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 1st 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
