A brush with the real Bachchan

An ongoing art exhibition captures how the iconic actor mirrors the idea of India

In Manmohan Desai’s Coolie (1983), when Amitabh Bachchan, as Iqbal, was dismantling the empire of the villain (played by Suresh Oberoi) with a sickle and hammer, the scene moved Sanjay Bhattacharya, then a young, emerging artist from Bengal. Among the many riches of the bourgeoisie that Iqbal destroyed, Bhattacharya took note of a wall clock.

Years later, the broken clock and hammer and sickle have found expression in an artwork created by the eminent painter to mark the 80thbirthday of the actor. “The man literally ran against time and his charm has become timeless. The scene’s symbolism struck me and stayed with me. Every time fate punched Bachchan down, he bounced back – not once, but at least thrice,” says Sanjay, who is one of the 51 artists who have paid tribute to the actor in A Moveable Feast, an ongoing exhibition in Delhi that juxtaposes the cinematic persona of Amitabh Bachchan with the idea of India.

Every art is political, so the sickle and hammer also find space in the artwork. “It is a symbol of workers’ unity and Bachchan was the face of the struggle of the proletariat class,” says Sanjay.

Curator Geetan Batra says there are moments to which only art could do justice. The exhibition, she says, captures the link between 75 years of India’s independence and 80 years of Bachchan, where the arc of the superstar’s extraordinary life becomes a metaphor for India’s improbable and audacious journey. In a way, she remarks, Bachchan mirrors the potent and imperiled idea of India. Geetam says, paying tribute to an icon and making him a metaphor to interpret their thoughts about the nation had artists in a delightfully exploratory mood, giving a visual voice to different ways of seeing.

It finds reflection in Veer Munshi’s work where the artist puts together Gandhi and Bachchan, two of the foremost Librans on the faces of a dice that heads a godly body. “I have tried to see Bachchan through his characters. There is gun in one hand and a mic in another. He is holding a copy ofMadhushala(the celebrated work of poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the actor’s father) in one hand and the scales of justice in another.” The characters, he says, represent the idea of coexistence in India which also comes through in the background where the skyscrapers merge into slums.

For Munshi, Bachchan’s characters looked larger than life but are close to reality. The idea is evocatively expressed in young artist Ananta Mandal’s painting of a Kolkata street where Bachchan is languishing on a wall in his iconicDeewarpose. “I wanted to lead the viewer into the street or the metaverse as they say these days.”

Ananta says Bachchan is an actor we have grown up with. “We used theDeewardialogue where he tells the goons that while they were searching for him outside, he was waiting for them here playing hide and seek,” says Ananta. The artwork, he adds, is also a tribute to the time spent by Bachchan in Kolkata, where he worked in a coal company and did theatre in his free time.