Then came the day when an episodic event suddenly in Bachan’s life which no one can ever forget. Bachan was shooting a film called ‘coolie’ 1983.
Bachan had to perform a fighting scene that turned out to be very dramatic. The fighting scene was in a mosque pillar; he fell off the pillar, and landed on the concrete ground by hitting his abdomen on a table underneath him before hitting the floor. Bachan had injured himself really badly.
He had some internal bleeding; it was the sign of death to his fans. And it was rumoured that he was dead. The world was mourning for him. But with the prayers of every religion he was back and ready to carry on making the film. The film was scripted for him to die in the end but the director wanted to change the script because he thought it will be very disrespectful for Amitabh, because he had just survived death in real life. The ending of the film showed the 3 major religions in the world was praying for him, and also showed how he got out of his bed in the hospital and went over to the balcony where his friends, family and fans were on the ground floor, and said thank you to all who had prayed for him. That is exactly what had happened in real life and they pointed this out in the film. The original film DVD is frozen at the pin point where Bachan actually falls off and it is subtitled at the bottom about what was happening. The film was then released in 1983.
Consequently he was taking heavy medication to help with the recovery and because of that, Bachan was struck with an illness called myasthenia gravis. The illness was making him feel really weak mentally and physically, he then announced that he would quit film acting. He felt that he wouldn’t be able to handle the release every Fridays, weather it was hit or not. After every film release of another actor he would say, ‘yeh boley to, flop hogi!’ (These films will surely flop!)
Bachan took a break from acting and decided to go use his break in the politics career. Bachan left politics after 3 years, His political career was short lived due to some bitter experiences, he left his term incomplete,
After three years in the politics he returned to filming and played in the film ‘shahensha’ produced by Bachan himself and the A.B.C.L cast. The film was a box-office success because of his comeback. ABCL was a production company that produced films for Bachan and his cast. Bachan was a producer at this point in his life, after insisting that he feels better from his accident back in 1983. A.B.C.L also had the power to sponsor miss universe pageant. The company would make adverts for many products around the world such as watches and men’s clothes. They would make audio cassettes, and DVD’s. The first film they produced was called ‘tere mere sapne’ (mine and your dreams) this was not going well aswel as ‘mrityundaata’. They had lost millions when they were holding a ceremony for the beauty pageant in Bangalore, because of the poor management. The idea was to make 10 millions rupees every year but that dream was fading away slowly as the more movies they made the more the company would fall into money problems. The company was falling to pieces after money problem emerged and the company couldn’t keep up with it. There were no interviews and so magazine and television programmes would not talk about them in the paper and let the company and their work be known. Therefore Bachan was forced to put his mansion ‘prateeksha’, in the auction by the Bombay high courts in 1999, to pay back loans to the bank. The Indian industry board announced the company as a failure. Bachan tried to make a better comeback by starring in the film ‘barre miyan chote miyaan’ not produced by ABCL. This film received some positive feedbacks, this became a major concern to the A.B.C.L Company because they came to the realisation that they are not doing good. And it looked really bad on them in front of the press and critics because A.B.C.L Company that was suppose to be making million’s was worse then a normal production company. Just as when he thought that his bad days were over he stared in ‘lal baadsha’ which was a box office failure, and put the company down more then ever after promising better films
He was supporting a white beard and black hair which showed that he was becoming old, and left his company in a downhill which was eventually left stranded. He didn’t find much success on his comeback he had few hit and a few downhills but that didn’t stop him from filming. As Bachan got older he had a spectacular opportunity that he took with both hands, to be in the Indian version of ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ it was called ‘kaun banega kororepati?’ in Hindi. This brought him back to the hearts of people.
On every night at 8.00 pm on star plus it was every modern and middle aged men and women of this century’s best show on television. Many fortunate people got the chance to meet him in the show. Some didn’t even care about not winning the money but was more interested in meeting the man. Many more people tuned in to see the white bearded and black haired Amitabh Bachan not know as ‘big b’ any more but now known as ‘big bang of Bollywood’ there was no stopping the big b.
Bachan was also invited to some of the best talk shows in India. One of them called ‘coffee with Karen’ who is also an actor producer and director. Karan Johor has worked with Bachan many times ion the making of most of his films since 2000. Bachan has also featured in songs with singers and has sung in playback songs. He sang a song called ‘kabhie nahin’ (never ever), with Adnan Sami a very popular Pakistani singer. The video was the part that took the great effect of his comeback and to appear in a music video was unthinkable and unpredictable of him to do.
Today Bachan stares in films with the best of the best actors, such as Ashwaria Rai, Sharukh Khan, Rani Mukerjee, and Kajol, Priti Zinta and so on.
Bachan was becoming the legend of Bollywood. Since the year 2000 he was in many films by yash chopra one of the best movie makers and the most respected. He has worked alongside his son Abhishek Bachan in ‘bunty and bubli’, and ‘jhoom barabar jhoom’.
One of his films since 2000 was not a mega success like the others that was ’cheenin kam’ (less sugar), it was not a great success due to the part he played of falling in love with a young actress. It didn’t look good on him as being an old actor. Doing family films such as ‘baghban’ and ‘kabhie khushi kabhi gham’ was a better and major mega hit unlike his films with young actresses.
He has played major role character’s in life as a father, husband, friend, actor, singer, and still no one seems to have become bored of him, not even the youngsters of this century, who are amazed and definitely be honoured to meet the man himself. He had at least 4-5 major hits every year, as an old man, and that no other actor his age has or is doing, they usually retire. The very proud and traditional Bachan still thinks that even today he needs to show the world what he has to give and feels that he wants to be acting till the end of his life.
