Amitabh Bachchan

I Am Just An Actor

Our great nation was born with the aid of the greatest of midwives — great leaders. We Indians have a long tradition of the heroic. We also like our stories to be a grand narrative, with big drama, big passion, big character, big suffering, big endurance, big overcomings. I have provided my fair share of all things big, even a B. With such a publicised life for over 40 years, one has provided an ample and extended narrative footage for the public, for delight in the giddy highs of success, the passion of suffering and loss, the dismay of defeat, on and on.

I feel it, at the very least, is a morally dubious thing that such public attention has been bestowed upon my private existence considering the vast multitudes of our fellow citizens who have anonymously and quietly succeeded, suffered and endured far greater than me. I have not sought it. I have tried to maintain silence because that is all one can do to preserve some sense of dignity and sanity in one’s private life. But my preferred silence is apparently at once dignified and at the same time not so. It is an oft-repeated argument that even if one does not hold public office, by virtue of being a public figure one is still obliged to explain oneself.

My speech and actions are either viewed as mere self-promotion, or met with no response whatsoever. This was very much the case after the event of a recent wedding in my family. Kept as a private and small event amongst my immediate kin and intimate friends due to the mortal condition of my late mother, it was apparently an act of self-promotion for many, or a mean-spirited exclusivity for others. I was moved to write at length to the editors of many reputable newspapers, magazines and journals — they all know who they are — to correct the manifold errors of much of the press at large about the event. Not one copy of my written response was published.

I have a human right to reply to public slander against myself or my family. This right was met with indifference. Faulted in silence, faulted in speech. What sort of double-bind is this, what sort of culture of news media do we have that could find justice in this Catch-22? I am just an actor. Where are our real heroes? Have we become so enamored of sheer fame, wealth and privilege that we hold this up as transformative for a
culture as rich in heritage as ours?

Where is the maturity in our free society that we must glorify such an empty vessel as myself for admiration? I acknowledge the role of inspirational individuals to cultivate our dreams and hopes as a community, but why is there so little public concern about the delicate point at which inspiration becomes reified into mindless and infantile idolatry? Icons remain legitimate as long as they do not become idols. And what sort of power do we really worship in our endless compulsive listings and rankings of our fellow citizens? Power lists seem to me a kind of destructive new confabulation of our cultural obsession with hierarchy so catastrophically manifested in the caste system.

We need to get over this and move on. Have we become so frivolous and superficial in the last 60 years that we have become blinded to undifferentiated power, that it is enough of an end in itself ? Power is potential, not an end in itself. What do we plan to do with ours, newly found?

Yes, people would at least feel gratified that there has been some progress towards alleviating the terrible suffering of all forms of poverty that have plagued our population, both material and cultural. But we still have a long way to go. Is this really a time to rest on our laurels? I am an actor. I do not know enough about the various political ideologies on offer to espouse any of them. They just confuse me. I prefer representative democracy in a genuinely free, open and secular society — as an ideology — than any of the others.

I try to think as well as one can and merely end up with a lot of questions to ask. I do not have the talent, the intelligence, or the training to ask them well, let alone answer them. I call upon our public intellectuals in all walks of life to vigilant debate. I implore them to raise their voices when they sit down and reflect together about what is good and bad in what we do, say and believe. I beg them for loud and clear direction in our public sphere. If they already speak, as an avid follower of Indian journalism, one does not understand why one cannot hear enough of them.

I want to hear more, and from the best of them. Even if they disagree with me. I will defend them until death for their right to do so. The camera rolls on all of us as we face our future together as citizens of India. As human beings in the world, we have had a rather long chance to sort ourselves out; now we have a good chance of running out of time.

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A new beginning

‘Why was I born?’ a young Amitabh Bachchan once angrily asked his father. The latter's reaction is something the Big B still carries with him...

THE disciplined regimentation of boarding school has often been replaced by the free spirit of independence as one enters university. Parental control seemingly diminishes. Yes, there is respect and answerability but not as severe.

The campus also now has a diverse and varied section of alumni. Discussion and debate prevail. The state of the nation, politics, society, morality, existentialism, life; just about every conceivable subject worthy of putting your mind to.

There is now also the added pressure of the future. Peer pressure has put upon you the responsibility of not just being able to stand on your own feet, but also the responsibility of keeping the rest of the family on their feet.

And that is when it happens! Frustration! The avenues and opportunities open to the youth today in an economically liberated India were absent in the late 50s and early 60s. After graduation what? Where to find a job? What job? How? When? And the idealism and debate and the coffee house banter soon converts itself to anger. The anger of not knowing what to do with ourselves.

You look for answers. You turn to those that may have them. And in one ‘enlightened’ moment you get the answer from a fellow sufferer. “Why were we brought into this world? To suffer?” That's it! We should never have been brought into this world. Judgment passed.

Angered, frustrated, strengthened and armed with unreasonable thought, I walked into my father's study one evening and for the first time in my life, with choked emotion, raised my voice at him and screamed: “Aapne hamme paida kyun kiya?”(“Why did you give birth to me?”)
My father, immersed as he always was in his writing, looked up at me with some initial surprise and then settled down to a more understanding posture and remained so for almost eternity. No one spoke. Not him. Not me. Not a sound. Just the measured clicking of the timepiece on his desk — and my unmeasured breathing! When nothing came across from the parent quarter, I turned and left. It was an uncomfortable night for me. The next morning my father walked into my room, woke me up and handed me a sheet of paper and left. I opened it. It was a poem he had written overnight — titled Nayi Leek or The New Generation.

Zindagi aur zamane ki kashmakash se / Ghabrakar mere ladke mujhse poochte hain, / “Hamme paida kyun kiya tha?” / Aur mere paas iske siwa /Koi jawab nahin hai /Ki mere baap ne bhi mujhse bina pooche / Mujhe paida kiya tha, /Aur mere baap se bina pooche unke baap ne, unhe, / Aur mere baba se bina pooche unke baap ne, unhe…/ Zindagi aur zamane ki kashmakash / Pahle bhi thi Ab bhi hai, shayad zyada, / Aage bhi hogi, shayad aur zyada. / Tumhi nayi leek dharana, / Apne baytoen se poochkar unhe paida karma!
(Pulled and torn by the strains of life and living / My sons ask me / “Why did you give birth to us?”/ And I do not possess an answer to this / That even my father did not ask me before giving birth to me, / Nor my father was asked by his father / Nor my grandfather did ask his father before bringing him. / The trials and tribulations of life and living / Were there before / And are there now too, perhaps more / And shall be there tomorrow, even greater. / Why don't you make a new beginning, a new thinking, / Ask your sons before giving birth to them!)

There are no excuses in life and no blame. Every morning is a fresh challenge. Either you learn to pick up the gauntlet and fight or learn to surrender to it.

So long as there is life, there is struggle!

“Jab tak jeevan hai, tab tak sanghgursh hai,” said my father, as he lay weak and almost comatose in his bed in Prateeksha.

The room is now adorned by his large framed photograph, exactly where he breathed his last. I dress his portrait with a garland of fresh flowers every day and a diya burns perpetually underneath. Few months ago, he was joined on the side by my mother's portrait.

Every day and every moment that I pass the room as I climb the staircase to my bedroom or down from it, I stop by the door and look at both of them. And ask for strength.
It is the light of his wisdom that I endeavor to carry each day when I step out!