The tale grew in the telling
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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Jessica Hines' book on Amitabh Bachchan steers clear of the usual path. It presents the superstar as one of us
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Photo: PTI
IN BLACK AND WHITEThe book is also Hines' love song to the city of Mumbai with its "ugliness and energy"; (right) Cover of the book Photo: PTI
When the news of "Looking for the Big B" by Jessica Hines came out, the first reaction was oh no, not another book on Amitabh Bachchan. Not another book on the legendary, the iconic, the brilliant, the one and the only Amitabh who bestrode the Indian screen and continents like a colossus. Would this be another paean to his journey from Allahabad to his job as a freight broker in Calcutta to seven flops in Bollywood before turning into a Midas and turning everything to gold? And then there was the near fatal accident in 1982 on the sets of "Coolie", the brush with politics, the birth of brand Bachchan and the superstar of the millennium.
Will there be the obligatory hymns of praise to "Sholay", "Deewar", "Zanjeer", the whisper of scandal about the alleged affair with Rekha and sundry bits of Bachchan exotica thrown in? Hines' book talks of all this but it is the presentation which is different. The tagline "Bollywood, Bachchan and Me," says it all as the book is more about the writing of a biography of Bachchan rather than about the man himself.
In the book Amitabh comes through definitely as one of us. He is of course the superstar who "has to get through public spaces fast. The idea is that if he creates enough velocity the populace will be repelled away at about the same rate as they are drawn towards him" . But he is also very human in his moods, his humour (he tries to make an omelette and when it turns out a total disaster, he orders omelettes from room service and comments that is the best to way to make a perfect omelette) his dreams ("I dreamt of being rich and famous" and even breaks the myth of his legendary punctuality ("I have spent most of my twenties waiting in the sun on different film sets for the always-on-time One" )
In the acknowledgements, Hines thanks a host of people for two books and that was confusing. A search on the net said this was her first book. Was there another? In a telephonic chat Hines, in her crisp British voice : "The biography is in a trunk under my bed. Amitabh hated the book." Or as in mentioned in the book "he went mental on seeing the first draft".And what does Amitabh feel about this book? "He said it is cool," Hines replies. "And that is enough. I do not want to delve deeper."
Hines' love affair with Bollywood started when she was studying Comparative Religion in SOAS and one of the courses Cinema and Society in India had her hooked forever. She interviewed Amitabh in October 1995 for a dissertation on representations of masculinity in the films of Amitabh Bachchan and there was no looking back. As the book mentions, it was the beginning of a friendship where Hines contrived ways of going to Mumbai to meet Amitabh and it was through Amitabh that Hines' fascination for all things Bollywood took off.
"It is very difficult to find any written material about Bollywood in the UK," Hines comments. "I thought it would be a good idea to write about Amitabh and Bollywood and now there seems to be a slew of books on the topic."
One of the radical things the book dwells on is the sexuality Amitabh bought into his films. "During the seventies Amitabh was the only actor to play to adult male sexuality" . "I know," Hines exclaims. "Nobody talks about Amitabh being sexy! Think of him in "Kaala Pathar" all scruffy and him in "Deewar" sharing a post-coital cigarette with Parveen Babi."
Hines feels the best thing about writing the book was "travelling." In the book she spends quite sometime flying with Amitabh to different parts of the globe from Dubai for the shooting of the execrable "Boom" to Malaysia for an award show to the glorious Rajvilas palace in Jaipur for an ad shoot.
The worst thing about writing the book was of course the "long dark teatime of the soul that every writer goes through. I should have been a banker!" The book follows Hines as she meets different people associated with Amitabh from directors Yash Chopra and Prakash Mehra to co-stars like Shashi Kapoor.
"People talk but do not say anything," Hines comments. "We all have our Amitabh stories which we bring out. We are all mentally lazy and forget so much or rather we reinterpret the past to fit our present. You know what is called the Rashomon effect."
The most shattering interview is the one with Prakash Mehra, the man credited with the creation of the angry young man in "Zanjeer." When Hines meets Mehra "has not made a film in 13 years because I have diabetes. My wife had a brain haemorrhage and has been in a coma for the past year and a half." "That was really heartbreaking," Hines comments. "It just proves that people work really hard in the film industry. It is a tough place to survive and the minute you are deserted by success, everyone deserts you."
Hines even goes to the archives and submerges herself in tons of gossip. "I did not know where to go to find information about the man behind the myth. I thought the gossip magazines would put a different spin on it," Hines comments. She has rather unkind things to say about writers like Khalid Mohammed and Shobhaa De who says: "People talk about this charm and charisma, but I just don't see it. I am sorry but I just don't. He is extraordinarily polite, but dull." Hines says: "I thought it would be a good idea to turn the spotlight on these writers who seem to be able write whatever they want and nobody questions their motivations." The book Hines says is also a love song to the city of Mumbai with its "ugliness and energy."
And what is Hines' next going to be about? "Quantum physics because I am sure sub-molecular particles would not have ego hassles!"
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