TWENTY MEMORABLE LOOKS FROM 52 YEARS OF BOLLYWOOD’S GREATEST STAR
by DHARMESH PATEL
THE latest film starring Bollywood’s greatest ever star Amitabh Bachchan is mystery thriller Chehre. He stars alongside Emraan Hashmi in the twist-laden movie and once again unveils a unique look. The film’s title, meaning faces, gave Eastern Eye the perfect opportunity to look back across the legendary actor’s stunning 52-year career to find 20 of his most memorable on-screen faces.
Saat Hindustani (1969): The actor made his debut in 1969 with this action movie and audiences got to see Bachchan for the first time, with his young handsome face hidden behind heavy stubble.
Zanjeer (1973): The superstar-making film established his trademark
image. The slight centre-parting, the longer hair that covered his ears, and triangular sideburns were here to stay! The Amitabh cut would replace the Rajesh Khanna cut to become the most popular hairstyle in India.
Deewar (1975): The clean-cut image evolved into the grizzled look when the Big B played an anti-hero and it exuded raw power when it was seen in this blockbuster hit.
Kabhi Kabhie (1976): The 34-year-old Bachchan had just become the
king of Bollywood and did the unthinkable by playing an older character in the second half of this film. Despite minimal make-up, the older look was very convincing.
Amar Akbar Anthony (1977): Bachchan’s fantastic comic abilities have been demonstrated by the many disguises he has done across the years, including a marvellously memorable priest in this film. (An honourable mention for his drag act in 1981 classic Laawaris.)
Don (1978): The gangster Don sported the now famous AB clean-cut look. But he tucked his hair behind his ears, put on eye-kohl and stained his lips red with paan to become the naive bumbling street musician Vijay.
Ganga Ki Saugand (1978): The actor commences the movie as a simple villager with a non-heroic fringe and thin moustache at the start. Later, he transforms into a fearless dacoit just by growing his hair, having a thicker moustache and wearing a headband. Just brilliant!
Shahenshah (1988): The iconic alternative look of the vigilante hellbent on justice was a great precursor to the various bearded characters that would dominate his later roles, but few had this intensity.
Agneepath (1990): The hair, suits and style all remained the same. However, it just took some simple eyeliner to add intensity and make a massive difference to the character’s look, which still remains one of his most famous.
Khuda Gawah (1992): The actor sported a beard throughout a film for the first time and looked very convincing as an Afghan chief, especially with the headgear. Many of his later roles would be an extension of this regal look.
Major Saab (1998): This army drama saw the superstar actor start his transition to playing older characters and created a mature bearded look that would reappear in defining roles, like the one he brilliantly plays in Mohabbatein (2000).
Aks (2001): There was nothing drastically different about this look that suited his age, but the stylish goatee he grew for the mystery thriller stayed with him off screen too for almost 20 years.
Black (2005): When you are a great actor, then the simple addition of a hat can make a huge difference and result in an all-time great performance. There is pathos, power and pain that comes through with this look.
Bunty Aur Babli (2005): The actor has made a number of powerful and refined looks throughout the latter part of his career, but this is by far the coolest. The aviators, the beedi and attitude – pure class.
Sarkar (2005): Aging in real life didn’t stop the Bollywood legend from looking fearless and menacing with ruffled grey hair, spectacles and tika on forehead, in this superb Bollywood adaptation of Hollywood classic The Godfather.
Bhootnath (2008): This convincing ghostlike look was as good as any international kids film. The scars on his pale face didn’t make this ghost any less loveable and so much so that he returned for a sequel.
Paa (2009): The actor was well into his sixties when he made the greatest transformation in Bollywood history and turned into a 12-year-old boy with an extremely rare genetic disorder. A true professional, he sat still for hours when the prosthetics went on and came off.
102 Not Out (2018): Another extreme transformation! From 12 in Paa to 102 in this film, no one else has played two characters with a 90-year age gap. That is what makes him the greatest actor.
Gulabo Sitabo (2020): The incredibly versatile actor was unrecognisable as the grouchy landlord in this comedy-drama and transformed every part of himself, including his physical features to get lost in his role.
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5