The Living Legend – Amitabh Bachchan Asafalta ek chunnauti hai, ise sweekar karo, Kya kami reh gai, dekho aur sudhar karo. Jab tak na safal ho neend chain ko tyago tum Sangharsh ka maidan chjodkar mat bhago tum. Kuch kiye bina hi jai jaikar nahi hoti, Koshish karne walon ki haar nahi hoti. -Harivansh Rai Bachchan An ideal son walks on the footprints of his father. Living true to the ideologies of his father and winning laurels for his work, he has made the country proud. Yes, we are talking about the legendary actor of Bollywood, the Big B- Shri Amitabh Bachchan. Destined for his journey of stardom with his trademark brooding tall persona, intense eyes and deep baritone voice, the Big B of the industry has it all, anyone can dream of in a life! Being a Libran, Amitabh Bachchan was born on October 11, 1942 in Allahabad as the son of the well known poet, Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Teji Bachchan. Initially he was named as Inquilab. At the suggestion of a co-poet his father changed his name to Amitabh meaning, “the light that would never go off”. His initial name was Amitabh Shrivastava, but he replaced his surname with Bachchan, the pen name of his father. Contrary to everyone’s belief, Amitabh Bachchan was not born with a silver spoon. He lived like an ordinary man and his success today is the outcome of his hard work. Completing his education from Jnana Promodhini, Boys High School, Sherwood College in Nainital and Kirori Mal College Delhi University, Mr. Bachchan unaware of what he was destined to be, moved to Calcutta to work in Shaw and Wallace, a shipping firm and later on to another shipping firm named Bird and Co. to work as a freight booker. It was in 1969 that this supreme personality knocked the doors of Hindi film industry. To everybody’s surprise, he faced rejection initially due to his TDH guise as the then trend of B-town favored fair guys. He had faced rejection for his voice as well at All India Radio. But somehow, recognizing the spark in him, Mrinal Sen gave him his first break as a narrator for his movie Bhuvan Shome in 1969. After this followed his first break in Khwaja Ahmed Abas’ Saat Hindustani, and for his first movie he was garnered with National Film Award for Best Newcomer. In 1971 he won his first Filmfare Supporting Actor Award for Anand starring with Rajesh Khanna. Then he appeared in Reshma Aur Shera, Guddi, Bombay to Goa. In 1973 with his role as a police inspector in Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer,he established a new persona of “the angry young man” of Bollywood. With his major hits like Don, Deewar, Sholay, Trishul, he brought in vogue the violent melodrama in Indian Cinema. He projected his versatility by showing an equal grace for tragedies-Shakti, Mukaddar ka Sikander; and comedies-Amar Akbar Anthony, Chupke Chupke. He has always moved with the flow and this has been the secret of his success. How dear he had become to the cinema and the world came into picture only after he received fatal injuries while shooting for Coolie in July 1982. He was the demi-god for the world and the entire milieu had folded hands for his life before the almighty. Looking at the impact of the injury on public, the director of the movie Manmohan Desai altered the ending of the movie by making the character played by him survive! This incident made him so pessimistic, that he starting having inhibitions about his talent. He would say things like, “Yeh film to flop hogi!”. His pessimism for acting made him turn to politics with the help of a long time family friend Rajeev Gandhi. He contested Allahabad seat elections and won by a fairly huge margin. But his political career was short lived and he resigned soon after three years owing to Bofors Scandal. This made him return to Bollywood with blockbusters like Shahenshah, Agneepath, Hum and Khuda Gawah. But good times didn’t support him for long. He faced a series of flops in mid 90’s. At that time it seemed as if calamity had chosen him as its favorite child. Besides flops in B-town, he faced severe financial crisis due to failure of his production company ABCL. During that time his friend Amar Singh came to his rescue and helped him financially. Since then he has been supporting the Samajwadi Party and his wife Jaya Bachchan joined The Samajwadi Party and became a member of Rajya Sabha. After a period of semi-retirement, Big B returned back to the silver screen in 2000 with Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein starring with Shah Rukh Khan. The film was a blockbuster hit. Later he came up as a host for the reality quiz show-Kaun Banega Crorepati. Thereafter, his career took a positive turn and he featured in many hits like-Ek Rishta, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam, Baghban, Black. He won critical acclaim for his versatile performance in these movies. He also hosted the third season of Big Boss. Mr. Bachchan has been into controversies all his life. His love affair with actress Rekha has always been rumoured. He was in political controversies and legal controversies due to land deeds. He has always kept his personal life very private, be it his wedding, wedding of his son Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, the birth of his granddaughter Aaradhya. He has kept his daughter Shweta away from the glamour world. A 15 year press ban was imposed against Big B by Stardust and some other magazines during the highest point of his career. He loves to talk about himself by the word of his own mouth which explains the reason for his being active and having the largest fan following on social networking sites. He is an up-to-date man! Amitabh Bachchan became the first living Asian actor who was honored at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. He is the actor who has maximum Filmfare nominations. To his success and glory he has four National Film Awards, fourteen Filmfare Awards and so many other awards that the space would end but the list won’t. His recent trysts with Bollywood were in Sarkar Raj, The Last Lear, Paa, Teen Patti, Bhuddah Hoga Terra Baap, Aarakshan, Bol Bachchan. This legendary actor has set unsurpassable records for every actor. His personality, charm, aura, voice, style statement, in fact everything about him not only speaks but roars about his life and career. He has truly made an eternal space and epitomized the moral heart of people across the globe. We can never get enough of the great man’s talent and our excitement runs high every time we hear about an upcoming rendezvous of his with the silver screen.
Posted on: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:35:12 +0000
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