By Sanjeev Kumar Patro
Bhubaneswar: Year 1978, Amitabh Bachchan had the virtual run in the B-town. Don, Kasme Vaade and Trishul had a wonder run at box office. Then released the film Muqaddar Ka Sikandar starring Amitabh Bachchan and Vinon Khanna on October 27, 1978.
Vinod Khanna signed this film with Amitabh Bachchan as Prakash Mehra had agreed to pay him the same signing amount he paid to Amitabh Bachchan for the film. It was also Vinod Khanna’s last film with Amitabh Bachchan. After 1978, the blockbuster pair of Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna never came together on silver screen. Cinephiles missed the magic forever. No pair of screen stars recreated the charm of Vinod Khanna - Amitabh Bachchan on silver screen till date.
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar became the sikandar of the year at the Box office. Not only in India,the film was the highest grosser in America in 1978, higher than Don and Trishul. In Los Angeles it ran for 2 weeks and collected $ 15 000 in week number one and $ 12 000 in the second, which was an unheard amount then.
This Hindi action crime drama film was produced and directed by Prakash Mehra, and written by Kader Khan, Vijay Kaul and Laxmikant Sharma. The film's plot is loosely inspired by the Bengali novel Devdas (1917) and the French play Cyrano de Bergerac
AMITABH BACHCHAN – KADER KHAN STORY
The films songs were top chartbusters then. They are evergreen. Beats of songs like Rote Hue Aate hain sab, O saathi re, Pyar Zindagi Hai, Pyar Bandagi Hai still reverberates as the heart beat of, even, the Gen Next.
There was the scene in which Amitabh gives a speech on stage (Prior to singing O Saathi Re). The speech writer was Kader Khan. As per the trivia of the film, Kader Khan penned those dialogues inspired by the personal pains in life.
When Kader wrote the scene, it ended up being 16 long pages. Kader delivered the dialogues to Prakash Mehra. When Amitabh Bachchan saw the 16 pages, he refused to do the scene. Amitabh felt it was too long and there was no way he could remember and recite the entire dialogues.
Prakasn Mehra also agreed that it was too long. Later Amitabh sent his car out to pick up Kader Khan. When the two met, Amitabh told Kader there was no way he was going to do the scene with 16 pages of dialogues. Kader then took the sheet and did it himself with tears rolling down his cheeks.
He told Amitabh Bachchan the significance of the words in the scene. Amitabh was speechless. He hugged Kader Khan and agreed to do the scene as it was written.
