Amitabh Bachchan? Who? Where?

It was a disheartening Friday, this 4th December. In spite of a bumper publicity blitz, Amitabh Bachchan’s Paa opened to ordinary houses, at many places even dull houses.
While one theory is that the ‘different’ film was never ex­pected to open to bumper houses, the other theory is that it shouldn’t have opened with as low collections as it did. While many cinemas reported an increase in grosses as the day progressed, there was no real news of a jump or a leap.

Be­lieve it or not but there was news from various centres that many among the first-day audience were not aware that Amit­abh Bachchan was the star of the film – neither before entering the cinema hall nor even after watching the film! This is bad news because in the ab­sence of realisation that they have seen Amitabh play the 12- and 13-year-old Auro in the film, that section of the audience may not contribute in spreading the positive word.

For, the joy in knowing that Amitabh has enacted the difficult role is something which the public would not experience if it were unaware of Bachchan’s presence in the film. For, Paa, in their thinking, would be an Abhishek-Vidya starrer with an “un­known” or “scary-looking” actor. Since Amitabh Bachchan is not seen as himself in the entire film, this may prove to be a major setback for the box-office.

It is rather strange that nobody in the entire cast and crew of Paa thought of this ‘lacuna’, if one may use the word. In a way, Amitabh’s brilliant acting may actually go against the film. For, if his performance were not so fantastic, even the now unaware audien­ce may have got to understand that Auro is played by Amitabh Bachchan.

It’s a wonder how nobody in the unit thought of showing Amitabh Bachchan, as himself, on the screen in the end during the rolling titles, probably explaining in short to the audience the procedure in­volved in his makeover from Amitabh to Auro. That would have ensured that those among the audience who didn’t realise that they had watched Amitabh in the difficult role of Auro, would also have gone home duly educated and, therefore, excited about the superstar’s brilliant acting prowess.

Issue dated Dec 6 – 12, 2009

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