I had already suspected that Amitabh Bachchan was a geek when he had started to wear these huge thick-framed glasses which are his trademark now! But as I always refuse to judge a book by its cover or a man by his glasses, I only had the conviction of his geekiness when I discovered his blog!
His blog has been existed since April 2008. BigBlog used to be on a platform called BIGADDA but it had to move – I can’t tell you more about this complicated issue which apparently made the actor a bit upset – but now, abigcaddabri!, abigcaddabra!, it is on Tumblr: Bachchan Bol, and Big B has become Sir Bachchan, which I think is nicer than this maxi hamburger name that his fans and the journalists give him all the time.
(Click on the picture to see where they are from)
A style that nobody can reproduce:
Amitabh Bachchan loves writing on his blog! It seems to have become a vital need to communicate with his millions of followers; all these people he calls his extended family, or his Ef! – It took me a long time to understand what these two letters meant!
Sir Bachchan writes almost everyday! So often that I wondered if he didn’t have ghost secretaries in a secret
Sir Bachchan’s new blog
attic.
But the actor has got a style of his own, a style that you can’t reproduce! A mixture of poetry (his dad’s legacy, I guess), subtle humour and everyday’s philosophy. Sometimes, the sentences are a little complex, the vocabulary very novelistic, even pompous and I often have to concentrate or read them twice. Most of the time, his posts are rather long, but I cannot criticize this point; it would be like Roquefort who would say « Hey! You, stinky! » to Camembert. To those who don’t understand my cheesy comparison, I just mean that I think writing long posts on a blog is a drawback because people may not read the article till the end. I remember a rude and pretentious guy on a forum who had just read the first two lines from one of my three-page articles and who ruthlessly smashed all my work down without reading the rest of the text!
Well, what was I saying?
Oh, yes! Amitabh Bachchan writes long posts! But it doesn’t matter because everybody reads them, the longer, the better, because he is Amitabh Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan is a Bollygood geek, oups, I mean, a Bollywood god or I would rather say a Bollywood Monarch by divine right and I know you know it but when you are Amitabh Bachchan everybody listens to everything you say, watches everything you do and reads everything you write.
A new kind of religion…
By the way, what does Amitabh Bachchan write?
Sir B writes about his universe; about his numerous projects, his shootings, his promotion events, his family, his friends, his Ef, his charities, the weather, life, death…India. Bachchan doesn’t live in the care bears’ world but he knows how to remain polite and friendly. Like other superstars such as Shahrukh Khan, he is aware of the influence he has on people and knows that a king or a god must be a patriarch and a model. So, he writes to his Ef tenderly, and even if he is attacked as any blogger who has success can be – I remember the day when he had made a post after one of his muslim friends’ death, he had received many offencive comments from moderate, tolerant and open-minded… morons – he always manages to lose control as a real gentleman.
A few extracts from the thousands of posts:
12th of July: A tribute to wrestler-actor Darah Singh who died a few days ago:
An ocean full of memories flash by on such occasions. As kids in School in the 50’s we had admired and looked up to this man of super human strength. His name and his talk provoked immense awe. He was the World Champion wrestler, his exploits in the ring were spoken off in disbelief and wonder. His bouts in the ring with his challenger King Kong was a renowned feature and each time they had their fights in Delhi at the National Stadium, we would scramble to get tickets somehow to go and watch him defeat his opponents !
4thof July Day 1538: Big B sends an SOS:
HELLO ALL !! URGENT !! HALF MY POST DAY 1538 SUDDENLY HAS DISAPPEARED AFTER POSTING .. CAN SOMEONE RETRIEVE IT AND SEND IT TO ME .. I KNOW SOME READ IT AND COMMENTED TOO ON TWITTER … SO PLEASE I AM MST DISTRESSED … !!! HELP AB
Shanouk is guarding the Rolls!
19th of June. Day 1523: Big B. introduces his Ef a new member of his family!
Oh ! almost forgot the most exciting part of the day – an encounter with my niece’s little pup … a Shih Tzu .. the cutest pup I ever saw. Fell in love with it immediately, as did Shanouk !
(By the way, Shanouk is Sir Bachchan’s pet…the donkey-sized doggie on the picture on the left…)
5th of May. Day 1478: Big B. tells the concerts he gave in the 80s:
For Wembley I invited SriDevi to join us along with Neelam … and for the first time on stage, Salman and Aamir ! This was not the Salman and Aamir of today. It was them 20 years ago. It was the first time they were going to a concert. SriDevi and I performed ‘Jumma Chumma’ on stage with dancers from New York some of whom performed at Radio City in NYC for the Rockettes !! We had elephants, horses, motor bikes riding on to the stage, and me dropping from the roof of the stadium some 60 ‘ high in a basket, screaming ‘ari o Jumma …’.
14th of April. Day 1457: Talks about the danger of Twitter
One innocent tweet about the visit to the doctor saw an entire fleet of vans from the media collecting outside Jalsa and worse, following me to the hospital –
And so on, and so forth!
Vogging and Twitting!
More recently, I’ve realised that Bachchan writes but he can also speak on his new blog! I thought it was the
Allo? Amitabhji?
audio version of his posts for blind people but actually it isn’t. Indeed, once or twice a week, Sir Bachchan records a message from his mobile phone which is sent to his followers’s own cellulars. It is called Bachchan Bol ( Bolna (बोलना) means to speak) and it is a Vog, (Vocal Blog). It is a new way to communicate for the star and an excellent idea considering that only 121 million Indians use the Internet whereas about 900 million mobile phones are in use in the country!
But that’s not all, folks! Like many celebrities, the actor is on Twitter too! 3 million followers! He tweets his moods, what he is doing and he also publishes philosophical frases about life such as: Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all the wars in history » (Tweet July 12th). Astounding, isn’t it? And there, he happens to let himself go, taking time to answer his critics: Dear peron who called me « dirty minded », if you’re not dirty minded, how’d you understand what I mean? » (Tweet T 803 July 12th) Houlala! The angry young man has returned!
Am I an Ef?
To be sincere, I don’t read Sir Bachchan’s blog and Tweets dedicatedly but I visit it regularly. So when I go to BBB (Big B’s Blog!!! Oh Please! Make an effort, I can’t explain everything!), I read a few articles at random, except when they are about sports, or when they go like this: « The normalcy that one hopes will accrue at the time of conveying or loading thoughts for those that wait patiently to hear, fails. Despite strong efforts, deep time consumed thinking, one just succumbs to the eventuality and in great despair, resigns himself. »(8th of July Day 1541) You know what I mean? Hopefully, for simple minds like me, Amitabhji also publishes photos…I should say posters: his huge dog, his huge public, his huge portraits of himself, pictures of the huge shootings… It is hugely worth a look!
(The article continues after the photos…)
Lord’s Day:
Sunday Crowdy Sunday…
Before leaving you, I wanted to talk to you about someting I discovered while I was reading Mr Bachchan’s blog. I must admit I was stunned!
I realized that on Sundays at 6 pm, in his villa Jalsa in Mumbai, the actor goes to his garden, climbs up a small wooden stage and then the security staff opens the gates and a huge crowd of people standing in the street (99% are men, a few children and women are at the front) starts to wave and shout, and take pictures of the star. It reminds me of the Moghol Emperors who went to their window every evening to exhibit themselves to the people. Finally, even if that makes me perplexed, and contrary to what the media feared, this strange kinglike rite certainly proves that despite so much communication on the web and elsewhere, Amitabh Bachchan has not lost his mystique.
« … at 70 do you really think anyone cares about your mystique !! « (AB 14th April, Day 1457)
Little M. (Ah! Ah!)
Post Typing: I show you this video found on youtube. One of Bachchanji’s Sunday sessions. I can’t really explain why but I find this scene disturbing.
Message to India
A Message To India 