The meteoric rise of a Superstar

By Sunil Sarpal

His Bollywood journey started from a bench in a Mumbai park.  He left his marketing job in Calcutta to migrate to Mumbai so as to try his luck in acting.  In Mumbai, he had to share accommodation with other aspirants. 

Once sitting on the bench, he was deeply engrossed in thought process as to how his acting career will take off.  He concluded if he keeps on living with these people, he shall not be able to focus on his career and all his endeavour of coming to Mumbai will go waste.  He needed a separate accommodation so that he can concentrate seriously on his career. 

The movie which took him to stardom was Janjeer.  By now you must have guessed that we are talking about Amitabh Bachchan. Thereafter he did so many movies which took him to dizzy heights in Bollywood.   Some of them were Deewar, Namak Haram, Sholay, Don, Amar Akbar Anthony so on and so forth.   The list is endless. 

In movies, Amitabh was paired with so many heroins but his equation with Rekha was unique.  Even both of them were rumoured to have been in love with each other.  

His image of an angry young man in Janjeer became so popular that he was tagged with that image.  All renowned writers and producers started writing script keeping in mind his image of a young angry man. In order to come out of that image, Amitabh did so many different roles.  Even he tried his luck in comedy by doing Amar Akbar Anthony and his sense of humour was appreciated by the audience.  During those day, whatever Amitabh would put his hands on would invariably turn into Gold. 

He became so charismatic that this confidence prompted him to open a company called ABCL.  The purpose of opening this company was to make movies.  But the company flopped miserably and Amitabh became bankrupt.  

At that agonising hour in his life, Dhirubhai Ambani came to his rescue and extended financial help so that he could stand up again in his life. 

Amitabh’s fortune changed once again and from being a bankrupt, he emerged as a winner.  Acting roles started pouring in thick and fast in his life.   

He even earned lot of money thru the television show – Kaun Banega Crorepati – and that show is still going strong with him as the anchor.

In an interview, Salim Khan, the main writer of Deewar and Sholay movies, has opinionated that it is time for Amitabh to wind- up his career in acting. Because, for his age the roles are far and few. 

Some of Amitabh’s dialogue which became viral are:

1)     Rishte Mein to hum tumare baap lagte hain Naam hai Shahanshah

2)     Line wahin se shuru hoti hai jahan hum khade hote hai

3)     Khush to bahut hoge tum, jo aaj tak tumari sidian nahi chadha, dekho dekho who aaj tumare aage haath felai khada hai