On the sets of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), Amitabh Bachchan’s personal make-up artist for 38 years is pressing and tugging at my cheeks with his fingertips. Deepak Sawant is demonstrating where Bachchan needs the subtle touch of paint in order to “highlight the under-portion, the young part of his skin, and hide the oily glaze, but you, on the other hand, will need the shine control hydrating lotion or bronzer over your nose, forehead, cheekbones, chin, jowl, and, of course, cheeks.” I don’t know whether I should feel grateful for being touched by someone who, by his own admission, “touches Bachchan more than his wife” or feel shocked at the news that I might be ageing prematurely. 

 

I notice that the audience of 250 people gathered in the circular set for the 475th episode at Studio 16 of Film City have similarly conflicting feelings. At one end, they are nearly jumping out of their seats in eagerness to meet their hero, and, on the other, they have just been told that over the next two-and-half hours, the length of time Bachchan usually takes to shoot an episode, they wouldn’t be given water. “… Because if we give you water then you have to go to the loo. And if we give you loo breaks we will take four to five hours to can the episode,” announces the floor manager, Sandeep.  Sandeep then goes on to educate the audience on how to emote during the show. “Warm up your hands because you have to clap a lot but react according to the situation. Don’t clap when someone has lost. Sir (Bachchan) sometimes gives lectures… please don’t stop smiling at that time. Don’t discuss the answers among yourselves during the ‘fastest finger first’ round because it will distract the ten contestants vying for the hot seat. And lastly, we know that you’ve come here to see Sir but don’t pull his hand or clothes when he comes around to meet you at the end of the show. Unka Kapda, unka haath, unka hi samjhiye (Please don’t think his hands, clothes to be yours). Keep up the energy, keep smiling.”

 

With a unit member informing me that Bachchan is still going through the script in his van (parked right outside the studio), I sneak out of the set and obsessively start to indulge in activities that I will have to refrain from over the next few hours, including emptying my bladder, repeatedly, every few minutes. The audience is ordered to stay put though, for the show might start any moment.There is a drill that Bachchan follows. The actual process of shooting starts the evening before when an email containing the script (the introductory spiel, the show opening and closing) is sent to him. He revises the script and eventually customises it. Once he comes to the set, he goes through the script in his van, and then goes through the script on the prompter, and after slipping into a Rohit Bal-creation for the episode goes through the script again, before giving the take. Once the contestant is selected for the hot seat he is briefed about the contestant’s background once more. “He is very methodical in his preparation which is a big help on a show like this. He is also one of the few who work on the teleprompter in such a way that it doesn’t appear read but spoken,” says Siddharth Basu, the director and creative head of KBC since its inception in 2000. 

 

Seconds before Bachchan steps onto the set, an alarm bell rings through Studio 16. The bell indicates time-out to the crew members. They leave whatever they are doing half-way and scoot to take their respective positions. The only one who looks unhurried is Bachchan’s driver. He is seen going for a second helping in the canteen. The chauffeur, who despises scribes and so refuses to reveal his name, comes across more as a CBI officer attired in his safari suit. He only drives Bachchan around and not his family members but you can’t help but think that the man, who is taller than his employer, must have waited more than he has driven in the last 21 years of his association with the “Artist of the Millennium”. 

 

The audience forgets the instructions of the floor-manager and seems tongue-tied when Bachchan makes his entrance into the moon-shaped arena illuminated with psychedelic bluish-velvet and crimson-coloured lights in his black band-gala jacket. Bachchan begins the episode with his welcome speech of Panchkoti Maha Money Kaun Banega Crorepati first in Awadhi (Because he hails from Allahabad); then Bengali (the wife connection); then Tulu (the daughter-in-law affect); then Punjabi (Bachchan’s mother was a Sikh-Punjabi from Faisalabad), while finishing off with Marathi (Bachchan’s karambhoomi). He delivers the opening lines in a single take without floundering. The crowd is palpably dazzled by the linguistic adroitness and they break into an ear-splitting marathon of applause. Bachchan walks around with a heroic swagger, slightly hunched and drooping left-shoulder, exchanging smiles with the people in the gallery after the director says “cut”.

 

A month shy of turning 70, he exudes such gooseflesh-raising energy that it’s bound to make you feel guilty about the time you might have cited tiredness as an excuse to pull out of your day’s work. Veena Jain, a roll-over participant from the previous episode, is the first one in the hot seat. She has already won Rs 160,000. She is playing to open a dental clinic in Mumbai. Before Bachchan asks her the first question of the day, she reads out a self-constructed reverential poem with words borrowed from some of Bachchan’s films with the last verse ending as “Anand bhale dil se aapko dete bhadai Sarkar”. After she answers the first question correctly, although with the help of the expert panel lifeline, Jain wishes to project another one of her shticks. She plays on a keyboard the title song of Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham. Bachchan afterwards reminisces on how the film had captured the imagination of Indians around the world. With Jain failing to answer “What is the women’s equivalent of Davis Cup?”, Binayak Goswami from the hinterland of Bennipur in West Bengal takes her place on the hot seat.  

 

Goswami declares at the outset that he intends to win at least Rs 25 lakh for the treatment of his nephew who suffers from bipolar disorder. Goswami gifts a sketch of Bachchan drawn by his nephew to the megastar. The sketch made with a thick lead pencil catches Bachchan right at the precise moment when he’s about to change his facial expression, from extreme anger to sadness. Goswami is a fishery officer with a government department and Bachchan is curious to know the nature of his work. With much enthusiasm, Goswami discusses at length, in his broken Hindi, how West Bengal’s fish consumption stands at 92 per cent and how his life is dedicated to educating farmers about escalating fish productivity by increasing the flow of oxygen into the marine world, and so on. As luck would have it, the next question that pops up on his screen is related to fish: “What is the national fish of Bangladesh?” Goswami scratches his head, shifts uncomfortably in his chair and opts for the audience poll instead. He goes with the majority and manages to wriggle out of the situation but not before Bachchan exchanges some fun-filled banter: “You were talking so much on the subject of fish. So what happened?” Goswami turns red with embarrassment and gropes in his mind for a believable defence. He comes up with an unbelievable one instead. First he says the question is faulty, and then he attacks the inte lligence of the Bangladeshis for having Hilsa as their national fish “when they (Hilsas) lay their eggs somewhere else”. Goswami eventually quits the stage before Rs 25 lakh because he is unsure of the answer. 

 

There comes one more participant in the hot seat after Goswami’s exit but a slight technical hitch stalls the game much to the delight of the crowd. Bachchan, “as a part of side-entertainment”, brings down the house, when he puts his right arm behind the seat and in a nonchalant baritone reintroduces himself as Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, going on to proclaim how this world is corrupt and to survive here you have to stay corrupt, otherwise you perish. Soon after the glitch is resolved, the last contestant continues but he doesn’t play long before the gong for closing time goes off at around 4 pm. 

 

Bachchan patiently goes around the gallery signing autographs, posing for pictures and accepting gifts from his fans. And then, as quickly as he had come into the set, he walks back towards the van. After having lunch, he goes through his routine of going through the script at least thrice before taking the stage to shoot the second episode later in the evening. By the time he is through with the second episode, it’s close to midnight.

 

He returns to Jalsa (his home in Juhu), finishes his meal, and sits down to write (in the context of Ganesha festival) in his blog at 12:32 am on how “The affluent, the VIPs, all have that similar look on their countenance when in the presence of the divine” because “that which is unknown shall always invite respect”. Is this the reason Bachchan still invites such widespread respect — because people find it impossible to explain the intensity of a 70-year-old, and what can’t be explained becomes a religious experience.