Adhuta Rassa or Wonder came from the characters he played be it the larger than life Toofan, the magician of Jadugar or the Almighty himself in God Tussi Great Ho and perhaps even the old man of 102 Not Out.
 
All his roles qualify for Vir Rassa because he always beat up the villains and prevailed justice. In Saat Hindustani the courage depicted was for the country, in Sholay for the villagers and in Shaan for the family.
 
Shaant Rass is not a frequently portrayed emotion on screen unless the character is ascetic. Interestingly, most of Bachchan’s writers perceived him as the strong and the silent hero but that’s not to be mistaken for peace. The few films that portray quietude as characterization are Alaap (where he retains peace despite setbacks), Bemisaal (remains composed in crisis) and in the older portrayals Mohabbatein where his gurukul professes anushasan.
 
All his characters were marked by sorrow, in Abhimaan it was suffering for the spouse, in Mili he is haunted by his past, in Sharaabi and Soryavanshanm it is a dominating father and in Baaghban it is neglect from children.
To be continued

Shringar Rassa is a part of Indian culture and cinema and no matter what character the hero plays, romance and song are part of his projection. Two important films on the subject of romance include Kabhi Kabhie and Silsila.

In the former, the lovers depart voluntarily and while Raakhee leads a happy marriage with Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan is a bitter man even though married to a wonderful wife, Waheeda Rehman.

In Silsila, circumstances separate the lovers, time brings them together again but only tentatively and the dreams die again. Both these films had magical moments.

There are innumerable examples of Hasya Rassa in Bachchan movies because comedy was part of his persona and four films that stand out are, Amar Akbar Anthony for the drunkard scene, Mr Natwarlal for a hilarious sequence with his bhiya -bhabhi, Chupke Chupke even though Dharmendra and Sharmila Tagore had better roles and Do aur Do Paanch for the plot and the characters.
To be continued

In a career spanning five decades and approximately 235 films across genres, the actor is primarily identified as an angry young man and his critics are to be blamed for this. He was never given credit for his varied, versatile performances and he once said that since critics feel that he only plays the angry young man he will continue to play angry middle-aged man and later, angry old man roles.  His cynicism came out of deep hurt.

Today, fifty years later, all his detractors have mysteriously disappeared, today Amitabh Bachchan is the undisputed phenomenon.

My mind rewinds to 2009, the release of my second book on the actor, Bachchanlia. I had just received my advance copy of the book and leafing through the 300-plus page coffee table book, featuring all his film posters from Saat Hindustani/ 1969 to The Last Lear/ 2009, I marveled at his extra-ordinary career and more, his courage of conviction to pursue  these films without getting  affected by the constant criticism he was subjected to by the media.

It would have been so easy for him to get demoralized by his detractors. He didn’t, instead he followed his path relentlessly. A complete artiste is one who can portray all the nav rasas and Amitabh Bachchan’s filmography is a proof all the hues and the fragrance of the nav rasas and more…
To be continued

Happy Birthday Rekha
On October 10 is the screen Goddess Rekha’s birthday. The world knows her as a Diva and her fans look forward to spotting her at award events, draped in her trademark gold sari with traditional jewelry. Graceful, shy and always reserved.
There was a time however when she was not as guarded. When she was spontaneous and child-like and those who interacted with her in the seventies and the eighties will understand what I am saying.
“The day Rekha starts behaving like Rekha, it will be the end of Rekha” she said to me one day, while discussing star attitudes. She emphasized that she would never change, “Well at least I pray that I don’t”. Then, Rekha was a dreamer, high strung and sensitive. She saw beauty in the sun and the stars
and collected butterflies.
Years rolled into decades and mega stardom ushered many highs and many lows. Time changes circumstances and circumstances change people. The core of Rekha remained as pure as she had promised. She was as wholesome and compassionate as olden times but less impulsive now and more mellow.

A few days ago, the entire team of Mahabharat appeared on Kapil show celebrating the birth anniversary of serial director Ravi Chopra. During the candid chatter with the anchor it was revealed that Gufi Paintal was not the original choice to play Shakuni mama, in fact filmmaker BR Chopra had hired the theatre actor to audition all the characters for the serial. Paintal had more or less finalized the cast but Shakuni was yet to be cast. Somehow, they did not get an actor who could project the menace that the character demanded.

One day, BR Chopra watched Paintal brief the actor who had come for audition and after he had gone suggested to Paintal that he stop auditioning more actors and start preparing for the role himself and rest of course is history. This incident is in memory ofGufi Paintal who celebrated his birthday yesterday.

I’m sure there are many more similar stories and what comes to my mind is Bhumi Pednekar hired by YRF to audition new girls for Dum Lagake Haisha. Pednekar auditioned innumerable girls but did not find a right candidate, then one day, producer Aditya Chopra saw her enacting a scene and suggested that they stop auditioning because he had found his heroine, Bhumi Pednekar.

Shabana often jokes that Kalpana Lajmi’s Ek Pal is her tit for tat to Naseerudin Shah for for his misdoing in Masoom, where Shah betrays Azmi and fathers former colleague Supriya Pathak’s child/ Jugal and in Ek Pal, Shabana becomes pregnant with old pal Faroque Shaikh’s baby while being married to Naseerudin Shah.
All her films portrayed Shabana Azmi facing new challenges. In Jeena Yahan the couple is struggling to survive in a metropolis. In Yeh Kaisa Insaaf, the married daughter is responsible towards her dependent maiden family. In Kamala, as the wife of the journalist who purchases a tribal girl to validate his story, Azmi is outraged by his audacity. Her characters were capable of rage and also extreme compassion. Seema in Ek Doctor Ki Maut is offended by her husband’s persistent preoccupation but is at the same time supportive of his brilliance and selfless research for a a vaccine. She often feels sad and isolated from his world but in crisis, is his only anchor.
In contrast, Imtiaaz Begum of In Custody is selfish and ambitious. She has no qualms of reciting her poet husband’s couplets as her own and that’s because Begum is a survivor. In Custody was more about poetry and a dying culture than about marriage. There were some films, where the message was bigger than the character and in these films, the couple was usually well adjusted whether they were migrants (Naseer-Shabana) in Paar or weavers in Susman (Om Puri- Shabana) their concerns were the same.
If Fire was about choices, then Morning Raga was about melody and Neerja about the loss of a loved one. The fact is that Shabana Azmi has portrayed as many powerful roles outside marriage space as well but I’ll tell you about that in another blog, another time.

Concluded

All her films addressed either a socio/ political or family concerns and Shabana Azmi’s directors relied upon her to deliver a strong message. So, if the school teacher’s wife Sushila is a victim in Nishant, Meena Joshi in Shaque stalks her husband to unravel the truth. Saudamini is yearning for her beloved in Swami while Firdaus is forever nagging the handsome Shashi Kapoor Junoon.
She is oppressed in Swarag Narag and the most efficient daughter-in-law of a large joint family in Aapne Paraye who can face up to every challenge but crumbles every time her husband/ Amol Palekar is taunted for not contributing to the family kitty. It was a beautiful film about family politics and women power in the kitchen.
In Thodi Si Bewafayee, Shabana is unwilling to forgive her husband’s slip-up and in Arth, she refuses to take him back after his betrayal. The last scene of the film when Kulbhushan Kharbanda seeks forgiveness and desires to return home, Pooja has just one question: Had she done what he did and wanted to return, would he take her back? Kharbanda shakes his head and Shabana responds, ‘That is my answer’.
In Masoom it was not another woman but a child who threatens the happy family. The film opened to furious debates if Shabana’s character was unduly harsh towards the child but director Shekhar Kapur was convinced that Indu’s hostility is a reaction of her anger towards her husband. The opening scene of the film where the kids are pestering the mother to allow them to keep a pet at home (she is is dead against the idea but finally relents to keep the girls happy), is a motif carried forward in the climax when Shabana drops her anxieties accepts Jugal Hansraj as part of the family.
To be continued

A week ago, actor-activist, ex parliamentarian Shaban Azmi turned 70 and it is a matter of pride that 46 out of the seven-glorious -decade of her life has been devoted to cinema.  Filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor once said that whenever we turn the pages of Indian cinema, Shabana Azmi will be discovered at the turning points.
Azmi reflects the changing face of the Indian woman on screen, not just the modern, working woman but also the homemaker. In the olden days, the heroine was divided between the pious Sita and the evil Shoorpanaka, Shabana Azmi blended her characters with shades of grey to portray a more realistic ardhangini to her husband who reacted according to circumstances.
Launched as a villager in Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, Shabana from the very beginning, juggled all kinds of cinema. If Ankur led to more artistic expressions like Nishant and Kanneshwar Rama, Kantilal Rathod’s Parinay paved a path for the middle of road cinema like Kadambari and more. Shashi Kapoor was Azmi’s first mainstream hero in Fakira and the success of the film led to more commercial films like Amar Akbar Anthony and Parvarish.
To be continued