(AMITABH
BACHCHAN)
66, ACTOR
 Acting
still flummoxes me. After all these years I still
fret and fume about how the next day is going to
be. Going on the sets is frightening. I get anxious;
I get butterflies in the stomach. I still don’t
know whether I am going to come out looking good
or not.
The process of discovering one’s creative
capabilities can be one of the most satisfying events
in one’s life. I’ve never trained to
act or sing or dance or fight or do comedy on screen.
That I could do all these things was a revelation
for me as well.
I sometimes wish that I’d used those three
years that I spent doing BSc training in the film
arts instead. My graduation in a subject I was least
qualified for was propelled by the conservative
thinking of the times. Nowadays you can be a sound
recordist or an assistant director — some
such training might have been useful for me today.
I believe that I am part of a profession that gets
noticed. The medium itself is so strong that it
has all kinds of associated benefits. But at the
end of the day, I’m a professional just like
any other — doctor, businessman or engineer.
The core is that I go to the studios, I work there,
I come home and that’s it.
With all the adulation comes a sense of responsibility.
When you are doing things that impress so many people,
there has to be a certain integrity, a certain quality,
to be exhibited all the time. You have to conduct
yourself with more responsibility in what you do,
what you say, how you behave. Because they are the
things that are going to get noticed and they are
the things that people are going to talk about.
The day I start believing that I am Mr Know It All,
that day will be the beginning of the end.
There’s nothing hard about being famous. It’s
a wonderful feeling. It’s not about people
agreeing with you all the time — they don’t
necessarily do so. In fact when there is a cause
to retaliate or go against… they have done
so and it is perhaps their right to do so.
It’s in moments of sorrow and distress that
your true friends stand out. When ABCL went bankrupt
I’m happy that I had true friends who stood
by me and gave me the moral support to fight.
I don’t look upon my financially lean days
with any kind of distaste in my mouth. Rather they
taught me so many things. Your mistakes teach you
a lot.
Like most people I dream at night and unfortunately
most of my dreams are unpleasant. We live in a very
fragile world and things can go wrong the very next
second. One is always afraid of that as one is of
the uncertainties of life—financial, professional,
health-related—the ill health of loved ones
can be devastating.
I think I’ve been a good son to my parents
in the last years of their lives.
When I was born, my parents brought me home in a
horse tonga but when my son was born, he came home
in a Mercedes.
Marriage is a commitment. It’s a commitment
for togetherness; it’s a commitment for eternity.
It’s about being able to bring up children
with the same kind of values as you do.
Love, in marriage, has many manifestations and I
think you can spend an entire lifetime trying to
find out what they are.
Have I reinvented myself? I don’t know. I’ve
never really paid much attention to these philosophies
and this process of thinking, I just go along everyday
and see what comes my way and try to tackle it and
try to live with it; that’s how my life has
been. There’s no planning, there’s no
future thinking, there’s no deliberate attempt
to follow any kind of principles. It’s just
been day to day.
I sometimes dream of playing for the Brazilian football
team or coming out a winner at Wimbledon.
Life is a struggle. Every day is a struggle. You
must get up every morning and if you think that
things are going to fall into your lap, you are
sadly mistaken. For every little thing you have
to work hard and you have to work with sincerity.
If you do, then sometimes things work out.
I like to keep track of whatever is happening in
the world. I like a lot of things that my children
like. I like being in their company, I like to talk
the way they talk, dress the way they dress and
I listen to the kind of music they listen to. I
don’t know whether I should be liking all
this — but I do it anyway.
For my epitaph I’d like it if they said, “Here
lies a good human being.” Which would mean
that I was liked by people, by society, that I wasn’t
involved in any negative activities, that I behaved
myself in public, was patriotic to my nation, respectful
to my elders.
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