He said that politics least interested him. He said that he only respected and lauded what his 'big brothers’ were doing for the state of Uttar Pradesh.
He was only returning favors done for past indebtedness and financial problems in which his close friends had bailed him out through their charitable purse-strings.
The harassment to those ordinary citizens by the state government who had objected to some disproportionate and atrociously huge land deals granted to him by the impoverished state of Uttar Pradesh had nothing to do with him, personally speaking.
When Amar Singh slapped an organizer for giving him a seat behind the front-rows, a supposedly modest down-to-earth distinguished man was curiously silent.
He also once stood next to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s burning pyre, helping his young son Rahul with the ceremonial rituals, as a country mourned the young assassinated leader.
I grew up in the bygone era of 1969-74 when Rajesh Khanna’s standard mannerisms and romantic gestures had young girls swooning side to side with the consistency of a never-stopping pendulum.
That’s the time I first ran to the Chambers dictionary to learn the exact meaning of the word, 'phenomenon'.
Then came the Angry Young Man, best manifested by a relentless honest cop in Zanjeer. The rest is history.
In between there was the vulnerable possessive friend in Namak Haraam, an egotistical husband in Abhimaan, an intrepid cool dude with a sensitive heart in Sholay and the irrepressible dock worker on a personal mission in Deewaaar.
Several commercial blockbusters followed like Kabhie Kabhie, Trishul, Amar Akbar Anthony and Chupke Chupke.
That Amitabh Bachchan was a masterful entertainer, a natural Natwarlal, with a deep baritone voice and histrionic skills, which could leave anyone spell-bound, was beyond dispute.
But what made Amitabh Bachchan more of an everlasting icon than some of his more illustrious co-actors and colleagues had nothing to do with his cinematic brilliance alone.
It was to do with a nasty punch in his belly during the shooting of Coolie, a typical Manmohan Desai madcap trash.
Thanks to the only TV channel the country had, the government owned Doordarshan broadcasting regular bulletins on Bachchan’s regular pulse beat, Breach Candy overnight became a tourist destination.
An anxious nation fervently prayed for Bachchan’s recovery, making the lanky tall man from Allahabad our first real Bollywood hero into a national obsession.
Mrs Indira Gandhi, then India’s prime minister left her official engagements to visit the ailing actor, as she valued his eminently revered parents and their close family bondage.
In my opinion, that was the day the real super-hero was born in India. A mass entertainer battling a grievous threat to his life, was given a special legitimacy by India’s first family.
Bachchan became a bigger household name, and captured the national imagination like no other.
2006. I saw the so-called “non-political involvement” of Amitabh Bachchan a few days ago in a long lengthy commercial advertisement for the beleaguered state of Uttar Pradesh.
It was such a farcical exposition pregnant with fraudulent excesses on the achievements of the state, I almost choked.
I wonder how much of taxpayers’ money has been blatantly misused for such gross political propaganda by the government of UP with Assembly elections coming ominously close.
Does Bachchan honestly believe that he can treat us Indians as such gullible fools that we will subscribe involuntarily to all his celluloid tricks?
I am particularly angered as the advertisement is a gross misinterpretation , and totally at odds with ground home-truths.
Uttar Pradesh, which frankly has become India’s dark state thanks to rampant crime, total lawlessness (the recent defecation of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statute and the subsequent rioting in India germinated in Kanpur), rising unemployment, bureaucratic inefficiencies and political corruption (both political heavy-weights Mayawati and “friend” Mulayam Singh Yadav are facing daunting personal charges for amassing massive wealth) is being shown as India’s El Dorado, a virtual heaven- on-earth, with a happiness index that will put a Sooraj Barjatya film to acute shame.
Now we all know that Mr Bachchan and even his little baby have been variously provided with many ornamental positions in UP, but this is carrying the Brand Ambassador tag to coarse band-baaja levels.
It’s grotesque and completely distorted, and insults the common man’s intelligence. It surely is a big con job, and makes the India Shining campaign look like Mahatma Gandhi’s My Experiments With Truth by comparison.
Bachchan is a personification of the ultimate in doublespeak.
After confirming his total disdain from the “cesspool of Indian politics", he now literally courts the Lucknow durbar as it’s loyal patron.
Jaya Bachchan has entered the Rajya Sabha with overt support from Samajwadi Party, and as a quid pro quo for his livewire presence on political platforms (literally) Bachchan has been allegedly offered several generous endowments courtesy the ruling party.
He now sings false hosannas about a state of which his family was once an integral part.
He is entitled to his personal political ideologies, but this ridiculous exhibitionism is in poor taste.
But, of course, Bachchan is not interested in politics, he says with undisguised humility, hands folded, a synthetic smile across the French beard.
Just like the “wretched media” which he conveniently boycotted when it personally suited him years ago, which today has become his “dial-a-lifeline”.
All he tells us is that one Mr Amar Singh and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav are the real panacea for solving the country’s innumerable ills.
Sad indeed!
Bachchan could have been better off repaying his old debts in EMIs; instead, I think he preferred to sell his soul.
(Sanjay Jha launched CricketNext.com, now a part of Web 18 family, and maintains a regular blog on IBNLive.com, the website of CNN-IBN. The views are expressed are his own and do not reflect the views of the channel or the website) About the AuthorSanjay Jha Sanjay Jha is a hard-core “Congressi” largely on account of being enchanted by the incredible brilliance of the Gandhi-Nehru mystique, its array of in...Read Morefirst published:December 05, 2006, 16:13 ISTlast updated:December 05, 2006, 16:13 IST
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He is a true-blue superstar, a national rage and an international celebrity, intellectually vibrant, and usually a paragon of classic perfection.
He said that politics least interested him. He said that he only respected and lauded what his 'big brothers’ were doing for the state of Uttar Pradesh.
He was only returning favors done for past indebtedness and financial problems in which his close friends had bailed him out through their charitable purse-strings.
The harassment to those ordinary citizens by the state government who had objected to some disproportionate and atrociously huge land deals granted to him by the impoverished state of Uttar Pradesh had nothing to do with him, personally speaking.
When Amar Singh slapped an organizer for giving him a seat behind the front-rows, a supposedly modest down-to-earth distinguished man was curiously silent.
He also once stood next to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s burning pyre, helping his young son Rahul with the ceremonial rituals, as a country mourned the young assassinated leader.
I grew up in the bygone era of 1969-74 when Rajesh Khanna’s standard mannerisms and romantic gestures had young girls swooning side to side with the consistency of a never-stopping pendulum.
That’s the time I first ran to the Chambers dictionary to learn the exact meaning of the word, 'phenomenon'.
Then came the Angry Young Man, best manifested by a relentless honest cop in Zanjeer. The rest is history.
In between there was the vulnerable possessive friend in Namak Haraam, an egotistical husband in Abhimaan, an intrepid cool dude with a sensitive heart in Sholay and the irrepressible dock worker on a personal mission in Deewaaar.
Several commercial blockbusters followed like Kabhie Kabhie, Trishul, Amar Akbar Anthony and Chupke Chupke.
That Amitabh Bachchan was a masterful entertainer, a natural Natwarlal, with a deep baritone voice and histrionic skills, which could leave anyone spell-bound, was beyond dispute.
But what made Amitabh Bachchan more of an everlasting icon than some of his more illustrious co-actors and colleagues had nothing to do with his cinematic brilliance alone.
It was to do with a nasty punch in his belly during the shooting of Coolie, a typical Manmohan Desai madcap trash.
Thanks to the only TV channel the country had, the government owned Doordarshan broadcasting regular bulletins on Bachchan’s regular pulse beat, Breach Candy overnight became a tourist destination.
An anxious nation fervently prayed for Bachchan’s recovery, making the lanky tall man from Allahabad our first real Bollywood hero into a national obsession.
Mrs Indira Gandhi, then India’s prime minister left her official engagements to visit the ailing actor, as she valued his eminently revered parents and their close family bondage.
In my opinion, that was the day the real super-hero was born in India. A mass entertainer battling a grievous threat to his life, was given a special legitimacy by India’s first family.
Bachchan became a bigger household name, and captured the national imagination like no other.
2006. I saw the so-called “non-political involvement” of Amitabh Bachchan a few days ago in a long lengthy commercial advertisement for the beleaguered state of Uttar Pradesh.
It was such a farcical exposition pregnant with fraudulent excesses on the achievements of the state, I almost choked.
I wonder how much of taxpayers’ money has been blatantly misused for such gross political propaganda by the government of UP with Assembly elections coming ominously close.
Does Bachchan honestly believe that he can treat us Indians as such gullible fools that we will subscribe involuntarily to all his celluloid tricks?
I am particularly angered as the advertisement is a gross misinterpretation , and totally at odds with ground home-truths.
Uttar Pradesh, which frankly has become India’s dark state thanks to rampant crime, total lawlessness (the recent defecation of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statute and the subsequent rioting in India germinated in Kanpur), rising unemployment, bureaucratic inefficiencies and political corruption (both political heavy-weights Mayawati and “friend” Mulayam Singh Yadav are facing daunting personal charges for amassing massive wealth) is being shown as India’s El Dorado, a virtual heaven- on-earth, with a happiness index that will put a Sooraj Barjatya film to acute shame.
Now we all know that Mr Bachchan and even his little baby have been variously provided with many ornamental positions in UP, but this is carrying the Brand Ambassador tag to coarse band-baaja levels.
It’s grotesque and completely distorted, and insults the common man’s intelligence. It surely is a big con job, and makes the India Shining campaign look like Mahatma Gandhi’s My Experiments With Truth by comparison.
Bachchan is a personification of the ultimate in doublespeak.
After confirming his total disdain from the “cesspool of Indian politics", he now literally courts the Lucknow durbar as it’s loyal patron.
Jaya Bachchan has entered the Rajya Sabha with overt support from Samajwadi Party, and as a quid pro quo for his livewire presence on political platforms (literally) Bachchan has been allegedly offered several generous endowments courtesy the ruling party.
He now sings false hosannas about a state of which his family was once an integral part.
He is entitled to his personal political ideologies, but this ridiculous exhibitionism is in poor taste.
But, of course, Bachchan is not interested in politics, he says with undisguised humility, hands folded, a synthetic smile across the French beard.
Just like the “wretched media” which he conveniently boycotted when it personally suited him years ago, which today has become his “dial-a-lifeline”.
All he tells us is that one Mr Amar Singh and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav are the real panacea for solving the country’s innumerable ills.
Sad indeed!
Bachchan could have been better off repaying his old debts in EMIs; instead, I think he preferred to sell his soul.
(Sanjay Jha launched CricketNext.com, now a part of Web 18 family, and maintains a regular blog on IBNLive.com, the website of CNN-IBN. The views are expressed are his own and do not reflect the views of the channel or the website)
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