This might surprise you. You must be wondering why I gave him a two star rating
while I rated the "other" things a high four (mass popularity,
personality, performance). Because sadly, there's no option in there
called "qualities one possesses as a person". More about that later.
These days there are news and gosspis all around in trade magazines,
magazine sections in newspapers and on useless news channels and
websites on the comparisions between Amitabh and Shahrukh. To
their own advantage, news channels conduct polls asking us to give our
"valuable opinions" on who's better of the two - and while die hard
fanatics keep SMSing, all these channels make loads of money out of it,
thereby fooling the people everywhere.
Recently I was surprised to see the kind of bashing SRK got on rediff,
in one of these Amitabh - SRK comparisions. I think it was related to
their comparisions as KBC hosts. And almost 90% of them had rooted for Amitabh,
and not just that - it was really sad to see them using bad words for
SRK - calling him arrogant, selfish, jealous and calling him
names - while calling Amitabh a very down to earth, polite and an
epitome of humility. And this is what pissed me off .
Okay, Amitabh is an awesome actor. I have admired him, over n
over again. and will continue to do so. His acts in the older angry
young man images his created for himself (Deewar, Trishul, Sholay, Don,
Muqaddar ka sikandar and many more), as well as movies which captured
his comic timing (Chupke chupke, Namak Halal) as well as the romantics
(Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila) have been great to say the least, and they were
the reason he got so many die hard fans for him - across all
generations.
But does that really qualify for a great person? Ever since he came in the eyes of the media, what he showed for years was his fake humility and honesty,
and people kept going gaga over him - going to the extent of calling
him GOD and what not. But his behaviour in recent times has led me to
believe he is not all that goody goody image he creates for himself.
Few days back while I was going through HT City (a magazine section
with Hindustan Times), I saw a full page ad of his son's film Guru. The
film was released and went on to become a hit. Agreed! But what
surprised me was the way the SMSs Amitabh got on his cellphone were
published in the paper. There must be over 70 messages in there
occupying the whole page and all were praising Abhishek like anything.
Some of them were actually calling Abhishek the best actor in India
today. LOL. And on the top of that page was Amitabh's signature - Im
proud to have lost to my son's Once in a lifetime performance. Haha, Relax Mr. Bachchan - this was my first thought.
All right - he went overboard in praising his son. He must be a great
father. I forgot about that. Then started those limitless Amitabh - SRK
comparisions when SRK started off with KBC. Now what happened was
Amitabh started getting aggressive and impatient in his interviews -
which was a complete contrast to what picture he portrayed of himself
before. This time he even started giving indirect hints of having a spat with SRK.
Now what Sahara television, having known to be influenced by Amitabh
did was create a spoof of KBC-3 called Kaun banega Champu - which I
consider to be a cheap stint by these people. Now this is what I call
desperate attempts to bring SRK and his show down.
And now that Abhi-Ash are going to get married, the Bachchan family
started publicising their engagement and selling it to news channels
just when his son's film Guru was about to release. Ash getting married
to a tree, sarees she would wear on her marriage, who would be invited
etc was all we got to see all day.
Amitabh went further to chop off the kissing scene of HR-Ash in Dhoom 2. Now this is the real Amitabh for you. Sexist and hypocrite.
He doesnt have problems in kissing Rani Mukherjee in Black and Jiah
Khan (good enough to be his granddaughter) in Nishabd, but he will
object to his future daughter-in-law getting kissed by Hritik in a
movie. Now, Mr. Bachchan - if you have got that scene chopped off, you
should also get your kissing scenes with Rani and Jiah and son
Abhishek's kissing scene with Rani in Bunty aur Babli chopped off. Coz
you are presenting a good example of hypocrisy and double standards in
society.
Thats not all. The worst Amitabh did in recent times was selling his
name and advertising for Uttar Pradesh - the tagline going something
like - "UP mein hai dum, kyunki jurm hai yahan kum".
UP mein hai dum? LOL LOL LOL. this man seems to have completely sold
himself to Amar Singh and the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Did he forget what happened in Greater Noida,
all those Nithari killings of innocent victims including small
children. All these helpless parents couldn't do anything about it.
They kept on lodging complaints in police stations and no enquiry was
conducted. And all this happened under the rule of these good for
nothings - one of them being Amitabh's closest friend. Despite all
that, we see Amar Singh attending award functions regularly and Amitabh
endorsing UP. Pathetic!
Amitabh is a great actor. But as a person, duhh!!!!
So people, stop overrating him!
