"Amitabh's life is an open book"

Jaya Bachchan spoke to Udita Jhunjhunwala about Everlasting Light.

After the response to the screening of Everlasting Light, the documentary on Amitabh Bachchan, at MAMI last week, Jaya Bachchan is encouraged to find a wider platform to screen the film as well as work on a follow-up project. Since filmmaker Ram Madhvani has three hours of footage of Bachchan reciting his father's poetry, one idea is to "give the documentary a form through the recitations, but we are still discussing ideas," informed Jaya Bachchan. What about a television telecast? "We'd like to take it to the channels, but for that the film would have to be in Hindi. As the film was made for a retrospective of Amitji's films in New York, it was aimed at a primarily non-Hindi, non-Indian audience, so we'd have to re-do the film in Hindi for local telecast," she informed.

HT Image

Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan in UP

On the objective nature of the film and the family's non-interference in the contents (it covers Bachchan's star status, KBC as also his tryst with politics, the Bofors scandal, his bankruptcy etc.), producer of the film Jaya Bachchan said, "Amitabh's life is an open book and to not comment on it would have been unfair. The fact that he got up, despite hitting rock bottom, and walked again, speaks volumes of a person's tenacity. The man has been through the fire and the scanner, in fact he keeps going through it. And the people of this country are not stupid; they do not admire someone in this way unless that person has stood the test of time."

Speaking of the test of time, over the last four months, Bachchan's health has been a matter of daily examination and potential headlines, what is the current status? If anyone can tell us, his wife can, and did. "He has taken a lot of beating and been through physical trauma. He is 64 and with the way he works, he is not going to be as agile as he was and has to be careful. But he's very disciplined and doing fine. What happened last week, when he cancelled his trip to Kolkata can happen to anyone shooting outdoors in the heat for three days. It will tire anyone. When he complained of tiredness on Saturday I said he would not go on the trip and the visit was cancelled. It's a shame that the organisers at the other end capitalised on his health. They should not have," said Mrs Bachchan.

As for herself, she has enough professional issues of her own to set in order.