Like my dad always tells me…”Bachchan hysteria” is something that one has to truly “LIVE/EXPERIENCE” to understand what it was and is…….
By: RK

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Some day in July 1982, former president of India Gyani Jail Singh was in our small city to inaugurate a big hospital. Classes were off after lunch and school bus used to pick us up in the evening only so we had sufficient time to spend. We accompanied elder students of our school belonging to our living place as they were going to see new hospital. Hospital was some 2 km from our school and everybody was walking and when we were passing through a market place then all of a sudden people started running here and there. We stopped and our elder associates stopped 2-3 people and asked them what has happened.
One of them with a sad face, as if he would start crying soon, said,” News on Radio says that Amitabh Bachchan is seriously injured and is taken to the hospital”.
Many shopkeepers were also gathered to listen what this man was saying. After listening to him everybody was disturbed. One old shopkeeper said after some moments of silence,” May god save his life”.
It was a chaotic scene in the market. Don’t know why people were running here and there as if some riot had happened. Such was Amitabh’s impact on people especially youngsters.
We all decided to go to our living place but as school bus was the only medium to go back from city to our colony so we all decided to cover the distance of 14 Km by walking. We all started walking without saying even a single word and we covered whole distance in absolute silence.
Inside each one of us was rewatching the scenes from the films of Amitabh Bachchan we had watched by then.

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Some day in last week of August 1982-

Amitabh Bachchan was shifted to Breach Candy hospital in Bombay and was recovering from his injury and subsequent operations. While lying on his sick bed inside the ICU, perhaps room number 1, he had written a poem.

[ Outside-Inside

Outside

Black
Granite ugly rocks
Turbulent mud laden sea
Dark frightening clouds hovering above

Inside

Whiteness, purity
Clean sheets, soft pillows
Gentle care, soft words
Solitude
And my agony ]

AB’s father Late Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan had done a more profound hindi translation of this poem which has been published in his autobiography.
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If there is something like education in film viewing then a whole generation went through this opening ceremony of “viewing films” through AB’s films only. Some followed this Annprashan ceremony through Zanzeer, some with Sholay, some with Don, Amar Akbar Anthony, or Muqadar Ka Sikandar etc. An introduction with his cinematic incarnation was enough for leaving a long lasting impact on the minds of these kids. He was a kid’s hero. They loved him like anything. They grew with him and his films. They got first shock when he did Mard and said some adult dialogues not good for kids to listen.
Almost every kid of 70s remained in awe of him for long. Everything related to him was a matter of concern for them. If he was injured then they needed to be updated every hour because they wanted to know about his condition. They prayed for him a lot. It was an emotional blow for them.

When they got to know that he had written a poem from your sick bed then they waited for long to see that poem and this desire was fulfilled by his father who mentioned this poem in his autobiography. When he entered in to the politics they started following political news.
He made famous holidays with the then PM Late Rajiv Gandhi and his family and his permanent fans tasted it as if they had made holidays with most popular political family of India.
In mid 80s when he was MP and Jacky Shroff was enjoying the success in films it was mentioned that Shweta and Abhishek had become big fans of Jacky so AB had invited Jacky to Delhi so that his Kids might meet with their star.
He Invited Anup Jalota to sing at his house in Allahabad.
When he was surrounded by bofors scandal then once he gave speech at a club before a gathering of CAs and CAs were so impressed by his speech that many commented “kya bolta hai, kahan fansa diya bechare ko “(What a speech, Where poor person has been seized).
If he was disillusioned with politics then they kept sympathy with him.
He met former PM late Chandrashekhar and arranged that PM would attend the premiere of his film Hum. He famously described Mr Chandrashekhar as a poor farmer because when he reached to meet PM he was sitting alone on a floor covered with blanket and sipping his tea and doing his paper work.
He grew his beard in early 90s and it was an interesting matter for his fans.
He used one of the longest word of English language - “FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION“ in one of his interviews and people talked about it for months.
He was someone who used to read books on classical music, musical instruments like Tabla.
He took sabbatical and went to USA to study some film course and people enjoyed his tales how he lived in a small apartment and how he was enjoying life of student with his daughter there and how he used to cook. People enjoyed tales about his life and then he was taken as very sophisticated and well mannered person.
That was the end of his first phase of super starry days.

[Everything changed after 1997 but about that phase some other time]

Today is the day to celebrate the 65th Birthday of longest reigning super star of Hindi Cinema.

Many Happy Returns of the day Mr Bachchan ! !