By Sanjeev Kumar Patro
Bhubaneswar: Earnest, enchantingly sensible eyes, mid partitioned hair, baritone voice, six feet three inch tall and charismatic screen presence, this actor from a north Indian state, has been the tallest star actor in Indian Cinema, not Bollywood alone.
This actor is none other than Amitabh Bachchan. Confining him to be superstar of Bollywood is like demeaning his stature. He is the pole star of Indian Cinema. Notwithstanding language barrier, remake of Amitabh Bachchan’s films in south Indian languages had been a fad in late 70s and 80s. For which, from Amir Khan to Taliban govt in Afghanistan, all still hold Amitabh bachchan in awe. This Sahenshah (King of Kings) of Indian Cinema will turn 83 on October 11. May god bless him long life and enrich the Indian cinema greatly.
BADSHAH OF MUJAHIDEEN
In her book Networked Bollywood, Swapnil Rai writes “In war-torn Afghanistan, ‘one thing that all Mujahideen groups agreed on was Amitabh Bachchan. President Mohammad Najibullah’s (1987–1992) repeated insistence that Bachchan make a film in Afghanistan attests to the actor’s prodigious fandom”.
On October 7, 2023, a ‘verified’ parody account posing as Taliban’s Public Relations department had posted a tweet. The post reads as “Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian actor and a masculine individual who is well-liked in Afghanistan. Few people are aware that he is an honorary Afghan citizen. When he visited our magnificent nation in the 1980s, President Najibullah bestowed this distinguished accolade upon him."
The Taliban parody account mentioning Big B’s Afghan visit takes back to the years of 1990-92, when Amitabh Bachchan was in Afghanistan for the shooting of his hit film Khuda Gawah, with the much popular song Na Ja Re Mere Badshah….. . In the movie Amitabh Bachchan played the role of an irreproachable Pathan, part of the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan.
AMITABH BACHCHAN – ONLY MARD, EVEN, IN EGYPT
The 1985 blockbuster movie of Amitabh Bachchan’s Mard had not only ruled the hearts of Indian cinephiles. The daring dialogue ‘Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota’ had not only thrilled the cinema goers in India, the film was a craze in Egypt.
Such was the obsession for Amitabh Bachchan’s Mard that the film ran for months in Egypt overshadowing many local films. As per the Africa Quarterly Book 2007, the Egyptian film industry had felt so much threatened that they lobbied with the then President Hosni Mubarak to pass an extraordinary decree that no Indian film could run for more than four weeks continuously.
As per the book Networked Bollywood, Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor known for his acting in films like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, noted that Amitabh Bachchan seems to be more popular than me in Egypt.
Amitabh Bachchan had a huge fan following in the countries like West Asia, parts of Middle East and Nigeria, where the NRI population is not seizable.
No other movies of stars – from Dilip Kumar to Shah Rukh Khan – had such a magnetic sway over the people of Egypt, like the film Mard did.
AMITABH BACHCHAN’S TOWERING PRESENCE
How towering has been the persona of Amitabh Bachchan in Indian Cinema can be sample checked from the trivia that Thaliava Rajnikant alone had acted in 11 of Amitabh Bachchan remakes that zoomed Rajnikant to superstardom in Tamil cinema.
The Amitabh Bachchan show that started in 1969 with Saat Hindustani is still going on when he is 83, Vettaiyan – The Hunter - with Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikant in lead released today.
Vettaiyan day 1 gross collections in all languages has been estimated at Rs 18.05 cr. Trade pundits see a good weekend collection for the film.
The Hindi version of the film The Hunter had an occupancy ranging from 4% to 37%. While the occupancy in Chandigarh has been 4%, it is 37% in Jaipur. The film has an encouraging occupancy rate of 32% in Kolkata.
The legendary star’s Kaun Banega Crorepati – season16 is proving the wage earner for Sony TV. As per BARC, KBCs TVR average in week number 36 is 1.1% as against an average of 1 TVR at the time of launch in week number 33.
The BOTTOMLINE is Amitabh Bachchan is still a crowd puller, which is evident from TVR of KBC and good response to Vettaiyan. It is for this towering show, Amir Khan recently said, “I grew up as a child watching superstar Amitabh Bachchan, now I have grown old and Amitabh Bachchan is still the superstar.”
