THIS HAPPENING COULD HAPPEN ONLY ONCE – Big B and Madhuri Dixit

By Ali Peter John

I don’t know why I have always had this feeling that Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit would or should have come together and worked in a film. I knew it was not happening and so I tried to bring them together in my own way and that was some years ago.

I was aware of the fact that Amitabh had taken a voluntary long break those days. I often saw him walking around ‘Prateeksha’, watering the plants and then sitting in his office answering all the calls that came in, almost taking over from his office secretary cum manager, Vaz (an ex-Indian Air Force man who had left the force to join Amitabh when he had just started his ascent into the uncertain and unknown skies and lived in an unknown apartment on 7th Road in Juhu called ‘Mangal’ and who left just some years ago, an entirely dedicated ‘Bachchan Bhakt’). Jaya was busy as the Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society and engaged in other social activities and Shweta and Abhishek were studying abroad.

One morning, I found him sitting in his office with his entire staff on the alert and not knowing what to do as their ‘Paa’ (for some strange reasons everyone at ‘Prateeksha’ called him ‘Paa’, which is also what his children call him) had spent the whole morning trying to trap a rat who was ‘playing havoc’ with him and was ‘more difficult to trap than Amjad Khan or Gabbar Singh’. He said he had tried all the ways he knew how to trap a rat, lessons he had learned when he was a little boy, but this one rat was not willing to fall for all his clever games. ‘I will not give up this battle till I get this fellow into my trap. I have faced many villains in my life but I have never found it as difficult as this battle,’ he told me. His staff just looked on helplessly. He would not let anyone else come to his help. ‘Yeh meri takkar hai mere dushman se aur iss se main hi nipat loonga, yeh mujhe haraa hi nahi sakta’ he said till the ‘takkar’ almost turned into a major war. Sundaram his cook came in to tell him that his lunch was ready and it was very important for him to have his lunch in time because he had to take all his medicines soon after lunch. ‘Nahin, abhi nahi, jab tak dushman mere haath nahi aata khana peena, dawa daaru sab bandh’, he said with his eyes on the alert waiting for the ‘dushman’ to make its next move. A full three hours later (according to Vaz) a tired rat came to him and surrendered to a man who had not accepted defeat, not even by death. ‘Le jao isse aur rakh do mere kamre mein. Dekhengey ise maar diya jaaye ya chhod diya jaaye’, he said with that look of triumph returning all over his face. He then excused himself and went in to have his lunch and returned to his office where I was asked to wait for him for just 8 minutes and he was there just before 8 minutes. It was when we were alone that I felt it was my chance to tell him what I wanted him to do. He apologized to me for not offering me lunch and said his lunch was not the kind of lunch (of sprouts and cereals) for normal human beings like me. I told him about my ambition to do a photo session with him and Madhuri Dixit who was the ruling no.1 actress at the time. His eyes brightened up and he said ‘of course, who would not like to be photographed with a beautiful and talented actress like Madhuri? Ask her if she is willing to pose with an old man like me and I am willing to do it anytime she has the time’, he said.

The same evening I called Madhuri and told her about my dream project. She sounded like a school girl who was being told about her chance to meet the star she was a great fan of. Her first reaction was, ‘You must be joking. Why should such a great man agree to do a photo session with a fan like me?’ It took me some time to convince her that Amitabh had agreed to do in less time than it took me to convince anyone for that matter. She told her parents about it all and they were as excited as her. Madhuri contacted Rikkuji, her right hand man who managed her dates and time and he went out of his way to make time for such an important occasion. I got back to Amitabh, who was busy listening to some classical music and told him about the ‘No objection certificate’ I had got from Madhuri. ‘I am really very excited. It is not very easy for a jobless star to get a chance to be photographed with a beautiful girl who is also a wonderful actress. I am game, anytime, Ali’, he said. I had taken on one of the greatest challenges of my career. I thought of some of the best photographers around and I knew they would all be only too willing to grab this opportunity but I decided to give this challenge to a new friend, R. Krishna who had worked as an assistant with the celebrated cinematographer Santosh Sivan. He could not believe what I was saying till he got drunk. Madhuri kept on asking me n number of questions and I answered them all.

That very crucial morning dawned and Madhuri called me again to ask me if the session was really on. I said yes and asked her to be in time at eleven sharp because I knew like very few knew about Amitabh’s passion for punctuality. Krishna and I reached ‘Prateeksha’ an hour before eleven. Amitabh came down the staircase, dressed in his best grey suit (there was no Reid & Taylor in his life those days) and said, ‘Kyun bhai, Ali, sab theek hai na. Main tayyar hoon subah se. Aaj kal suit pehenne ka mauka kahaa milta hai?’ I was already sweating and told him it was all under control. Amitabh then called his entire staff for an emergency meeting. He asked Vaz, his security chief to throw open the huge gate which is normally shut and asked him to see that there were no visitors and no disturbance of any kind. He then asked the other staff to be at their best behavior because the best female star was coming to ‘Prateeksha’ for the first time. I saw him taking his place in a chair next to where his father’s books whose pages were plated in gold were kept and the long wait for Madhuri started. It was eleven and she had still not come, it was twelve and there was no sign of Madhuri and there were no mobiles those days. I kept calling Madhuri’s house and her mother kept telling me in a nervous tone that they were on their way. I panicked at twelve- thirty, but Amitabh kept sitting in his chair and asked me to keep my cool. ‘Aisa hota hai bade bade sitaaron ke saath, hum yahaa se hathne waale nahi hai madam ke aane tak,’ he said. Madhuri finally landed with her mother but before that Amitabh had already asked for the T.V and his music system to be brought down from his room. Madhuri and her mother had no words to explain their delay but it was later known that it was her makeup man, Bharat Godambe who had been caught in a huge traffic jam. Amitabh just smiled and then took his guests around his house and in between he asked Madhuri’s mother if she would agree to exchange her beautiful daughter with his two children, Shweta and Abhishek. The mother blushed and Amitabh asked them if they would have lunch which he said was a very simple affair and all vegetarian. They were too tense to take up his offer. Soon it was time for the shoot to start and Krishna, my photographer went on clicking as if there was going to be no tomorrow, in a spirit of kal ho na ho. In between the shoots Amitabh kept telling Madhuri’s mother that he was serious about his exchanging his children for Madhuri and she did not know how to react. The session went on for three long hours and got over at three -thirty. I expected one of them to grumble but they turned out to be at their professional best. The session was over and Amitabh walked up to Madhuri’s car and saw her and her mother off. The only thing he told me at the end of the session was not to give away the photographs to anyone else ‘because I have done it only for you’. I was a blend of excitement and was entirely tired. The photographs were published. Special paper was used for the cover, something which my company rarely did. The photographs led to several questions being asked. Is Amitabh Bachchan making a comeback with Madhuri? That was one question that made the rounds all over. Krishna the photographer was a celebrity and Madhuri always told me that she had never felt so nervous and excited at the same time while she did the session. And I remember that morning as a day when I realized that determination and perseverance could move mountains and stars.

P.S. The only said part was that Krishna could not resist the temptation. He finally sold all those photographs to an agent who circulated them among some of the leading B grade Hindi magazines. And one day I was taken by surprise when Amitabh called me to his office and said, ‘look, I had told you’ and his voice was like a stinging slap in my face. He then placed a number of copies of magazines carrying the same photographs and I felt like Peter, the character in Deewaar being beaten up mercilessly by Amitabh. And his words still ring in my ears and it is a morning I can always talk about to my grand children whenever I have them.

MORE ABOUT AMITABH AND MADHURI.

Madhuri and her sister, Rupa are great fans of Amitabh while they were in school and made it a point to see every major film of his with their parents.

Amitabh and Madhuri were to do a film called “Shaanaqt” to be directed by Amitabh’s best friend Tinnu Anand, but the film did not go beyond the launching stage.

When Amitabh launched his company, ABCL and even staged a comeback as an actor, the first film to be announced was a film which he was to do with Madhuri and to be directed by Indra Kumar but this film too was never made.

There are several films makers, who are planning films which could be made with Amitabh and Madhuri even now but nothing seems to have been finalized yet.

Madhuri shows some films to her sons, Arrin and Ryan but they are more interested only in seeing the films of ‘Ameetav Button’ who some of their friends have told them is the greatest actor in the world. The circle for Madhuri will be complete when and if she does a film with Amitabh.

Madhuri danced with Amitabh Bachchan in the latter’s 1998 release “Bade Miyan Chote Miyan”.