gavin's blog

Amitabh wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and wasn’t looking at all good, though it wasn’t serious. There’s been an outpouring of sympathy for the man, who India loves like no other.

 

Why do we love the Big B so much? Today, I’d like to share why I think we do. Mainly, I think, because in so many ways, he represents the very best of us, as humans, and as Indians, and we sense that deep within our hearts, and cherish this irreplaceable icon of our national identity and cultural and spiritual heritage.

 

Amitabh Bachchan is Indian in the most quintessential sense possible. Born in the heart of India, Amitabh grew up in a privileged household, the son of a cultural icon, a man who imparted to him the values of inner strength, self-esteem, grace and humility that makes of such men leaders and sometimes even saints. Even with this legacy, Amitabh did not have it easy.

 

Among the many, many tests that Amitabh had to weather in his life, two stand out. The first is at the start of his career, when he came to Bombay to become an actor, with virtually nothing going for him, unsightly physique and gait and baritone voice. From the ultimate underdog, he became the greatest superstar we ever knew, an entire industry and people’s entertainment calendar were punctuated by his performances for over a decade. The second of these was much later in life when his corporate initiative tanked, saddling him with almost a hundred crores in debt, a sum so frightening even his enormous stature sagged under its weight (given that his financial viability in the changed scenario was nothing like what it once was). I do not count among his greatest tests, his return from near death (for that did not challenge his spirit as much as his body) or his political difficulties, though these made of his life anything but a bed of roses.

 

Amitabh Bachchan, through the handling of these two tests demonstrated at the very deepest level what strength of character is. Especially his return from debt. Caused in great part by the gross miscalculation and incompetence in the entertainment domain and intellectual hubris of green-behind-the-ear professional managers, he rarely blamed others for the situation he found himself in. Nor did he lean on his family for emotional support, ever the rock, even a hundred crores down! Owning up to his situation, his return to mainstream pre-eminence as India’s biggest star (today he is considered in the same category as Shah Rukh Khan as entertainment icon, and bigger by some accounts), and repayment of the entire debt has been a story that would make a fairy tale proud for stretching credulity and demonstrating strength of spirit.

 

The Amitabh we loved in the seventies and eighties is not the Amitabh we love today. The first Amitabh is a completely different one – an entertainment vehicle for our dreams, where we hung on his every move, as he donned a variety of forms, as the Gambler and the Don and the Sharaabi and the Coolie and so on, each of these an excuse for us to partake of the brilliance of conviction of a man, who could make of everything absurd that he did (because of the fledgling industry he worked in), a reality utterly convincing and a joy to participate in. The second Amitabh is a man who has come back from the dead, who has come back from the debt, and who shows us what it is to be human, to be Indian, from the best place that we can be both.

 

And these two Amitabhs mirror in a sense two different Indias. The first Amitabh played to an India that was angry, disenchanted, victimized, and which wished it could lash out at a system that had let it down in so many ways, fantasizing its own hero-ness. The second Amitabh mirrored an India that had matured, had made peace with its own and others’ mistakes, and was willing to face its challenges head on. The second Amitabh is the real hero, the one who has lived out what he once only acted out.

 

About this second Amitabh, a recent article in the Bombay Times commented on the spate of commercials featuring him with children. An insightful comment by one of the makers on why these commercials were so effective to make and to sell was how comfortable Amitabh was with the children. That was only half the story. The other half, I think, was that the contrast of a man so masculine with a person so tender, made the stories of the commercials so appealing. It is this combination of his personal power along with his incredible humility that makes him so compelling to watch, and which makes KBC so vital as an experience.

 

I can go on and on, on a man I love and revere so much, and that a billion other Indians (cynics, count yourselves out) feel the same way about. I love both Amitabhs, the one I grew up on fantasizing about, and the one whose real life that I now look up to.

 

Get well soon, Big B! We love you!