When I started off, people termed me a disgrace, but my family’s attitude did not change: Abhishek Bachchan

(NOTE: This is a reprint of a story that was published in the INDIA TODAY edition dated June 9, 2008)

Amitabh Bachchan, patriarch of Bollywood’s first family, the all-time highest grossing Hindi film star of 134 films with a cumulative box-office revenue of over Rs 3,700 crore, the face of 20 brands, and currently the nation’s best-known blogger, is busy. He has his arms around the waists of his son, Abhishek, and daughter-in-law Aishwarya, and he’s tickling them.

Abhishek keeps a straight face, but Aishwarya can’t help bursting into her trademark laugh. “People keep saying that I giggle,” she says. “They should see what I have to put up with sometimes.” Abhishek has already mock-threatened his father for getting too close to his wife of just over a year. He asks Aishwarya, “is this as close as we can get?”

Amitabh is complaining about his son spoiling his hairdo while Aishwarya is being shown a mirror by her husband’s make-up artist. It’s just another day for Pa, Bhaiyya and Baby, in the House of Bachchan, at their second home, Janak, far away from the din of Raj Thackeray’s mob demanding Amitabh’s departure from Mumbai, rumours of rivalry with the Khans and daily boomerangs at an increasingly irascible media.

They’ve all had a full day. Amitabh has come straight from a shower, after shooting for a new Shoojit Sarcar film, Shoebite, at Film City since 7 a.m. Abhishek has just spent an hour at his personal gym at Janak, having left at 5 a.m. for the shoot of his film, Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra’s Dilli 6 at Madh Island near Mumbai. Aishwarya has a long day ahead of her—she has to put in an appearance at the 100-day celebration of her recent film, Jodhaa-Akbar, where her parents are waiting for her, and then at Karan Johar’s 36th birthday celebrations. Oh, and yes, it’s already 12.30 at night.

A cumulative box-office revenue of Rs 4,500 crore between the three of them, 191 films, and 33 brands later, the Bachchans are getting ready for the release of their first film together, the Rs 30-crore Sarkar Raj, the further adventures of Subhash Nagre and his son, Shankar. After that, they will be off on Wizcraft’s Rs 120 crore, 23-city, six continent world tour where they will be performing to various songs, with choreography by Shiamak Davar and music by Vishal-Shekhar. It begins on July 18 at Toronto and is expected to end in December with enough breaks for them to complete work on their films. Coming up for Aishwarya and Abhishek will be another Mani Ratnam film, their sixth together, “the most we’ve done with any co-star”, points out Aishwarya. Individually, Abhishek has two releases this year—the special effects Rs 100-crore adventure Drona and the Rs 30-crore drama Dilli 6. Aishwarya, the highest paid woman actor at Rs 4 crore, is preparing for Shankar’s Robot, opposite Rajnikant, while Amitabh will be seeing the release of the fantasy film, Aladdin, Shoebite and Leena Yadav’s Teen Patti.

They are so involved in their careers that shooting for Sarkar Raj during a 40-day stint in Hyderabad’s Ramoji Film City last year, immediately after a honeymoon in Tahiti, was the first time in 10 years that Abhishek spent uninterrupted time with his father. They would have lunch together daily in Amitabh’s trailer and then get back to being antagonists on the sets. They were then joined by Jaya, the matriarch who is their unofficial restrainer—she will check any shop talk on the dining table with as much thoroughness as she will choose the paintings to be hung in every room—for a visit to Srisailam, one of the country’s 12 Jyotirlinga Shiva shrines.

Ah, temples, just one of the many controversies that seems to have attached itself like a limpet to the Bachchan name. There are several others, and as the Bachchans sit down on plush leather sofas, flanked by a painting by Pritish Nandy—which appropriately, given Amitabh’s writerly mood, has words splattered all across the canvas—they talk about themselves at length. Amitabh is trying to fix his phone, and his son jumps to his aid. “He’s into computers, mobiles are my domain,” says Abhishek, “we multitask as a family.” Excerpts from the conversation, which in keeping with Amitabh’s new-found distrust of the media, is being videographed and documented by a team of two.

Q. So what’s the collective box-office of this family?

Abhishek (AB Jr): Mine is currently zero this year because I haven’t had any releases.

Q. I mean of all time.

AB Jr: Pa alone is over Rs 3,000 crore. Here, I’ll tell you where to find that figure.

Aishwarya: (Laughing). She knows. She’s already checked it out.

AB Jr: She’s also in the all-time top 10 list. (She’s not. She’s ranked 29 among the top-grossing women).

Q. And what about you, Abhishek?

AB Jr: I’m 7,500. (He’s not. He’s ranked 28 among the men).

Q. How was it being in a film, so soon after the wedding, where all of you are antagonists and Aishwarya comes between the father and son?

Aishwarya: This sounds like a prepared answer but the truth is when the camera rolls and you’re there on the sets, saying your lines, that’s what you’re doing. We have worked with each other even before. The two of us have done maximum films with each other as co-actors. It’s about being the character. When you go cut, you realise you’re family. We had an incredible rapport even before we became family, so it’s not that suddenly there was this bonhomie.

Amitabh Bachchan (AB): We’ve done it before in Bunty Aur Babli. We’re all actors. Because we were at Ramoji Film City where we had to live and work on the premises, we had dinner together daily and usually drove to work together, in one car if possible. There was hardly anything else to do.

Q. How was your experience at Cannes this year?

AB: All of us had been shooting in different cities. Abhishek was in Miami, I was in Nashik and then in Shimla. Aishwarya had been in Jaipur. We had not come together for a very long time. She goes every year as the brand ambassador of L’Oreal, which is one of the sponsors for the Cannes film festival. It’s mandatory for her to be there, and to represent L’Oreal the way it wants to be represented—so all this talk of this dress not being good or she not wearing a sari, it’s not in her control. We just went along because we wanted to be together. It was like going to any of her premieres.

Q. Like Aishwarya would go with you to the temples?

AB: No, everybody goes to temples. There’s no question of who is coming or who is not coming.

Q. You’ve read about yourself being a manglikâ€æ

Abhishek to Aishwarya: I don’t think she’s a manglik.

Q. And about being dragged from temple to temple, Aishwarya. Does it bother you?

AB: Why do you use that word dragged?

Q. Because that is the word often used.

AB: Well, that’s wrong terminology.

Aishwarya: It’s ridiculous that a word like this is attributed. It’s designed to direct the readers’ perspective. It’s tired and it’s old. So much time has passed. This talk started at least four-five months before our marriage. It dragged on for a couple of months after the wedding until Pa decided to speak. He made himself available to the media. He actually went to media houses. He spoke extensively and mailed interviews himself so there would be no Chinese whispers. If even after that certain individuals choose to turn a deaf ear and persist in this train of thought, all we can do now is hope the reader is discerning enough. The media has decided to keep the myth going and not validate the facts enough. What more can be done? Pa has spoken and now he writes his blog. So go out there and get the truth, if you’re interested.

Q. Is that one of the reasons you started writing the blog, Mr Bachchan?

AB: No, I just came to know about it a month ago. It’s a beautiful vehicle to communicate with your fans.

Q. Abhishek, you’ve been attacked for your two movies last year—Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Laga Chunari Main Daag—as well as for your weight gain. Is that hurtful?

AB Jr: No. You get used to it. What’s disappointing is when they do it without looking for the reason. They must realise that we as actors are meant to present ourselves as a block of clay and allow the director to do what he wants. I put on weight for Guru, I lost it then for Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, for which I also grew my hair. After which I started working on Sarkar Raj. Ramu (Ram Gopal Varma, the director) and I decided we wanted my character to look healthy, more prosperous, settled, unlike Sarkar, where he had just returned from the US. Now, I can’t go around explaining that to everybody because sometimes they just don’t want to listen. So either you just keep quiet and don’t let it bother you or you try clarifying it. I chose to keep quiet because I thought once the movie is released, it will speak for itself.

Q. But what is your reaction when you see your father being attacked, for instance, by Raj Thackeray, though he’s just one of the many outsiders, so to speak, in Bollywood? And you were born and bred in Mumbai?

AB Jr: I wasn’t here when this incident took place. Dad told me about it a day or two after it happened. He told me what he’d done. He’d taken the lawful route, reported it to the police and let the law of the land take its course. There’s nothing else you can do. You’ve done what you should be doing as citizens of the country. We can’t take the law into our own hands unless it’s in front of the camera.

Q. But it must have been a shock to you, Mr Bachchan?

AB: No attack surprises me anymore. Something new happens every second day. It just comes with the territory.

Q. For so long you’ve been exemplified as the man who kept a dignified silence. Why hit back now?

AB: If there is a callous remark, if there is disinformation, if there is sarcasm, if there is unwanted questioning, would you call it hitting back? I’m just making my point.

Q. Why did you need to clarify to several media houses?

AB: There were very severe accusations which were religious in nature, questioned the integrity of my father, his thoughts and his philosophy. I find it extremely humiliating that they wrote about a person who is not there to defend himself. So as his son, I defend him. Tomorrow when I’m not around, I would expect Abhishek to do so. That’s the tradition with which I’ve been brought up. Is it all right for the media to give their opinion, which is their right and they must, and criticise and avoid someone who wants to do the same? Most of you are not getting the intent right. I’m not against journalists. I’m not against the media. We exist because of the media. But your freedom cannot entirely be yours. Along with your freedom, is our freedom as well. Along with that is vigilance. Both, you and me, need to be on a plane where there is healthy discourse. You’re documenting history for posterity, so how can it be one-sided?

Q. Is it because you maintained a silence during a certain period in your career? Do you regret that silence?

AB: It was the period when the press banned me for 15 years after the Emergency. A lot of negative things were written. All that goes into the archives and becomes available material for anyone who wants to do research. The lady who did a book on me, Jessica Hines, actually found that the only record of that period was what came out in gossip magazines. Now if that is going to be the record of my little contribution, is that correct? A whole lot of that creativity fortunately is still alive because of television and people still talk about it. But where’s the gauge? If someone is going to be documenting history, they will find a gap.

Q. How’s Aishwarya amalgamated into the family, its set of friends, its particular rules?

AB Jr: There are no rules. I think the only rule that is enforced is that on the dining table, we don’t talk shop. It’s weird but a lot of people think it’s like boarding school. But we are a normal family. My parents are very open-minded. They’ve always discussed things with my sister and me. Everybody is asked for their opinion. And we try our best to have one meal together, if we are in the city.

Aishwarya: That’s beautiful. It’s rarely that everyone is doing their own individual thing. And again it’s not like some proclaimed rule. It’s just about being together.

Q. How important is it for both of you that you do well in your respective careers?

AB Jr: I’ve always enjoyed her work. I’m very glad she’s busy working. People tend to forget that I’m the son of an actor, and that’s my mother. And my mother worked way after she was married, after she had my sister and me. So why would my family or I want to stop Aishwarya from acting? Being an actor, you understand another actor.

Aishwarya: This isn’t bias speaking, this is actual admiration. I feel he’s so malleable and open to the craft of acting, to doing so many different things, gaining experience. That’s something I relate to. I love the work he chooses to do. It’s never been what you would dub regular. He’s just followed his heart.

Q. And now all of you will be going off on The Unforgettable Tour in July.

AB: Yes, it’s really frightening. It’s been a while. I initiated world tours in 1981 and now almost 30 years later, we’re doing it again. But it’s because we haven’t done something together in a while. We made one appearance together at the IIFA Awards in 2005.

Aishwarya: And it was a blast, like the world tour.

Q. You always get involved in some political controversy or the other, whether it’s with Amar Singh, the Thackerays or the Gandhis. What do you have to say?

AB: It’s part of life. I don’t say anything. People say it.

Q. Do you not feel that being seen as a political person has hampered your public persona?

AB: My conscience, my bearing, and my deeds are there for everyone to see. Once I said I didn’t want to return to politics, I’ve never made any political statement, never stood on any political platform. If there are people who are friends of mine, who are representatives of political parties, then so be it. I’m not their friend because of their politics. If the media is drawing assumptions, they have the right to do so and I have the right to defend myself.

Q. Yet, in almost every poll on Bollywood icons, you are usually at the top of the list.

AB: That’s not correct. It should be Shah Rukh Khan.

Q. Aishwarya, you don’t even do as many films as your contemporaries, yet you score huge numbers.

AB Jr: I’ve never understood this question. Almost 30 films is a lot to do in over 10 years. She’s not done less work, just the work she wanted to do.

Q. But you never get quoted in this numbers game.

AB Jr: I don’t think the amount you get paid is important. I find it quite rude. I’d much rather be spoken about for the quality of my work.

Q. You were described as dyslexic in Taare Zameen Par. How did you overcome it?

AB Jr: I didn’t really know about it. When I joined boarding school at Aiglon (in Switzerland), I took a test, and then three-four of us were taken away to a special English class. I was there for a year-and-a half. I had minor dyslexia.

AB: It’s something the school took up and rectified. We didn’t even know about it until later.

Q. Mr Bachchan, everyone sees you as the CEO of Brand Bachchan, in charge of the family’s collective equity.

AB: This is a fallacy, that there is a figurehead who manages the brand. We’re all individuals, we’re all professionals. But to look at us as a big mafia family that sits, designs, protects and operates the brand is nonsense.

Q. What about the rivalry with the Khans, and with Shah Rukh Khan in particular?

AB: The media would love to see it because it makes for interesting copy.

Q. What about the ‘Paanchvi Fail’ remark on your blog for which you apologised later?

AB: I never apologised for anything. And you must get the facts right. I’ve reproduced in my blog the events of a meeting with TV executives where the head of a TV station referred to Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain? as ‘Paanchvi Fail’. The media conveniently shifted that quote to me, which has then created some more controversies. In order to close that, I said I hadn’t said so. Even if I had, I apologise. I love my colleagues, I love their success. We’re a very close-knit industry that is secular and nationally integrated. There have been many attempts in the past to divide us.

Q. Do you think there was a backlash against you, from the media and the industry, after the wedding because of the restricted guest list?

AB: I don’t know. We’re okay with it. I don’t know about everybody else.

Q. Abhishek, do you feel the need to reach out to the next generation of Gandhis?

AB Jr: Rahul and Priyanka were much senior to me. We met only occasionally on vacations. But I know them and if the need arises, I will reach out to them.

Q. What lessons do you learn daily from your father and your wife? It takes immense confidence to live with such powerhouses, doesn’t it?

AB Jr: It would be wrong to say that it shows a great measure of confidence. It’s unconditional love. These other aspects of them being such great professionals is secondary. If you love someone enough, it doesn’t really matter. When I started my career, a lot of people termed me a disgrace. My mother, my father, and my wife’s attitude—because I’ve worked with her before—did not change.

Q. Thank you all very much. My only request to Mr Bachchan is that he lighten up a bit.

AB: I’m very light. I’ve lost 5 kg in the past few weeks.

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