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Despite being a revenge drama, Amitabh’s angry young man in Zanjeer represented the angry middle class of an increasingly frustrated country.Ī star was born. The incorruptible and brooding Bachchan took on the system. Ajit epitomised all that was “bad” in our society and politics. Inspector Vijay Khanna, Amitabh’s screen name in Zanjeer (Vijay became Amitabh’s most popular and frequent screen name after this), was an angry, brooding, intense character who took on the corrupt system/society represented by Ajit, the hooch smuggler. Released in 1973, Zanjeer became a runaway hit and Bachchan announced the arrival of his stardom. Prakash Mehra needed an intense face for the role and Amitabh Bachchan was shortlisted at Salim-Javed’s behest. Zanjeer, penned by the writer duo for Prakash Mehra, was offered to several actors who turned it down. Hence, “The Angry Young Man” was conceived by Salim-Javed. It is rumoured that a spat with Salim-Javed provoked the writers to declare that they will create a new star, with a new persona. Rajesh Khanna’s stardom was fast becoming a casualty of his temperament. A simmering anger amongst the people was palpable. Nehruvian polemics had either not delivered or subverted by the ruthless and pragmatic, real politic approach of Indira Gandhi. The charismatic Indira Gandhi’s regime began to lose its sheen and there was a growing sense of discontentment and anger in a young India which was just 25. The euphoria of the country was however short-lived. India also went on to ‘liberate’ Bangladesh in the war against Pakistan in 1971. The year 1971 was also the year when Indira Gandhi, a close family associate of the Bachchan family, was seeking re-election on the card of her populist slogan, “Garibi Hatao”. Perhaps, writers Salim-Javed made a mental note of the actor and zeroed in on Amitabh two years later for Zanjeer. Bhasker Banerjee of Anand was an angst-ridden fatalist. The seeds of the brooding Bachchan were sown. Amitabh in his own words has acknowledged Anand as his big break since he got an opportunity to work with superstar Rajesh Khanna. Dr Bhasker Banerjee’s character not only won him awards, but makers took notice of Amitabh who otherwise had had a listless run of films. Therefore, not as a hero, but as a supporting actor, Amitabh established his acting credentials with Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s masterpiece Anand, in 1971. He is certainly no Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor or Rajesh Khanna. His looks were not that of a conventional, good looking, Hindi film hero the audience was used to. But the making of this “superstar of the millennium” was a rather arduous journey not without its more than fair share of struggles and brickbats.Īfter his debut, Bachchan came out with a number of flops to his name. That Amitabh Bachchan has ruled the marquee for close to two decades and even today he is Hindi film’s most charismatic star is a well-established fact. This makes the year 1969 crucial in the history of Hindi cinema. While one climbed the peak of stardom, the other had already reached its foothill. The year 1969, when Amitabh made his debut, was also the year Rajesh Khanna’s Aradhana was released and Khanna was declared a superstar. In 1969, his debut film was Mrinal Sen’s National Award winning Bhuvan Shome as a voice artiste, followed by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas’s Saat Hindustani, that portrays the heroic story of seven Indians who struggle to liberate Goa from the Portuguese colonial rule. This surge of emotion across the country when Amitabh met with an unfortunate accident on the sets of Manmohan Desai’s Coolie was unprecedented in independent India’s history of popular culture.Īmitabh, born to Teji and Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the eminent Hindi poet, worked in Calcutta where he dabbled in theatre and realised acting was his true calling. No other Hindi film actor had captured the collective consciousness of people in the manner Bachchan had. Such was the charisma and fan following of the man who was referred to as “a one man industry”. I remember former prime ministers, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, cutting short a foreign visit, to pay Amitabh Bachchan a visit. One got a glimpse of frantic film celebrities lining up at Breach Candy Hospital. And millions wanted their favourite star to recover. And this was the impact of the stardom of Amitabh on a young and impressionable mind. Prayer meetings were held in every nook and corner of the country and my black and white television showed serpentine queues of anxious people outside the Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai. I prayed at the temple everyday on my return from school. I was hooked to television and radio news, not sparing any bulletin in the day. In the year 1982, as a 16 year old in Lucknow, I lost my appetite.