In a very bad and not totally darkened theatre (because of the light leaking through some vents and gaps in the closed doors) called Ramapriya in Vijayawada town in Andhra Pradesh, for the first time I consciously began to understand the phenomenon of Amitabh Bachchan.

The film that was playing was Khuddaar and the scene which was going on at that precise moment was, when Amitji learning the lie his own brother told him, barges into the discotheque where his brother is grooving away with a girl. As he shouts at the DJ to stop the music and looks at his brother at the far corner with hurt filled eyes, a gang of vicious looking bouncers move towards him. He looks at them and with an emotion choked voice says that he will break their legs if they try to stop him. There was an audible gasp in the theatre from the viewers as he said this. The interesting point is that none of the guys in the theatre could speak Hindi as Vijayawada is a Telugu speaking town. So what did they connect to? It is just the raw emotions of anger, betrayal, helplessness and above all the hurt he managed to communicate through his body language, his voice and his eyes.

As I looked at the faces of the people sitting in the theatre I could see a tremendous sense of awe, admiration, respect and above all a connectivity in their faces. Each and everyone of his viewers connected to him deeply through the characters he portrayed in his various films. Each and everyone wanted a brother or a friend or a leader like him.

Even after volumes spoken and big fat books written on him, I think it is still very easy to underestimate his incredible influence and his unimaginable impact not only on cinema but also on at least on a couple of generations conscience.

Kids loved him in Amar Akbar Anthony then and Kids love him now in Bhoothnath.

I have seen street goondas emulating him from Kaala Patthar, Kaalia etc and modern day gangsters are awe-struck with his intensity in Sarkar.

Women used to swoon over his romances then and today’s women would want a life-partner like him.

Old people back then wanted a son like him and today’s old people see the reflections of their own life through his performances in movies like Baghbaan etc. His contemporaries back then were dying of jealousy and unable to understand what is making him tick and today’s stars and technicians resume cannot be completed unless and until they feature with him at least in one film.

For me Amitji is raw, real and gritty and he hit me like a thunder bolt both as a viewer and as a director. His charisma, his screen presence, his personality made such an impact both on me and millions of others like me unsupported by today’s so-called massive production values. Unlike today’s superstars he never had to hide behind catchy songs or lavish sets or exotic foreign locales etc.

Any random man you pick on the road anywhere in the country, and if you ask him what you remember of Amitabh Bachchan, he is bound to come up with at least a hundred of his favourite scenes, dialogues or moments from Amitji’s various films whereas if asked about any of today’s superstars I doubt that they will remember beyond their hit songs and their films box-office collections.

From the time of being awestruck with him in Zanzeer, Deewaar etc to consciously understanding his screen prowess post Khuddaar (which incidentally largely was responsible in influencing my own technique of shaping up characters in my films), my biggest desire cinematically was to do a film with him which eventually I realized in Sarkar. In the run up to the making of Sarkar in my several meetings with him I started seeing a very different side of him other than what I only perceived through his films. Behind the obvious power and intensity was a sensitivity and vulnerability and also listening to his thoughts made me sense his incredible versatility as an actor. By that time my proximity to him blinded me as a viewer of him as a star and the filmmaker in me got greedy and dumb enough to experiment with him as an actor which resulted in Nishabd and Aag. It’s not so much only about the quality of those films that I am talking here but it is just the idea of casting him in those roles.

By Ram Gopal Varma