BIB B

It's a quirk of fate that Amitabh Bachchan should have been halted abruptly in his tracks just as he was enjoying one of the most sensational spells of success in his phenomenal career. In a way it was history repeating itself. When he was laid low by a near-fatal mishap on the sets of Coolie in Bangalore in 1982, he was at the peak of superstardom. In a dramatic decade (from 1973 to 1982) he had not only redefined the profile of the hero in Hindi cinema, but also rewritten the rules of stardom. It was a phase when Hindi cinema was being acknowledged as a "one-man industry" led by Amitabh Bachchan. It was an incredible phase when less than two per cent of the 60-odd films he starred in had failed to rake in mega bucks at the box-office! A record unlikely to be overhauled.

2005 saw him in his element once again, touching a spectacular histrionic high. It was a spell remarkable for his will to free himself from the shackles of star trappings to bring out the best in the actor in him. It was as if he had rediscovered the actor in him with a vengeance. As he admitted post-Black, he was beginning to explore new vistas as an actor. The new Amitabh was apparent in the way he analysed his own work. He talked about rising above a situation weighed down by mediocrity.

Interestingly, he talked of the virtue of silence as a means of expression. He talked about the consistency of character traits. And his own inputs to the delineation of a character he was given to play. Specifically, the evolution of the protagonist he played in Ram Gopal Verma's Sarkar, a film based on The Godfather. The result was a brilliantly underplayed performance that stood in vivid contrast with the one in late Mukul Anand's Agneepath years ago. He was now in control of what he was doing before the camera.

He would even offer variations to the director. It was no longer "Prakash Mehra (or even K.C. Bokadia) knows his cinema." But it took quite a while for him to come to terms with the changing reality. Significantly, in a recent interview he admitted that he no longer fancied the stereotype he had been repeatedly cast in at one stage!

That's a far cry from what he had once come to accept. In 1996, after an inordinately long sabbatical, he had stepped into the second phase in his career, rather tentatively, with inane films like Mrithyudaata.

His Achilles' heel was his larger-than-life image of the angry young man. An image that had turned him into a Cult Hero. The struggle to live it down showed in films like Sooryavamsham where Bachchan resorted to double roles, with the 'younger' Bachchan clinging on to the vestiges of a worn-out image. To be fair to him, he was only going by a Bollywood bogey that swore by image as the bedrock of stardom. Dev Anand had once said, rather simplistically, "My fans won't be convinced if I said 'I love you' to my woman without shaking my head!"

Though his performances were almost always impeccable — he was outstanding in films like Mohabbatein, Aks, Khakee and Dev — the films did little to sustain his stature.
The runaway success of Baghbaan did lead to a change in the approach to casting Bachchan. But it was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black that turned the megastar's own perceptions on their head. As he admitted, he saw the film as a challenge to his abilities. And as he went along, he waxed eloquent on Bhansali's brilliant vision of the medium of cinema. His grasp over it and his understanding of the nuances. He revealed how he discovered newe insights every time he saw the film.

This acknowledgement of the predilections of a new breed of Bollywood directors, which had actually begun with his interaction with the likes of Karan Johar and Farhan Akhtar, gave Bachchan the milieu to reinvent himself as a performer.

The process had actually been initiated by the sensational success of Kaun Banega Crorepati on Star Plus, where he had faced the audience as himself, without a cloak.
The move to squeeze Bachchan's mega persona into a mini screen had taken a lot of persuasion. His first reaction to the suggestion was one of disbelief, like: "Me on television??" It is reasonable to believe that he would have dismissed the proposal had it not been for the mega financial deal it entailed. Just as he had once shunned commercials. But the electrifying response changed forever the way he looked at things.
People accepted him in his new but 'natural' avatar in a big way. In the process it seemed to provide a new generation of filmmakers from Sanjay Gupta to Sanjay Bhansali a clue to recast the Bachchan charisma. And it wasn't long before the Bachchan mystique was at work again. And how! He was rocking all over: On television, in commercials, and on what he has been unbeatable at — the big screen.

What is significant is the commercial success of films like Black, Waqt and Sarkar alongside a frothy flick like Bunty aur Babli which had Bachchan in a crazy role. Together, according to a trade estimate, these have grossed nearly 170 crores in 2005.
It takes memory back to a slice of history when, in 1978, eight Amitabh-starrers had celebrated their Silver Jubilees in Mumbai