The Bachchan Series – Part 3 —The More He Died, The Larger He Lived – 1975!!!
Hi Folks,
Continuing our build up to the AB legend, as his festival date comes
closer (in April in NY), the year 1975 has got to be the year that
Bachchan died most often on the screen…..That was also the year
where he gave some of the greatest hits of his lifetime,actually
greatest hit’s in Indian cinema.
Sholay, Deewar and Faraar (sure Faraar was average, I guess the law
of averages catches up with legends too) were all films where
Bachchan’s character does not make it unscathed through the end.
Hence Jay of Sholay, Vijay of Deewar and Rajesh of Faraar all perish
and all in 1975, all via a bullet…but that was on the screen…real
life often goes in opposite directions to reel life. 1975 was the
year the name Bachchan came alive in every household in the sub
continent. Death on the screen has ways of doing this. Dilip Kumar
rode that wave prior and SRK post that, but none as dramatically as
AB in 1975.
I’m sure when AB looks back at his own frustation and anger of not
making it for a few years (actually more than a few), i.e. from the
time he left his job in the Tea Trading corporate, Bird & Co and took
that train from Calcutta to Bombay (apologies Kolkutta and Mumbai do
not exist in my dictionery) to do what most corporate executives
DON’t do, try and act in films, he must look at 1975 as the year of
redemption. Sure Zanjeer had come prior to that, but in 1975 he
crossed that boundry which exists between being a good, popular star,
to becoming larger than life….a superstar.
Ironically, 1975 had more, to the list above add Mile, Chupke Chupke
and Zameer….. I rest my case. Matter of fact even if he had not
done anyting after 1975, just that year would have been enough to
establish his place in the history books. From a personal front too
that year would have sufficed. His wife Jaya Bhadhuri was cast
opposite him in three of the films ( Mili, Sholay and Chupke
Chupke ). That year also shows his versatility as none of the
characters in any of the 1975 movies had any similarities amongst
them. The directors were distinct, the looks different and the
stories too, yet there was one common thread in all these
releases….a certain B.Sc. graduate from Kirori Mal College in Delhi
and Sherwood School in Nainital, by the unusual (from a films
perspective)name of Amitabh Srivastava. The last name would be
subsequently changed to Bacchhan. Ironically for a number of years he
was the THIRD most popular person in his OWN house !!!!!!!.
Ironically and amazingly, it did not end in 1975, as a matter of fact
an enigma had just about started to establish his presence on the
film canvass, there was more….. a lot more…..still to come.
Yeh dekho yeh wohi main hoon aur yeh wohi tum. Aaj main kahan pahuch
gaya hoon aur tum kahan ho. Aaj mere paas buildingeyhai, gaadi hai,
bank balance hai. Tumhare paas kya hai. Kyaa hai tumhare paas …the
above is a dialogue from Deewar, but it would not have been any
different when AB, post 1975 spoke to AB pre 1975.
Translation- See it is the same me and it is the same you. But see
where I have reached today. Today I have a house, a car, a resonable
bank balance…what do you have. Tell me what do you have.
The answer pre 1975 and post 1975, folks was an abundance of talent,
a voice which powered over all else and a fierce determination to
prove that , pre 1975 had not been fair to him.
Sincerely,
Vivek “nothing suceeds like success, especially if it happens in
1975″ Kumar
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Interesting never knew that It was Shrivastav and not Bacchhan..Very Interesting…How did that happen? Vivek..can you please elaborate dude..
Here is how Srivastava came about. It started with the dad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harivansh_Rai_Bachchan
Enjoy!
Thanks Vivek..Wow never knew this story…Quite interesting.
Vivek:
Did AB ever used Srivastava as his surname in any of his film? or even at his school or college during the education?
As far people know he was always Amitabh Bachchan because his father changed his surname much before in 1920s or 1930s.
Or is it wrong?
Was once invited to a Sherwood reunion in Delhi, a few years back. Sherwood, Nainital, of course being the school where AB studied. As did Kabir Bedi, Dilip Tahil and Sam Maneckshaw amongst others. There folks mentioned that for a short while AB did revert to the Srivastava name.
Also it was his mom Teji Kaur, who was a professor in Lahoore Univ, not his dad. His dad after wrapping up his education in the UK, worked in All India Radio and was also in politics for a stint, along with of course being a poet laureate.