Would you buy cement from this man? Or suiting material? Or even Chyawanprash? Of course you would — and that is why advertisers want him to promote their brands, knowing that you, the consumer, would trust him enough to pick up their products, no questions asked.
At 70, trust is the key attribute of Amitabh Bachchan’s persona. Around that one quality are not only ads but television shows and even films are made. When he sells products, he exudes reliability and solidity; you can be sure that he will not sell you cheap things. The cement he promotes is really the best, the Chyawanprash will really make you strong. Combine that with empathy, seen in spades on Kaun Banega Crorepati, where he is genuinely interested to hear the real-life stories of the hopefuls who melt when face to face with him, and you have a winning combination. Actors in old age, especially those who still want to appear young, come across as creepy or pathetic; Bachchan seems totemic, almost indestructible.
Quite a change from his earlier angry young man days, you might think, when he seemed the vigilante sent by the Gods — ok, scriptwriters — to put right the ills of the world. Then, he was out to destroy the corrupt, the privileged, the powerful; how remote that seems from his current avatar of being the paterfamilias.
Or does it?
Marrying on-screen characters with real life is always fraught with problems; after all, the actors is just playing a role. He is after all in the hands of the director who is also beholdened to the script; if Bachchan did Deewar and Zanjeer, he also acted in Amar Akbar Anthony. He has always said that he was no angry young man, which was a creation of the storytellers Salim Javed.
But some actors make a role, a personal their own. For us, Dilip Kumar will always be the king of tragedy, Dev Anand always the lover boy. Bachchan went one step further; by enacting the angry young man, he embodied our hopes, dreams and anger. He fought smugglers, bashed up small time thugs, even exposed the corrupt in high places on our behalf. We invested in him much more than we did in any other actor.
What also sets him apart is that he has aligned himself with the changing times subtly; the ’70s anger seamlessly gave way to the post-liberalisation consumerism with the advent of KBC (and for that matter KFC) and now, as the nation has become more settled and dare one say it, conservative and status-quoist, he has fitted into that role. He is a man for all times but let it also be said — he has always been an establishment man. For all his angry roles, he never stepped out of the comfortable mainstream zone to act in an art film; that would have been too radical.
But you don’t survive and thrive for almost 45 years in a cut-throat industry that reveres the youth and casually throws out anything that cannot deliver on a Friday. For that you need on-screen talent and off-screen guts; Bachchan has both in spades. His films were phenomenal hits and producers and audiences wanted more of him; many of his recent films have been box-office turkeys but still, producers and audiences want more of him. Young directors, who were mere pups when he was at his peak, want to fulfil their dreams of working with him, never mind if they do not have a good script. Advertisers want him to endorse products. Why, even serious authors want him to launch their books. Everyone craves for a bit of the gold dust he can shower on them. For a 70-year-old man to command that kind of attention in a young nation is surely, in the lingo of the day, awesome.
Bachchan has always been ahead of the curve from his peers, spotting trends before anyone else. He appeared on the small screen when it was considered too demeaning for a Bollywood superstar; others followed soon after, with mixed results. He began blogging to reach out to his fans directly and made an enormous success out of it. He tweets several times a day and it is apparent that he has understood the medium. Most important, he does all this by himself — none of that “My PR girl will handle it” nonsense. The empathy comes through and his fan base becomes bigger and bigger. It is no easy thing to still be standing tall in the face of all those Khans and young, fresh-faced Kapoors; most of Bachchan’s cohorts from the past have long given up the race. At 70, Bachchan is not yet a senior citizen. In a country boasting of its youth dividend, he reminds us that one is as young as one feels and behaves. That is perhaps his biggest achievement.