Ab YEH AMITABH KA KYA KIYA JAAYE

I may be wrong, but I am sure I am right when I say with all the evidence that there must have never been any man, any actor, any director or any performer who must must have worked like Amitabh Bachchan is working these days when he is seventy-eight and will turn seventy-nine on October 11,2021 -Ali Peter John

He has almost completed the shooting of Soojit Sircar's “Gulabo Sitabo" in which he is the National Award-winning Ayushmann Khurana as his co-star (Ayushmann seems to be a favourite of Amitabh from among the new generation of actors as was seen in Ayushmann's active participation in his TV-shows like “KBC" and the not so successful “Aaj Ki Raat Hai Zindagi").

Amitabh has also almost completed the shoot of Rumi Jaffrey's “Chehre". And only last week he wrapped up the shooting of “Jhund".

All this is besides his shooting for ad-films, dubbing for the shots he has already shot for and even keeping up with his social commitments like attending the Ganesh Utsav at ‘Antila', the multi-storeyed and multi-billion house of Mukesh Ambani and being present for his normal Sunday evening darshan with his still growing number of fans after forty years.

According to a source close to him, which was both serious and light-hearted, the family has not been seeing him regularly for the last two months as he shoots for “KBC" for more than twelve hours, sometimes shooting two episodes in a day and then going back to his dubbing sessions and if the sessions don't last very long, he is busy rehearsing for his work on the next day.

He even handles his Twitter account and writes his blogs during the nights as he finds it difficult to sleep, which is an old ailment called insomnia of which he has been a victim.

It is his quest for looking for new challenges and subjects that had made him accept an assignment like doing Nagaraj Manjule's (the man who directed “Sairat", which was one of the biggest hits in any language in recent times.

He was carried away by the role of a professor in a small town who encourages boys to play soccer and trains them to be winners.

The film has almost the dad BMW team as “Sairat" and besides Nagaraj Manjule,“Jhund" has the same young actors Akash Thosar and Rinku Rajguru and the same team of music directors, Ajay-Atul. Amitabh is also said to have spoken Marathi in the film.

And even while he is busy with all this work and is fighting with time, his favourite companion, he has also alloted days to complete Dharma Productions' “Brahmastra" in which he heads the cast with Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt and with Ayan Mukerji as the director.

And if anyone thought this was all for the star of the millennium, he is already going through scripts for films he plans to do in 2021 and in the years to come.

All this reminds me of what he had said once. He had decided to work till the very end, even if he had to wear a suit and stand with a glass and be a part of a party scene and even work till the last breath of his life. It seems like his own prediction is coming true for him.

P.S- And if there are three people at “Jalsa" who are facing a tough time because of his very busy schedule, it is his ever so busy secretary, Rosy Singh, Aadesh and Subhash who have been working with him for almost thirty-five years. Their parents used to work at ‘Prateeksha' once.