Its been a day when I often wonder what others do to keep themselves occupied. To me it has been one of great despair. Nothing to do, nowhere to go and having just no desire at all to do something. Yes there is work pending and hundreds of important issues to tackle and resolve, but the strange thing is that when you have the time, it isn’t time and when you do not, then you do. Which is why they say when you wish something to be done, give it to the person who is most busy for that shall guarantee that it shall be done. I was not busy today and so nothing was done !

But … in those moments of inactivity when I did get down to deciding how my day would be conducted, I discovered that the little that I was doing was in consonance with what eventually my desires would be were I to continue to pursue it. To elaborate, if I was wishing to see a game or a match, the comfort of spending time in front of the box was not entirely disapproved !

And hence the fact that there are two conflicting thoughts that dominate the mind and body was something that I felt was quite strange. I need the liberty and the luxury of nothing to do, but perhaps the intent is barred in a sense, by my desire, or shall I say commitment towards what I may have given.

This is both troubling and enjoyable ! Which in many ways sums up all our experiences in life too. If it were to be simply one sided trouble it would be most destructive for us as beings. If it were to be to the contrary, it would equally be destructive too. How much can one enjoy without courting trouble ?

Hmmm … just setting me up with some thoughts !! Nothing of relevance really but worth considering. For I fear that soon there shall be a condition of either, that I shall or may have to decide upon. When the jobs dry up, when the face is no longer wanted, when what you say and perform is termed undesirable, then …. what ? A book on a couch. A tv programme to look forward to. A game to watch. A grandchild to educate and bring up. A few words to write to those that shall remain faithful. A reflection perhaps on days gone by - pictures, write ups, media reports, letters …

And most importantly the act of dissolving the self to the next .. to give away that which we shall never be able to carry with us forever. Not because they cannot be retained, but because they need to be retained by the next ; by those that shall outlive you.

Okaay … I can sense a huge anger building up among our family of resentment on this mode of conversation and so to divert or remove ourselves away from it let me just be somewhat immodest and put down for you an article written by the one director, who surprisingly is and has turned out to be the one that I can now confess is the one that I have most worked with - seven films ! Even Hrishi Da or Manmohan Desai or Prakash Mehra, or Salim Javed do not measure up to that number ! Quite surprising is it not ? Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury I present to you, the one and only - Ram Gopal Varma !!

Why B is Big

In a very bad and not totally darkened theatre (because of the light leaking through some vents and gaps in the closed doors) called Ramapriya in Vijayawada town in Andhra Pradesh, for the first time I consciously began to understand the phenomenon of Amitabh Bachchan.

The film that was playing was Khuddaar and the scene which was going on at that precise moment was, when Amitji learning the lie his own brother told him, barges into the discotheque where his brother is grooving away with a girl. As he shouts at the DJ to stop the music and looks at his brother at the far corner with hurt filled eyes, a gang of vicious looking bouncers move towards him. He looks at them and with an emotion choked voice says that he will break their legs if they try to stop him. There was an audible gasp in the theatre from the viewers as he said this. The interesting point is that none of the guys in the theatre could speak Hindi as Vijayawada is a Telugu speaking town. So what did they connect to? It is just the raw emotions of anger, betrayal, helplessness and above all the hurt he managed to communicate through his body language, his voice and his eyes.

As I looked at the faces of the people sitting in the theatre I could see a tremendous sense of awe, admiration, respect and above all a connectivity in their faces. Each and everyone of his viewers connected to him deeply through the characters he portrayed in his various films. Each and everyone wanted a brother or a friend or a leader like him.

Even after volumes spoken and big fat books written on him, I think it is still very easy to underestimate his incredible influence and his unimaginable impact not only on cinema but also on at least on a couple of generations conscience.

For me Amitji is raw, real and gritty and he hit me like a thunder bolt both as a viewer and as a director. His charisma, his screen presence, his personality made such an impact both on me and millions of others like me unsupported by today’s so-called massive production values. Unlike today’s superstars he never had to hide behind catchy songs or lavish sets or exotic foreign locales etc.

Any random man you pick on the road anywhere in the country, and if you ask him what you remember of Amitabh Bachchan, he is bound to come up with at least a hundred of his favorite scenes, dialogues or moments from Amitji’s various films whereas if asked about any of today’s superstars I doubt that they will remember beyond their hit songs and their films box-office collections.

My biggest desire cinematically was to do a film with him which eventually I realized in Sarkar. In the run up to the making of Sarkar in my several meetings with him I started seeing a very different side of him other than what I only perceived through his films. Behind the obvious power and intensity was a sensitivity and vulnerability and also listening to his thoughts made me sense his incredible versatility as an actor. By that time my proximity to him blinded me as a viewer of him as a star and the filmmaker in me got greedy and dumb enough to experiment with him as an actor which resulted in Nishabd and Aag. It’s not so much only about the quality of those films that I am talking here but it is just the idea of casting him in those roles.

Amitji’s make-up man Deepak told me on day one of shooting of Nishabd that the film will flop because no one is going to accept Amitji in a role like that. Whether that is the reason or not, I for myself as a viewer wouldn’t probably want to see him featured in a role like that. As an actor I think Nishabd is Amitji’s finest performance mainly because of its sheer complexities and it demanded such subtle nuances of reactions, which most of the so-called art-house actors won’t even begin to understand in their life-time let alone portray them. But the question is does one want to see Amitji just as an actor? I for one don’t want to, unless the acting is coming from a certain immensely larger than life perspective.

Similarly in Aag there will be a difference between a viewer’s reaction and my reaction to his performance. As a director I judge an actor by seeing what he does with what is given to him. The viewer sees the final effect of that in the context of the film and hence he cannot have an idea of how I could have screwed it up in the screenplay and how badly I edited it or various other blunders I could have committed. People seeing the film react on the effect, whereas as a director I know the cause.

On the other hand if somebody argues that he had no business to do those films without knowing what he is getting into, yes he is guilty of misplacing his trust in me but he is not guilty of not doing his best which he does invariably better than any other actor can ever even hope to do.

From what I gathered from my association with him, I understood that by being the ultra professional that he is, once he agrees to do a film based on whatever reasons he has, he completely succumbs to the vision or non-vision of the director. The end product sometimes can look a mess but the inside secret will be that he would have always given much more than what was expected of him.

The close-up of his when he stands on the steps looking at Aftab taking Jiah away in the climax of Nishabd calls for an extraordinary understanding of human emotions and hence a far superior performance, compared to him saying “Tujhe bhi karne nahin doonga” in Sarkar which he would have done a thousand times before. But sadly the effect of that line in Sarkar will become cinematic history whereas the Nishabd’s close-up might go unnoticed.

The effect of Sarkar’s performance as compared to Sarkar Raj is probably higher for many primarily because of the shock value of seeing Amitji in such a role after a very very long time but if you look deeper you can’t find a single shot in Sarkar which is comparable to, for an example the expression he has when he shows Sanjay Somji’s body to Raosaab. There are many many such moments in Sarkar Raj.

So the point I am trying to make in summation is that he never ever failed as an actor and he never will. It’s only directors, both other’s and me who frequently fail in framing his art in a given context.

Karan Johar’s favorite film of his is Kabhie Kabhie and Silsila which I loathe compared to my favorites like Deewaar and Zanzeer. I dislike seeing him in movies like Last Lear and Black whereas Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Rituparno Ghosh might not want to make films like Nishabd with him.

But that’s what subliminal art is about. You can take whatever you want from it and interpret it in any which way you want to.

Amitji is an artiste who can and will allow himself to be conformed, adapted and shaped up in any which way one wants to mould him and the final result he will leave it in the hands of the director he is working with.

But irrespective of what on a personal level he might think of the result, the effort he puts in and the passion he brings in to elevate even the most mundane of scenes, the performances he brings and the way he speaks his lines is for me my personal proof of what Amitji truly and really is.

Amitabh Bachchan is that rare art form which takes birth just once in several life times.

I am deeply embarrassed at this exposure, but I am merely following instructions of RGV. There is a edited version that has appeared in the Asian Age of today, but this above is the original without any cuts or deletions ..

My love and my reservations on the article ..

Amitabh Bachchan