Amitabh Bachchan says he gets anxious when Jaya Bachchan calls him, pretends to understand when she speaks Bengali

Amitabh Bachchan shares a hilarious incident with wife Jaya Bachchan on KBC 16 and reveals why he gets anxious seeing her phone call.

Amitabh Bachchan often shares fun anecdotes and life advices with the contestants on his show, Kaun Banega Crorepati. This week on the show, Amitabh will be seen sharing how he pretends to understand when wife Jaya Bachchan speaks in Bengali.

Amitabh Bachchan shares humorous anecdotes on KBC 16, revealing how he pretends to understand Bengali when speaking with wife Jaya.

How Amitabh Bachchan learnt to speak Bengali

The viewers will be introduced to Saurav Choudhary from Kolkata, West Bengal. Saurav is a Senior Account Assistant at a CA Firm. During the show, Amitabh Bachchan recalls how his office was located right across the Bengal Chamber of Commerce in Dalhousie, where Bengali language classes were offered. The company would pay ₹3000 for employees to learn Bengali to speak with the workers, with the condition that an exam would take place after three months. At the time, Mr. Bachchan’s salary was only ₹500, and after expenses, he was left with ₹150. The ₹3000 provided for the Bengali course was spent within three days, but to make up for the lack of formal lessons, he would practice Bengali with two friends after office hours. When the exam day finally arrived, Mr. Bachchan successfully passed.

Amitabh Bachchan recalls hilarious incident with Jaya Bachchan

He also recalls a recent humorous incident with his wife, Jaya Bachchan, which required him to speak Bengali but he doesn’t speak it as fluently any more, and how that created a problem for him. He elaborated, saying, “When a guest comes, and you need to talk privately in front of others, Jaya always speaks in Bengali, and I pretend that I understand, but I really don’t. Recently, she was shooting for a film in Goa, and I got a phone call from her. Normally, we talk through messages, but this time, she called, and I got nervous. When my wife calls, I get anxious, not knowing what’s going to happen."

He goes on to add, "I hesitated, answered the call, not knowing what had happened. She started speaking in Bengali because there were people around, and I didn’t understand a word. I just kept saying 'ha ha,' but after a while, I told her I didn’t understand what she was saying. So, sometimes, I have to do things like this. If you ask me today to speak Bengali, I don’t know it. I only know two words: Besi jane na, ektu ektu jaane (I don't know much, very little I can understand).”

Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan tied the knot in 1973 and have been married for 51 years now. The couple has two children, Abhishek Bachchan, who is also a Bollywood actor, and Shweta Bachchan. They have starred together in several movies such as Bansi Birju, Zanjeer, Abhimaan, Mili, Sholay, Silsila and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, among others.