for years together. Amitabh role was a silent one. Years later when I have seen it many times, I realized his role was a stoic look at the entire world and he always had his way through the tossing  coin having two heads on both sides. He simply brought humor with a silent face and always remained cool as a cucumber.

Deewar was the path breaking movie of his and he single handedly brought the entire country’s pent up anger at the prevailing system in the society and exploded as an angry young man.  His dialogue of  “  phenke huye paisa ko , may nahin utathahu”  . Mer pass gaadi hai, bungalow hai , bank balance hai  which was vanquished  by  Mere pass Maa hai dialogue by Shashi Kapoor was the dialogue to be remembered for eternity.  This dialogue reveals us that crime does not pay in the long run.

I remember watching Muqaddar ka Sikander on the day I finished my 1^st PUC exams in 1979.  It was in Santhosh  theatre.  I still remember the entry scene .  They show him stepping out of car. They first show his boots and pant all white and then slowly the entire Amitabh bachan is shown filling up the entire screen and then onwards it is only Amitabh Bachan all the way and no one else mattered. The majaa of watching in single screen big theaters after standing in long queues was a different experience.  We cannot book such experiences now by booking tickets in book my show. All multiplexes  look clinically the same with the same taste of Pop corn and Nachos.

Kader khan dialogue in Muqaddar Ka Sikander  to Amitabh  in khabarasthan when his mother dies “ Dukh ko gale lagavo, duniya  tere kadmo me hongi”  Tu ek din Sikander banegaa.”  Struck a chord in all our hearts.  Amitabh singing on the bike “  Zindagi tho bewafaa hai, ek din tukrayegi , mar ke jine ki ada tho duniya ko siklana hai” was  a philosophical statement on life that life is a zero  sum game.

 In another scene, Amitabh is shooting Vinod Khanna and suddenly he realizes it is a dream  and he is standing in front of a glass door.  To convince himself, he touches the glass door.  This is a paisa vassul scene.  The intensity, the feelings of his losing his love to another one comes out very poignantly.  In every movie of his, there will be one or two paisa vassul scenes.  We do not mind seeing the movie repeatedly for such scenes.

Chupke chupke movie  really  brought out the comedian in Amitabh Bacchan . He being a simple English literature lecturer masquerading as a botany professor was a laugh riot.

Amar  Akbar  Anthony was a movie  that put lot of efforts on projecting a secular India.  It had its usual fare  of  brothers separated in childhood and they all meeting up on a common thread of a song or an old building or some talisman or some torn letters preserved for more than thirty years. I am going out of syllabus, coming back to Amitabh” role in Amar Akbar Anthony where he sells daaru, does comedy scenes and also  packs lot of punch in his fights. In the entire movie, he keeps telling one liner comedy  dialogues which is very hilarios.  Sample this-  one thief running and stumbling in front of him “  Yeh police ka case hai yah Olympic ka race hai”

There were many more movies of his, showing him as an angry young man like Trishul, Don, Agneepath, etc.

My alltime favorite is Agneepath where Amitabh is  Vijay  Deenanath Chouhan.  In this movie the young Amitabh is pulling on a cart his father’s death body and no one in the village helps him and  we can see anger germinating in the eyes of this young lad  and  this  seething anger is  carried forward in the entire movie.  We can see embers of fire burning slowly inside Vijay’s heart.  An underlying current of anger can be felt in Vijay ‘s every frame in the movie. Many people did not like his voice change in this movie. But I felt the change in voice  added to express the anger forcefully.

This was the movie for which Amitabh got National Filmfare award.

There are many heroes and stars in Bollywood but there is one and only one Shahenshah of Bollywood.

Amitabh tells that whenever he faces a camera, he is tensed and want’s to do justice to the role. Every time he faces the camera, he thinks, he is facing it for the first time.  That may be one of the reasons for his success. There may be an underlying lesson for all of us to face every situation with a white belt so that we can give out our best.

I can keep  going on and on but I have to end now and post it today only since it is Amitabh’s birthday.

Amitably yours

Padmanabh

Shopping fervor at Sarakki on the eve of Ganesha festival

Myself, my wife and her sister in law  went for  festival shopping  on the  eve of  Gowri Ganesha  festival  to Sarakki area near Banashankari vegetable market.  We  went a  day earlier, to ensure we get a good bargain.  It was a little early in the evening and the shopper’s were trickling in.  

We could  see  different variety of flowers in all its hues and colors beckoning us to pick them and transferred us into the pre – festive mood.  It  was as if  all the different colors of flowers were sent down to earth, in anticipation of the  arrival of  Lord Ganesha  on  Monday. 

In  what other way we mere mortals can celebrate the festival  other than decking the god  with variety of colorful flowers like Savantige, Mallige, Sugandha raja, Rosu,  chendu hoova , kanakambra and variety of fruits of all shapes and sizes. ( flower names are kannada names of the flowers)

Most of the shopper’s were hardened value pickers.  They may be buying only 250 grams of one variety of flower but they will inquire at five different locations along a one kilometer route. Finally they decide to buy at one place and the moment the flowers are being weighed, they glance on the other side of the road and the same flower appears more brighter there. They are in two minds and the impatience of the husband makes them to finish the deal there itself.  For the husbands all the side appears  green and  rosy, since he is watching all the flower buyers sorry all  the  flowers.

The festivals are a great leveler for all the sections of the society. Some may buy. less quantity of items and some more quantity but the spirit of the  festival remains the same.  The entire city gets engulfed in the festival mood.  Bal  Gangadhar  Tilak was instrumental in converting a private household Ganesh chaturthi celebrations into a gala public  event.  The beauty of the festival is it brings all people together.

I observed  so many sellers, some selling only betel nuts,  some selling one type of flower, some all types of flowers, some different varieties of fruits  but all of them having a  gleam in their eyes in expectation of making a decent money  and  able to celebrate in their own small way, the festival back at their home with their family.

Wishing  everyone  a happy weekend and a great festival. Do not worry about gulping more modaks, Lord Ganesha likes people being a little plumpy.

Signing of in anticipation of Modaks.

URI Hindi movie striking at the heart strings

I went to URI  movie recently  after  receiving, rave comments about it. I heard from some of the people that they have seen it two to three times and still not got over it.  Definitely when you go to a movie after hearing such comments the expectations will  sky rocket and normally the movie ends up not meeting our expectations.  In this instance, I was in for a special surprise.  I was riveted  and glued to watching the movie for the entire duration of 138  minutes.

I and my wife and along with my two nieces (they were seeing it for the second time) went to the movie for a  matinee  show on a Saturday.  I could observe my two nieces were as excited as if they were watching it for the first time.  There Josh was very high using the cliché. I was trying to ask them during the movie, what happens next and they were telling me to wait and watch it. My two nieces are teenagers and I feel the movie has impacted  teenagers very much and put a high degree of readiness in them to fight for the right causes and not take things lying down.

The initial standing for the National anthem  had set the stage for the entire crowd  for the next two hours on a trip of national feelings and euphoria.  There was an air  of deep national feeling across the auditorium. There was complete silence and the audience was waiting with baited breath for the next scenes and ultimately the surgical strike.

The  earlier movie  “  Border “  which was  released in 1997  and based on Kargil war could not create the same fervor  among the people , though I heard from one of my friend from army that Border movie resembled closely to what exactly happened in the war front. The URI  movie impact  is due its nature of taking the battle  into the enemy’s camp which is first of its nature for us Indians.  We prided that  we have never invaded any country or imposed our culture or religion away from our country. The dialogue in the movie that  Indians will no more remain docile and ready to give a befitting reply and take the fight , right into the enemy’s camp,  really  resonated well  with the entire audience. That is the turning point in the entire movie and I feel one of the main reasons for the resounding success of the movie. This is a new and a resurgent India. We will not remain quite. We are ready to fight for the loss of our soldiers, who are brutally killed.

Vicky  Kaushal the actor who dons the role of Major Vihan and who commands the entire  ground operations of the surgical  strike  is tailor made for the role.  His seriousness and the demeanor he maintains for the entire duration of the movie is really the hallmark of the entire movie.

The action scenes  are authentic and  the photography gives us a realistic feeling of the eerie silence and the cover of  darkness during the entire surgical operations. 

The movie has its moments of melodrama in the first half which I feel could have been reduced.  The duration of the entire movie could have been reduced by about 20 minutes but who am I to complain when the entire country has gleefully accepted this potpourri of national sentiments, rhetoric of high josh, melodrama and high octane action scenes  How is my Josh , it is  high, high.

Joshingly

Padmanabh