How a super star is born

A number of books have been written on Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan but Susmita Dasgupta’s Amitabh - The Making of a Superstar is probably the first to analyse the sociological impact of his popularity.

"It’s a work that investigates the sociological causes of Amitabh Bachchan’s popular appeal — how Bachchan is related to the history of the period of his times and what sociological dynamics were behind the growth of his image," says Susmita.

Susmita is a deputy chief economist with the economic research unit of the Ministry of Steel. The author spent almost 16 years researching on Bachchan but she is not happy with the actor’s current image.

"I wrote this book because of two reasons. First, I was a huge fan of Amitabh Bachchan and this was the subject in my command. The other was that while I was doing my Ph.D in sociology, I wanted to do work on living realities.

"I was familiar with Amitabh as a cine-goer, so I chose him. The idea was to do a work on living history." Susmita started research on this book in 1977.

"I was writing notes on the subject since 1977 - the year I watched Sholay and became an Amitabh fan. But formally I started writing it in 1991." Susmita is one of the lucky ones to have enjoyed Bachchan’s hospitality.

Susmita said: "Amitabh Bachchan told me, ‘Do you know why these youngsters can’t beat me? Because they don’t have command over the language. In films, command over the language is not about delivering dialogues. Even when you sit still, command over the language should show’." — IANS

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