A Big B in her bonnet

It took me a long time to get a fix on Jessica Hines's Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me. I was reading on, puzzled about where this book was headed, it was page 253 (of 286) and the author was still saying things like, "I have to start writing this baby, with or without the help of the Almighty Amitabh ... at this rate the first draft should be done by Christmas".

That was when it hit me. This isn't a biography of Amitabh Bachchan, a serious attempt to examine his legend or a dissertation on modern Bollywood. It's a book about Hines attempting to write such a book, giving up and opting to write about herself instead. This is meta-fiction taken to an elaborate new level. It's also self-indulgence on such a vast, unapologetic scale that you can't help but be impressed. The book jacket has six photos of Amitabh and one of the author. It should have been the other way round. And the "Me" in the sub-title should have been in a font size 40 points larger.

Hines is best-known in India for her controversial affair with Aamir Khan a few years ago. If you read this book, take one thing as a given: she's on air-kissing terms with many people who matter in Bollywood. So don't bother about the whys and hows, just accept the name-dropping interludes.

The first half isn't bad; she really does make a stab at looking for the Big B. She speaks to Shobha De, Yash Chopra and Shashi Kapoor, among others, though rarely gleaning anything that could be considered a major insight (with Kapoor, you get the impression she's really collecting notes for a future book about him). And she spends vast amounts of time with the Big B himself, accompanying him to location shoots, having numerous meals with him, watching films with him, tiring him out with wacky questions and comments.

Hines makes a couple of interesting points about Bachchan's career: for instance, discussing his pre-stardom role in Bombay to Goa in the context of his natural flair for action scenes, she notes how he transformed from awkward "cheeky-chappie" to assured, focused hero once the fight scene began. Later, things briefly promise to get exciting when Rekha agrees to talk to her (don't miss the surreal phone conversation between them""it's on page 180, so you can leaf through it quickly at a bookstore). But the interview fizzles out, and so does the book. Amitabh vanishes for entire stretches and what we get instead is Life of Jessica, written in tedious dear-diary style. Jessica doing yoga, Jessica battling mosquitoes in the Pune Boat Club, Jessica flirting with a butler, Jessica in a luxurious suite in Dubai's Burj hotel, imagining that the huge mirror above her bed is beaming videos of her to some website. (Of course, the book itself is a part-exercise in just this manner of exhibitionism.) Jessica being cute, self-deprecating and witty in turn, making herself as likable as possible; now look at her hopping from one foot to the other behind Amitabh as he unsuccessfully tries to make her an omelette (don't ask).

In scattered passages""too few, unfortunately""Looking for the Big B does provide a fresh perspective on Amitabh Bachchan. One wouldn't have thought this possible given the recent overexposure, which has made even his most devoted fans jaded. But Hines doesn't bear the burden of adoration that the average Indian does, and this in turn seems to make her subject more relaxed when he's in her presence. She speaks of Bachchan with an offhand flippancy that we haven't encountered before in thousands of pages of magazine articles and books; it's almost as if she were""perish the thought""describing a Regular Guy. She writes of him fixing her in a stare that's "a cross between a monitor lizard and Paddington Bear". Trying to make small talk with him when he's brooding, she says, "is like trying to convince Mr Kurtz to leave the jungleAt such times, she gives us the unlikely spectre of a smaller-than-life Amitabh, watching her balefully, trying to figure out how he ever got involved with such a nutcase.

On the very rare occasions that Looking for the Big B works, it's because of this demystification: Hines takes the Star of the Millennium, the cynosure of a billion pairs of eyes, and coolly turns him into a supporting player. The problem""and it's a big problem, one that prevents this book from achieving any lasting worth""is that the lead role isn't played by someone more interesting.

---

Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me

Jessica Hines
Bloomsbury
Price: Rs 495; Pages: 286