The Bachchan Series – Part 6- The Final Word!!!!!
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Ok Folks,
Today is the last of the AB columns. The festival has kicked off in
NY and have been given to understand that AB will be there on the
15th followed by a visit to the Smithsonian in DC .
So what is it that makes AB the best in the business -
Let us analyze what HE DOES NOT have going for him. Surprisingly the
list is quite large for such a high achiever—
a) He is not the most intelligent of the actors. He is intelligent,
just not the most intelligent. I remember reading somewhere that for
a number of years he had a complex because he got into Kirori Mal
college in Delhi, whereas most of his peers went on to the better
Stephens and Hansraj college in Delhi Univ. Matter of fact his
contemporary Kabir Bedi was the best all round student in Stephens
and his junior SRK was the best all round student in St Columba’s
High School in Delhi.
b) He is not a good multi tasker. We saw that in his ill fated forays
into Politics and Business. That is unlike a Sunil Dutt who was a
successful actor and a politician or a Rajender Kumar who was a
successful actor and a businessman.
c)He is mainly known for only the “Angry Man” image, although this is
not warranted since his peformance in Chupke Chupke, Veer Zara and
Amar Akhbar Antony were hilarious and he is more a “Funny Man” than
an angry one. But for the most part he is know for his Angry
persona.That is unlike an On Puri or a Naseer who can be equally
funny and angry and don’t have any set image.
d) He is know to sulk real bad when he has to. This is the same guy
who banned the press for a long time. An actor banning the press is
akin to suicide, besides the point that it did nothing but good for
his career. Folks like SRK and Dharmendra are way more press freindly
and savy.
e) He is not know to talk about how he would like to be remembered
and all that legendry stuff which no legend actually talks about
(they are too busy working). Nowhere was it more apparent than this
year’s (2005) filmfare award where the Power award went to the FUTURE (SRK)
and the ALL TIME Award went to the PAST (DILIP) whereas he sat
through the entire award ceremony, happily, without being recognized.
So what is it then >>>>>>>what makes AB larger than life >>>>>>what
makes him HIM?????????
I can only guess at the answer—-
Like the famous tennis player Bjorn Borg, he was known as the BASIC
BORG, he did only one thing, that is produce the finest game of
tennis on the grass of Wimbledon and the clay of Roland Garros. He
was not know for his quotes, lifestyle, etc , etc, what he was know
for were his actions from the time “Love All ” was called to the
time “Game Set and Match ” was announced.
Ditto with Martina Navratilova, Alfred Hitchcock, Thomas Alva Edison,
Ed Moses, they were all BASIC people. They showed up to perform their
assigned tasks, day after day after day….oblivious to the world
outside of them, driven only with the knowledge that they had an
assigned task which had to be done to the best of the ability.
So is the case with AB. He is not a director, he does not know camera
angles, his hair style was HIS style before it became a nation’s
style, unlike an Aamir he does not ghost direct, unlike a SRK he
rarely produces his own stuff, he has no filmmaker aspirations, he is
a professional, who shows up, does what he had to do and then goes
home.
That …………and the fact that genetically he was the son of two
of India’s brightest humanns……..poet laureate and oxbridge
educated Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Professor of Lahore
University..Teji Kaur Bachchan….from there he could have either
found the weight too much to carry or he could have used that weight
to find the right balance to springboard off…clearly the
professional did what only professionals do…….he showed up to
work and let everything else take care of itself……and he
continues to show up…….and now he will show up in New
York……don’t miss a living legend.
That folks concluded an emotional set of write up’s by me. I had to
relive life growing up in Bomby and Delhi in the 70’s through 90’s
here….I hope you’ll enjoyed it. There was no SAAFA or my motive in
doing these write up’s , more penning thoughts which were a part of
my childhood and my teens growing up watching an enigma emerge
Tera Karam Hi Teri Vijay Hain, Har Waqt Hain Imtihaan Ka Dastoor Hain
Yeh Jahan Ka……translation….Your Deeds Are Your Victory, Every
Minute Is One of An Exam, That Is The Way Of The Life.
“Life is an Act,The World Is a Stage and Each Person Shall Play His
Part and I Shall Play The Part Of An Actor, That & Nothing Else.”
AB in a one on one with himself when he faces the mirror every
morning….
Sincerely,
Vivek “watching the emergence of a Class Act in front of your eyes,
what more can one ask for in one lifetime” 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
@ Vivek ” You are on Fire” Kumar…Fantastic writeup..thoroughly enjoyed it. Nostalgic..thought provoking to say the least. I am a bit surprised that it took so long for a writeup on AB sr. on PFC. Nevertheless it did come and you nailed it. THAnks for thr trip my man.
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Hi Vivek:
Good write up. PFC must declare a week as AB special so that all can write on AB only and still it will be less to say about him .
Re: This article: You write Dr HariVansh Rai as professor at University of lahore or Teji Bachchan? As far as I know from autobiography of Dr Hari Vansh Rai Bachchan, he was professor of English in Allahabad University. Teji was never a professor in any University.
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Good post…emotion laden and honest! Was discussing with a friend as to what makes AB the greatest of them all in terms of performances and we kind of concluded by saying that most of the great actors are dumb. (Hold on…let me complete!)
‘Method acting’ can only take you so far…beyond that, it has to be the child within u…the unintelligent, non-analytical child which takes u through a character’s graph. And a similar point is raised when u say AB is not much of a businessman, politician, technician…or actually anything else.
He knows nothing…and that’s why he can be anything!
And yes…I also never knew that Teji was a Professor at Lahore Univ. Also, a quick Google doesn’t show me that. In any case…it wud be interesting to know her background. Any pointers…anybody..?
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