Panipat (Undivided India), HARYANA / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Multi-hyphenate talent Khwaja Ahmed Abbas worked in Urdu, Hindi and English and across writing mediums. Abbas, who died in 1987 at the age of 71, wrote social realist screenplays for Raj Kapoor and V Shantaram, directed films, published short stories and plays,and contributed a long-running weekly newspaper column. Among the best-known films he directed are Neecha Nagar, Sheharaur Sapna and Saat Hindustani. Set in Goa and tracing the efforts of seven revolutionaries to free the state from Portuguese rule, Saat Hindustani marks the debut of Amitabh Bachchan. An essay from the anthology Bread Beauty Revolution, edited by Iffat Fatima and Syeda Hameed, relates Abbas’s encounters with the “tall young man” and future screen icon. Bread Beauty Revolution includes writings from Abbas’s memoir I Am Not An Island: An Experiment in Autobiography as well as essays, stories,poems, photographs and columns.

The story of Saat Hindustani came out of the Goa struggle reminiscences of my assistant, Madhukar, who would often regale us with the adventures he had while trekking up with the non-violent commandos to hoist the tricolour on every police station they came across…

I was so excited when I finished the screenplay that I telephoned all my friends and informed all my assistants, including Madhukar, to come and hear it in my fourth floor office on the very next day. That was a ritual which they never missed and I would get their suggestions for casting the film.

I wanted to prove by my casting that there was no particular Hindu or Muslim, Tamilian, Maharashtrian or Bengali ethnic type. To begin with, I would transform the smart and sophisticated and versatile Jalal Agha into the Maharashtrian powada singer. Even Jalal was shocked to hear this. But I reassured him that, with the proper make-up and get-up, nobody would recognize him except as a rural Maharashtrian folk singer. Madhukar, who hails from Meerut, would be a Tamilian; Sharma (Brahmin by caste) would also undergo a similar transformation; and Utpal Dutt, the cigar-chewing admiral,would be the tractor-driving Punjabi farmer. So far the casting was clear in mymind. On one of my visits to Kerala I had met Madhu, the handsome hero of the Malayalam screen, and he had approached me and expressed his desire to work in a Hindi film with me. I would make him the sensitive Bengali; I wouldn’t have to work much on his Bengali accent for he had lived with a Bengali family. Now only the Hindi and Urdu fanatics were left. Jalal one day brought with him his friend Anwar Ali (brother of the comedian Mehmood), in whose eyes I saw the Jana Sanghi fanaticism. So I decided to make him the Swayam Sevak who hates Urdu and speaks jaw-breaking Hindi. That left one Indian, the Muslim Urdufanatic. Since I wanted these boys to be of different ages and different heights, the one vacancy left was for a tall and handsome man. He had to be thin, also corresponding to the thin image of my friend, the late Asrarul Haque “Majaz”.

One day someone brought a snapshot of a tall young man and I thought that the boy was in Bombay. I said, “Let me see him in person.” “He will be here day after tomorrow evening.” Again, presuming he was in Bombay, I thought he must be working somewhere and wouldn’t be free till the evening. On the third day, punctually at 6 pm, a tall young man arrived who looked taller because of the churidar pajama and Jawahar jacket that he was wearing. This young man would one day be known as Amitabh Bachchan, the heart-throb of millions. But I did not know his name. Roughly, the following dialogue took place between us:

“Sit down, please. Your name.”

“Amitabh.” (Not Bachchan.)

It was an unusual name — so I asked, “What does it mean?”

“The sun. It’s also one of the synonyms for the Gautama Buddha.”

“Education?”

“B.A. from Delhi University.”

“Have you worked in films before?”

“No one has taken me so far.”

“Who were they?”

He mentioned very prominent names.

“What did they find wrong with you?” The boy spoke with frankness. “They all said I was too tall for their heroines.”

“Well, we have no such trouble. In a way we have no heroine in our film. Even if we had, that wouldn’t prevent me from taking you.”

“Taking me? Are you really going to take me? Without even a test?”

“That depends. First I must tell you the story. Then I must tell you your role and see if you will be enthusiastic about playing it. Then I shall tell you what we can afford to pay you. Only then, if you agree, shall we sign the contract.”

I read him out the complete story and saw his face become alive with interest. I asked him which role he would like to play. He told me the two which particularly impressed him. The role of the Punjabi, and the role of the Muslim. I told him he was perhaps a Punjabi, and that made him unfit to play that role. He asked me why. I gave him the reason, the reason for having a scrambled cast. The idea appealed to him greatly. He said, “I think, I know what you mean. Then I would like to play the Muslim role, specially because he is under a cloud of suspicion. And only at the end the suspicions are removed and he is proved a patriot.” Then I told him we could pay him no more than five thousand rupees,which was the standard figure for all the roles.

He seemed a little hesitant, and I asked him, “Are you earning more than that?”

“I was,” he said.

I asked him what he meant.

He said that he was getting about sixteen hundred a month in a firm in Calcutta.

“I resigned the job and came over.”

I was astonished. “You mean to say that you resigned a job of sixteen hundred rupees a month, just on the chance of getting this role! Suppose we can’t give the role to you?”

He said, “One has to take such chances” with such conviction that I said, “The role is yours.”

Then I called my secretary, Abdul Rehman, to dictate the contract. I asked the tall young man for his name and address.

“Amitabh—” after some hesitation, “Amitabh Bachchan, son of Dr H.R. Bachchan.”

“Stop,” I said. “This contract cannot be signed until I telegraph and get your father’s consent. He is a colleague of mine on the Sovietland Nehru Award Committee. I wouldn’t like to have a misunderstanding with him. I am afraid you will have to wait for two days more.”

“You can ask my Dad, but frankly, do I look like a runaway?”

I told him that runaways don’t have any particular look. So I dictated, instead of the agreement, a telegram to Dr Bachchan in New Delhi and asked him if he was willing to let his son become an actor. Two days later a telegram came reading “No objection where you are concerned.” This is the whole story about how Amitabh Bachchan came into films.

Excerpted with permission from Bread Beauty Revolution, edited by Iffat Fatima and Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Memorial Trust and Tulika Books.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Excerpt / by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas / November 14th, 2015