Master Amitabh, a child artiste, is performing on stage for the first
time. He stands on the line joining the feet of the two spotlights,
one at the top of a pole 12 feet high and the other at the top of
a pole 6 feet high. His mother notices that his shadow cast due
to each spotlight exactly touches the foot of the other spotlight.
What is Master Amitabh's height?
Answers
Answer:
From being an angry young man to the Shahenshah of Bollywood, Amitabh Harivansh Srivastava has travelled a long way.
Over the years he has not only grown bigger and more iconic with each passing year but he has become an institution that is inseparable from the lore of Indian cinema.
Filmmakers aspire to cast him in their creations and screenplay writers dream of weaving celluloid magic based on his onscreen histrionics.
Because beyond the aura of an Amitabh Bachchan, beyond the facade of the Big B, there beats the soul of a consummate performer - an artiste for whom celluloid is a dimension of existence and expression.
The year 1942
Across the globe there raged a war between brute Fascist might and those who represented the free world. In India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's call for civil disobedience resonated to the cries of the Quit India movement.
On October 11, in that heady atmosphere of germinating freedom was born Inquilab in Allahabad.
The first born of poet Harivansh Rai and his wife Teji Bachchan of Allahabad, Inquilab represented a poet family's deep-rooted conviction that revolution would lead to Freedom.
Inquilab Rai Bachchan had a short-lived existence because at the insistence of friends, Blinding Light replaced Revolution and Inquilab became Amitabh.
Amitabh Rai Bachchan and younger brother Ajitabh grew up in a household where free expression was their artistic legacy. Father Harivansh Rai had already established himself as poet in the Hindi language, yet he was a doctorate in English literature from Cambridge University. Mother Teji Bachchan had a keen interest in theatre and provided Amitabh with his first spark of interest in the performing arts but films were something that was never really an option.
Dreams as a child
Amitabh says, "I never thought as a child that I'll enter films. When we went to see films in Allahabad, I never imagined that one day I'll be on the big screen."
Amitabh began his studies in Allahabad and then went to Sherwood College, a boarding school in the hills of Nainital and it was at Sherwood that the young Amitabh found his passion for acting.
Amitabh completed his formal education from Kirori Mal College of Delhi with double Master of Arts degrees from Delhi University.
After completing his education in the national capital, Bachchan headed eastward to Calcutta to earn his livelihood. His first job was with Shaw Wallace and he later worked as a freight broker for the shipping firm Bird and Co. But considerations of livelihood and a regular pay at the end of the month was no compensation for what the heart desired. By 1968, young Amit had decided to give it all up, because Amitabh Bachchan wanted to spend his life doing what he wanted to do and he wanted to act.
In the city of dream and opportunities
The tall and lanky young man boarded a train that took him to the city of opportunity and heartbreak. Bombay did not embrace its biggest creation to be with open arms. It was a ruthless place where dreams were bought and sold and where deification of a silver screen god masked the plaintive call of a thousand broken hopes lying crushed on an unfeeling studio floor.
For some time it seemed that Amitabh's unconventional looks and great height would see him make his way back to a life of dejection. Every filmmaker that he approached thought he was too tall at 6 feet 3 inches. They thought him a bit too dark to be exposed on film.
In desperation Amitabh tried to use the one other unique characteristic that he had, his deep baritone. But here too, Bachchan failed. He was rejected by the All India Radio after an audition test.
Then in 1969, when Amitabh was on the verge of giving it all up, came his break as Khwaja Ahmed Abbas cast Amitabh in Saat Hindustani and Bachchan was one of the seven.
The film wasn't a financial success, but Amitabh Bachchan won his first National Award as the best newcomer and so took wings the amazing acting career of one who would be the Big B in Bollywood.
A National Award in his kitty did not smooth the path to glory for Amitabh. He still had to struggle. Producers lining up to sign him were still a thing for the future. Bachchan did voice overs and smaller roles that took his career nowhere. But then came Anand.
Hrishkesh Mukherjee's heart wrenching film had Hindi cinema's biggest star of those times Rajesh Khanna playing the lead, but Amitabh Bachchan did not go unnoticed. He got the Film Fare Award that year for the Best Supporting Actor and this time the award was for a movie that was both critically acclaimed and successful commercially.