When Amar, Akbar and Anthony turned 40

"What a film. what amazing memories. one day it shall be disclosed," tweeted Amitabh Bachchan recently. Soon after, Shabana Azmi responded to the tweet, saying, "And it all seems like yesterday." This was a reminder call that one of their landmark films - Amar Akbar Anthony - had premiered 40 years ago.
Undoubtedly, Manmohan Desai's multistarrer fantasy adventure, which went on to be canonised as popular cinema's most fervent plea for secularism - evident from the movie's title - continues to retain its original sparkle and entertainment quotient. Bollywood's oft-narrated lost-and-found plot placed its three eponymous heroes into different forms of upbringing in three different faiths of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Only the whiz producer-director Manmohan Desai could have pulled off such a premise with élan, inveigling the spectator into believing that even the implausible can be depicted on the big screen with credibility and conviction.
However, the blockbuster was subjected to harsh criticism from the medical community, which stated that it wasn't possible for the three brothers to donate blood simultaneously from a single paraphernalia for their hospitalised mother. Also, when the mother - portrayed by Nirupa Roy - regains her eyesight, thanks to divine intervention, Desai was accused of encouraging the irrational. Despite this, the audience completely loved what they saw and ignored the criticism with the belief that the movie was designed as a far-out fantasy. So why quibble?
Manmohan Desai, in the course of an interview, once told me that he was so anxious about the film's performance that he himself went to watch the opening day screening at the Royal Opera House cinema. "When one or two guys came out for a cigarette break during one of the songs, I was livid. I grabbed them by the collar and pushed them back into the auditorium. The poor guys were baffled, wondering who this guy was and why he was behaving like a madman. After that incident, I never went to monitor the audience reaction at a cinema hall. It was too harrowing on my nerves," he had said.
The star-stacked casting was quite a coup. Amitabh Bachchan as Anthony was paired with Parveen Babi, Vinod Khanna as Amar was cast opposite Shabana Azmi (one of the few films in her repertoire where she indulged in fun and frolic) and Rishi Kapoor as Akbar romanced Neetu Singh. The characterisation and the colloquial lines of dialogue assigned to Bachchan - the director would gleefully point out - were inspired by a gadabout who hung around Khetwadi, an overcrowded middle class neighbourhood in central Mumbai.
That's where Desai had grown up and lived all his life. He picked elements from real life and converted them into something larger than life on the big screen. "Remember my words," he emphasised in an interview, "I may be called absurd and all sorts of names, which I don't understand. Yet, after I am gone, you critics will call me the Steven Spielberg of India. Like his E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, my cinema depends on the power of imagination."
Long after he passed away at the age of 57 in 1994 - he reportedly committed suicide by leaping off the terrace of his Khetwadi home - he has been cherished, missed and recognised as Bollywood's unparalleled entertainer. The reasons for his death remain a mystery. One theory suggests that he couldn't bear the excruciating back pain that had stayed with him for years. His son Ketan Mehta had moved to a swishier address in Nepean Sea Road. The father had moved with him, but longed to return to Khetwadi ("I belong here. I couldn't sleep properly in a swanky place - without the noise, traffic and crowd,") A widower, he apparently was to marry the yesteryear heroine Nanda, but chose to end his life instead.
Uncannily, Amar Akbar Anthony wasn't Manmohan Desai's only release in the year 1977. Within a span of a few months, three other films directed by him - Parvarish, Dharam Veer and Chacha Bhatija - set the cash registers rolling at the box office.
Did he have a special place for Amar Akbar Anthony in his heart? To that, his categorical answer was, "Believe it or not, Suhaag (1979) was a much bigger hit. And if I have a special regard for any of my films, it's for Chhalia (1973) and Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973). Chhalia, because it was my first film, which I directed at the age of 23, starring Raj Kapoor and Nutan no less. Then there's Aa Gale Lag Jaa. The relationship between Shashi Kapoor and the little boy who played his son still brings tears to my eyes. For that film, I went with an emotional approach, no-holds-barred."
The collaboration between Desai and Amitabh Bachchan was one of a kind - as extraordinary as the director-actor chemistry between Martin Scorsese and Robert de Niro. Of the eight films Desai directed Bachchan in, Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswathi (1988) was a major disappointment. The 1989 filmToofan turned out to be Desai's last film with his mascot actor, though the reins of direction were handed over to son Ketan Desai.
With time, the irrepressible Manmohan Desai became a recluse, even though he would meet scribes when requested for an interview. He couldn't sit for long due to his backache. His hospitality was legendary; he would organise a limitless spred of street food but his joie de vivre was gone.
Amar Akbar Anthony may have turned 40 this year, but the wizard behind the cult film remains timeless.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com