An Episode On Kbc Which Shook Up Amitabah Bachchan And The Hearts Of Millions Of His Viewers 

Ali Peter John

A few weeks before the curtain came down on the eleventh season of KBC, Amitabh Bachchan was talking to a Good Samaritan called Mr Ravi Kalra whose one-man miss         ion has been to save old, sick and destitute parents who have been thrown out of their houses by their own children and left to rot and die in conditions that can put the whole of humanity to shame. Kalra told Amitabh about how a son had locked his eighty year old mother in a toilet for months and had left her to die and left the house, all of because he wanted his mother to sign the property papers making all her wealth in his name. She was rescued by the police and when she was found, she was weighing only twelve kilos. Another son who was also after his father's property had locked his father in a room and left huge live rats and was rescued when his body was eaten into by the rats. These days children don't even come to claim the ashes of their parents.

My own neighbour, Danny who was a make-up artist wanted his own mother to sign the papers making her property in his name. She consulted one of the big underworld dons, who advised him to keep all his brothers and sisters out when he knew that his mother was breathing her last and get her thumb impression even while her blood was hot. My neighbours, a couple, who had both their ageing parents, let them on different railway foot bridges to beg from where they vanished...

This is not a shocking or a new phenomenon in a city like Mumbai, where there are a number of homes for the aged, especially run by the Christian and Muslim and Parsi communities. The demand for these homes has grown to such alarming levels that children are even willing to bribe and pay the authorities to dump their own parents there, and some of them just leave their parents and flee for their own lives. This is a curse of our society and nothing seems to be done by people in places of power...

If there is one section of society which is trying to focus on his curse, it is our much-maligned world of Hindi films.

Dr B.R Chopra wanted to make a film on this subject with his friend, Dilip Kumar and Raakhee. He waited for twelve years with his script which he had written himself, but Dilip Kumar did not give him the go-ahead sign. The subject was ultimately made as “Baghbaan" by Dr Chopra's son, Ravi Chopra, with Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini and was not only a hit, but also a cult film and a trend-setter.

Dr Chopra's friend, Mohan Kumar who had made several commercial hits gave Rajesh Khanna a new image when he cast him as a poor car mechanic who is a paralytic and who together with his wife, Shabana Azmi are ill-treated by their own children and how the couple takes justified revenge on their children. Gulzar's “Koshish" which had a handicapped couple in Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri also sensitively touched on the subject.

Jeetendra who was a ruling Hindi film star and in the South did what was to be his last film there in “Santaan" which was a remake of a Telugu hit directed by Basari Narayan Rao, who also played the title role. Jeetendra however failed to do justice to the role, the film flopped miserably and wrote the end in the career of Jeetendra in the South and marked the end of the flourishing Hindi Film Industry in the South.

The biggest film based on this key subject however was “Kalinga" which marked the official debut of Dilip Kumar as a director, besides playing the title role as Justice Kalinga. I have seen the legend shooting almost the entire film, but now I wonder if I or anyone will have any opportunity of seeing the entire film.

This is a subject which will keep burning in society and will have to be put out, if we don't have to change into a race worse than the wildest animal ever.

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Amitbah Bachchan