Bikas Bhagat
There is a good reason why Amitabh Bachchan shares diplomatic ties with the media. Why not? For 30 years, the man has braved the same old banalities from the members of the Fourth Estate.
Questions garnished every time with the same fervour and the man with no option left, answers them in mocking seriousness giving an impression of a couple trapped in a jaded matrimony.
There seems to be some confusion. Why doesn’t Amitabh Bachchan, for once, take in stride his iconic status in Bollywood, for media with all their rhetoric, and clearly assert the fact that he is the ‘One’.
Shah Rukh Khan has seemed to learn the trick of the trade! Every time you switch on the TV, there you have Amitabh Bachchan dodging, feeling awkward about the relentlessness of the compliment, begging to differ and saying he is just an ‘ordinary actor’. It would not hurt the media to tone down its praise just as it would not harm Bachchan if he were to accept some of the compliments for what they are.
Onscreen heroes have been figures of awe since long. People worship them, respect them, have deep regard for them, and can go to any extent while showering praises. Bachchan must not be ignorant of this fact. He would have once been a party to the same junta, sharing the same sentiments. But for some reasons best known to the Bachchans, they don’t seem to acknowledge the overwhelming adulation with the same gusto.
If after over three decades of astonishing critical and box-office success, he still regards himself as an ‘ordinary actor’, then it can only mean that the world around him has been fundamentally flawed in its judgment about him and his craft. Or this reluctance to accept praise is a patently Indian trait born out of a carefully choreographed dance of humility?
Now, there can be two other possible theories for this predicament. It can either be that his self-effacement and humbleness stem from the core of who he really is, or it can be a case of genuine ignorance to handle encomiums.
I am going to believe that he sincerely rates himself rather low on the acting calibre scale. If that is the case then he must wonder in his private moments with amusement how he has managed to enthral millions for decades with his ‘ordinary and mediocre’ talent. I am sure that is not his intention at all, but when he insists about the limited nature of his abilities. He seems to tell us, “Listen you impressionable fools, get a life ands get out of mine.”
The media on the other hand keeps up the flurry of the same old crappy questions running in the script. What do you expect from the practitioner of a highly absorbed profession to do when faced with the same badgered remarks every now and then? He tries, even at the risk of sounding trite, to tell the world how normal a person he is with all the frailties and weaknesses like the rest of us.
Who doesn’t know that Bachchan is arguably among the world’s great actors? Just leave it at that. There is no need to compel him to respond to or to celebrate his own talent every day of his life.
One frequently asked question is about who the real Amitabh Bachchan actually is. In his latest interview with a news channel, Bachchan quite effectively demolished the notion that the world needs to know the real him. He was right when he said that the world connects to him through his celluloid image and should be content in doing so.
If he was not the superstar he is, who would have bothered to find out about what he is really all about? Now that is one valid point, which the actor makes – but again a dotting scribe in me leaves me wondering, can that be another peg for us to take it for the top…
