Today India’s biggest megastar Amitabh Bachchan is celebrating their 75th birthday and the wishes are pouring from all over the country. On this occasion, master blaster Sachin Tendulkar recalled a fond memory with Mr. Bachchan, when his son Arjun wiped his hands on Amit ji’s Kurta.
Tendulkar said while talking to mid-day “It involved my son, Arjun. He was only a year-and-a-half old then. We were shooting a commercial and in between shots, Arjun was sitting on our laps. Arjun was having an orange and after finishing it, he coolly wiped his hands on Mr. Bachchan’s kurta. I didn’t know where to look. I was so embarrassed.”
Sachin also remembered a stage performance featuring Lata Mangeshkar with Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha was sitting in the audience with him. “Oh yes, that was years ago. Lataji was singing a song from ‘Silsila’ and Amitji appeared on the stage to recite his dialogues. That was the only time I saw them perform together,” he added.
The Mumbai-born cricketer idealizes Mr. Bachchan and said “When I was very young, I watched his movies just for the sake of watching them. At that stage, what perhaps drew me was the action part. At different stages of life, you admire the same thing for different reasons. As you grow older, you realise how difficult it must have been for Amitji to enact those roles. Later on, of course, I saw him doing everything — be it emotional, aggressive, tragic or romantic [roles].”
Tendulkar concluded while saying “His passion for the job, his longevity. To me, he appears tireless. The number of times he has reinvented himself is just awesome. What strikes me most is that Mr. Bachchan is a happy man. But when it comes to work, he is still so hungry — still hungry to make a mark, still hungry to prove he is the best, still hungry to set standards for others. Even at 75, he has so much to offer. For me, that is the hallmark of a genius.”
