 Today the 11th of October is the 80th birthday of a living legend, Amitabh Bachchan. Now you can know him as from different names, you can know him as Big B, you can know him as what he was known during the 80s. That is the one man industry. But the fact about the matter is that Amitabh Bachchan has done so many things in so many different spheres that it would be difficult for a single article or a single video to do justice to the amount of contribution this person has made to India in the creative field. But this is an attempt to summarize at least some of what he's done. Let's go back to the 70s. Well, he made his debut in 1969 in a film, but it was later on in the 70s when he got famous because of the tag as the angry young man. Because of films such as Zanzir, Divaar, Shole. Now as far as Zanzir is concerned, there is this iconic scene which he has with Pran. Where Pran is of course the Gunda, the Mastan who walks into the police station is going to sit on the chair and Amitabh Bachchan just kicks the chair away. And then says that this isn't your dad's police station that you can just sit over here. Of course, I've roughly paraphrased this in English. I'm not going to say it in Hindi for that. Please definitely have a look at the film. But you know films like Divaar where he played the brother of Shashi Kapoor. Shashi Kapoor was the good Samaritan, the police officer, Amitabh Bachchan, the person who had taken to the crime world. But there was a lot of anger in his role. There was a lot of angst. And the reason it really resonated with the audience, with the Indian people is because this is exactly what they were feeling at that point of time. Corruption, the red tapism, the emergency which came later, the crime, the politicians, the false promises. So many of these things because of which the lack of the high rising levels of unemployment. There was a lot of angst in the youth and Amitabh Bachchan channelized this. And of course, for this, we have to mention Salim Javed, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, the writers who created this character of Amitabh Bachchan. Who wrote these films, countless number of films. Of course, until there was a breakup in the early 80s between Salim Javed. But that is a story for another video and another time. They are the ones who created this iconic character and gave it to us. Throughout the 70s and the 80s, Amitabh Bachchan came to be known as the one man film industry. Because the film just had to star him and it would be a super hit. Also, we need to understand the history from which Amitabh Bachchan's rise came. Before Amitabh Bachchan, the first superstar of Indian cinema was Rajesh Khanna. And they were part of that iconic film called Anand. Which of course is known for both their roles, especially Rajesh Khanna's role. But then the fall of Rajesh Khanna took place. He had those 15 famous hits. Frankly speaking, that's quite an unbeatable record. And like Shah Rukh Khan once said in an interview, Rajesh Khanna, you really can't touch. There is only one Rajesh Khanna. So then after that came Amitabh Bachchan who became the next bigger superstar. But what the important point to note over here is the fact that towards the end of the 80s, he took a sabbatical from films. And there were political turmoil. He got involved in politics, didn't go very well for him. Secondly, of course, he started a company called ABCL. Which again, if you look at the entirety of it, it really sort of backfired. And there were a lot of debts. There were people who he owed money who would knock at his door, at his bungalow and threaten the guard, threaten him, roll out all sorts of abuses. So this man who had been the superstar, the one man industry, the legend, probably the greatest film star, the greatest film star of all time in Bollywood saw this real hard, steep, heavy fall from grace. But then begins the second chapter of his story which literally redefined the definition of legend because of the comeback which he made. It really started on two different points. One was, there's a very famous story which goes at 6 o'clock in the morning, Amitabh Bachchan went to Yes Chopra's house and said, Yes Ji, please, give me some work. Yes Chopra at that time was mulling around the idea of muhabate and that is how you got that iconic dialogue called Parampara Pratishtha Pratashanai where Amitabh Bachchan plays the principal of that school in college and he is paired up with Shahrukh Khan which was the pair up really of the decade and everybody was very excited about it. And the film became a huge hit and of course at the same time came KBC. Again, somebody of that stature coming down to the small screen in a new format of a show and it was a super hit. At 9 p.m. every day, we would all sit down and watch Amitabh Bachchan playing Kaun Banega Karolpati KBC with so many different contestants looking at the questions, trying to answer it. The whole concept of the phone line, phone a friend, audience poll, all of these things were very new. The current generation, Generation Z as they are called needs to know about these things which really happened. Right now, of course, you know there's Instagram and social media and their Instagram lives and FB lives etc. But at that time, this was a very noble concept. Now of course, it's been done to death with the number of game shows and the number of reality shows etc that have come into the market but at that time it was a very, very bold concept, a noble concept and Amitabh Bachchan was a part of it. At 9 p.m. on weekdays became as iconic for KBC just as 11 a.m. used to be on Sundays in the late 80s and early 90s when Mahabharat used to come on Doordarshan and the entire family used to be in the house watching Mahabharat altogether. Now if you talk about the films which he has done in his second half and not even talking about the first half, in his second half there is Baghban which has become so famous for family values that there are an unending amount of memes which are being made on that still. It's a very popular joke used by stand-up comedians. Ux which was sort of a remake of face-off where he was paired against Manoj Bach Pai Kante where he played one of the gangsters along with Sanjay Dutt and so many others. Of course I have to mention Black and if you haven't seen Black that is one movie which you really have to see the role which Amitabh Bachchan played of this teacher who is training this blind girl who grows up and is played by Rani Mukherjee Rani Mukherjee of course was fantastic. That was literally the performance of a lifetime and Amitabh Bachchan could have just retired after that and lived on his laurels. He had been the big man in the 80s. He came back with KBC and Mobbate. He did so many other roles. He did a fantastic role as Black and he could have really retired after that and you know said that I'm hanging up my boots. I don't need to do on this anymore. He lives on as a legend. But that's something which where his sort of work ethic and his dedication and his interest and his passion and his willingness to work more and go on and explore and his experiment really comes up. He did so many other roles after that that you don't know which one to mention in a video or an article. There was Pa. I mean they say that the makeup for Amitabh Bachchan he had to sit for at least 3 hours to put the makeup of Pa to be able to get into the character and look like a child who has that degenerative disease. Pink where Amitabh Bachchan plays the lawyer most recently Brahmastra. Everybody still wants Amitabh Bachchan to be part of the movie. It's like literally when you hear a narration if you're in Hollywood it would be a Morgan Freeman. If you're in India it would be of Amitabh Bachchan. In fact I would also like to mention some of the not so big blockbusters because people are so obsessed with 100 crores and 200 crores and box office figures. We really forget about these little nuggets of films which are really good amazing performances. Personally the one which I fit which was Saif Ali Khan and Jackie Stoffer also part of it and even I think Bummer Irani and who else Sanjay Dutt. I believe Ek Lavya. Ek Lavya was a fantastic film. Again great performances by all but great performance by Amitabh Bachchan. Not talked about so much because again you know things which are like box office numbers are repeated in web articles and articles and videos and interviews these things are sort of forgotten. Then we come on to the ads which he's made. I mean at a certain point of time I thought Amitabh Bachchan was literally doing an ad for every product whether it is hair oil or whether it is powder or whether it is some other product. It is a clothing apparel, a food product. Amitabh Bachchan was everywhere. The bottom line is Amitabh Bachchan's story. This man who's turned 80 years old today. His story is a great one which needs to be told. Not only because it tells us about the great tipping point in Bollywood and in the Hindi film industry, in the Indian film industry but at the same point because it has shown that this man has had so many falls and has risen up again and how. So falling down, yes that does happen in our lives but we can make iconic comes back like Amitabh Bachchan. Doesn't always have to be as iconic because that was really at another level but it shows that in life there are a lot of ups and downs and literally this man's life should be used as a case study to look at Bollywood, the creative industry life, struggles, personal life, the journey ahead and how even at the age of 80 this man is working so much. So no need to sort of hang up your boots. There's a lot which you can do even at that age. Clearly he's doing a lot more than some of the people my age are doing but yes here's wishing Mr. Amitabh Bachchan a very happy birthday and many more to come.