Respected Brother,
Sadar Charan Sparsh,
First thing first my salute to those young soul who request you to recite Dr. Bachchan, I call him Janakavi, a poet of the masses. A man who in most of his work delegated his conscience to work constantly to keep himself as close to the common man as could be possible for a poet. And how distinctly he achieved his set standards that Madhushala his work of 1935 nearly refelects the best even after 75 years. Indeed we are proud to have been blessed with a poet of such great thought and connectivity with the general masses of te land. I salute the spirit of Dr. Bachchan, that I could not meet him despite both of us being in the same city for such a long time is something I sometimes regret. Now my repetitive telling of the fact that it was because of you is not going to change the fact that I could not meet someone I reverred as much if not more than you! It is all right! Man ka ho to achchha hai na ho to aur bhi achchha hai!
Coming to your today’s blog and the contents therein I feel proud of the fact that you appreciate the evolution in the Hindi filmdom and try to appreciate to bea part of it. Yes, I can understand the kind of respect and honours that come yo you from fellow colleagues could sometimes be the cause of some sort of embarrassment to you as it eventually distances you from them in a way! It is again all right, how many in this industry would have shown sincerity and exercised disciplined existence for four decades to be able to reach where you have actually attained a status of the most reverred figure of Hindi Cinema. Man by nature is a bundle of nerves that pronounce his character that you had nerves of steel was on display when you were summarily rejected in your initial days you did not tend to give up or rather give up easily, you waited for the right moment and then you established yourself into the Amitabh Bachchan that we all know you.
First thing first my salute to those young soul who request you to recite Dr. Bachchan, I call him Janakavi, a poet of the masses. A man who in most of his work delegated his conscience to work constantly to keep himself as close to the common man as could be possible for a poet. And how distinctly he achieved his set standards that Madhushala his work of 1935 nearly refelects the best even after 75 years. Indeed we are proud to have been blessed with a poet of such great thought and connectivity with the general masses of te land. I salute the spirit of Dr. Bachchan, that I could not meet him despite both of us being in the same city for such a long time is something I sometimes regret. Now my repetitive telling of the fact that it was because of you is not going to change the fact that I could not meet someone I reverred as much if not more than you! It is all right! Man ka ho to achchha hai na ho to aur bhi achchha hai!
Coming to your today’s blog and the contents therein I feel proud of the fact that you appreciate the evolution in the Hindi filmdom and try to appreciate to bea part of it. Yes, I can understand the kind of respect and honours that come yo you from fellow colleagues could sometimes be the cause of some sort of embarrassment to you as it eventually distances you from them in a way! It is again all right, how many in this industry would have shown sincerity and exercised disciplined existence for four decades to be able to reach where you have actually attained a status of the most reverred figure of Hindi Cinema. Man by nature is a bundle of nerves that pronounce his character that you had nerves of steel was on display when you were summarily rejected in your initial days you did not tend to give up or rather give up easily, you waited for the right moment and then you established yourself into the Amitabh Bachchan that we all know you.
I had never earlier recounted your good movies on this blog albeit I did talk of your failures when you first replied to my comments on the comments titles media is malicious in modern times. Today, for the benefit of my friends and fellow bloggers I take you and them to a journey of my interaction with one man called Amitabh Bachchan.
It was in Port Blair that we were taken to the movie Anand from our school at Mount Batten theatre. It was an admirable performance as Babu Moshay by you that had set some special space in my mind for the years to come. I think, Namakharaam was the second movie I saw must have been in Delhi. The character of Vicky was so well enacted by you that probably it stands out as the most coveted performance by you, in the league of Deewar, Trishul and Don. I did not get to see Zanjeer in theatre nor did see Sholay or Deewar immediately, probably our family could not afford to spend money on entertainment! I did read a lot or rather everything about you some of which could have been wrong. I distinctly remember that I saw Do Anjaane, Kabhi Kabhi, Kasme Vaade, Trishul in theatres. Later I did saw Don twice in a week when I was facing the service selection board at Bangalore. Khoon Pasina, Lawaaris, Hera Pheri, Kala Patthar, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar were some other good movies that I did get to see in theatres. Well, there were some other movies like Adalat, Mr. Natwarlal, Besharam, Ram Balram, Parvarish and Great Gambler and many others. I saw the first movie in Mumbai on the very first day of my arrival in Bombay and it was Silsila which was released that day and I went to see the movie in the night show at aurora with my friends at UDCT Matunga where I had stayed for my interview at BARC.
Now just recounting the titles like I have done here would only be half of the story. I developed a connectivity with you, I would try to emulate your voice and live in the world of attempted anger towards injustice at home or elsehere. I remember one such outburst was towards Sir Richard Attenborough who had called people to be part of the funeral of Gandhi. I had gone in white Kurta and Pyjama and bunked practical exams but as you know of the police bundobast they would not let me break into it and in my angry avtar I took them by surprise and created a furore that few of the bandobust men would have beleived could happen to them! I did get the attention of Sir Attenborough, depsite all my anger I first touched his feet before I broke loose on my fate after missing my M.Sc. practicals, I said its not fair that you call people to get beaten up here! It is not done! He consoled me and took me to the exact van carrying the body next to Sardar Patel and Nehru. I clearly remember Saeed Jaffrey tried to bring cheerrs to me and Roshan Sheth too looked in approval. Now, it is only that the scene was done agin on another day and my presence in the film was nowhere! Lost in the editing or entire reshoot! It is all right.
Now coming back to your movies I would rate the following performances as most near to the natural where one could not differentiate between the actor and the character- Babu Moshay was so very natural that I would like to give you a ten out of ten on that performance, probably you did beg best supporting actor award for it, or tha is what I learned from Dr. Bachchan’s Dashdwar ..
The Vicky of Namak haraam was equally powerful especially when you defend Somu from the outburst of the crowd - I now don’t remeber the exact dialogue yet it was indeed very powerful. To my mind this should naturally come as the second best performance after Anand. It was first time in Don that I realised you could act out your songs also in the most fabulous manner. The legendary khaike paan banaras vala was my favourite on every Holi and I would always love to sing it later rang barse was also added to that list.
In Mumbai, I had somewhat become detached from Cinema, what an irony that I had lost interest in Hindi Cinema when I came to the land of its production. I did see some of your movies like Yarana, Saate Pe satta and Sharaabi and Khuda Gawah among others which were somewhat OK but not in the same league of the other best that You gave in the seventies. I also saw Abhimaan, Mili, Chpake-Chupake and Bemisaal on Television and I feel atelast they were good movies even if not did good as business at box office as Zanjeer, Deewar or Sholay. The first time I saw Sholay in theatre was in Mumbai.
Now I have almost every movie in which you have acted and the ones that are available on VCD or DVD. I have now once again lost interest in Hindi Cinema though I did find that Mohabbatein, Black, Waqt, Virruddh, Khaakee, Aankhen, Baghbaan and Bhootnath were quite good! There must be a list of movies I would rather suggest not to miss. ans yes I missed the mention of Main Azaad Hoon one in the class of Anand and Namakharaam in the sense of your acting! The cameo role in Bunty aur Babli especially the kajarare kajarare was too good ! I thought you underplayed yourself to let all the highlight be in Abhishek. He was good in that film mainly because it suited him but also because that his father did not pose too much competition to him for the honours!
I think I have talked too much and some of it may not be taken lightly as people have their own set of preferences of the movies that they like, every one has a choice and so it should be, I can not thrust my selection on anyone yet here is a list of ten best movies, understandably one of the toughest exercise to pick from so many good movies. Order may not be the order of preference and a couple opf mvies might have got left out from consideration -
1. Anand
2. Abhmaan
3. Namakharaam
4. Don
5. Deewaar
6. Trishul
7. Kala Patthar
8. Kabhi Kabi
9. Sholay
10. Main Azaad Hoon
Oh I am sorry, I could not get any of the movies as an old man! I could have included Black for sure. The best thing that happened on Television was Kaun Banega Crorepati. I wonder if anyone could come so near to perfection on small screen! You were simply outstanding in every episode! Hats off to you!
And please do not consider this as an act of sycophancy, I do not beleive in it, as I do not beleive in meeting you for no valid reason yet I would not desist to walk into you the day I feel that it could mean some gain for me you and the country I would shake off all my inhibition and be face to face with you! As of now it remains only a dream!
Sorry for taking so much your precious time, thinking of me as a younger brother please forgive in case I have hurt any of the sentiments knowingly or unknowingly in this or any of the past comments on this blog. I have enjoyed my existence here as much as one can enjoy sharing thoughts with someone as great as only Amitabh Bachchan could be!
Abhaya Sharma, India, December 27 2008 18:58 Hrs.
PS I do not write out the script and then post, I generally do not edit the posts and they may contain some grammar and punctuation errors as long as they convey what I have to say I do not undertake revising of my first thoughts as i write! I do not claim any proficeincy in English writing I only wish that it is interesting to you and to others again only a wishful thinking!
No comments:
Post a Comment