Megastar Amitabh Bachchan wove his cinematic magic at the Penguin annual lecture here where he spoke about women's empowerment, Hindi cinema, his father and much more to an awestruck audience in a floodlight sports stadium.
Arriving with a couple of fat books with bookmarks peeking through it, the 71-year-old actor, dressed in a deep blue suit, took to the stage with a 'namaste'.
"Never trust anyone without a book in his hand," said the veteran actor before plunging into his talk a "novel departure" to "bring some others script to life" and "entertain thoughts than merely amuse."
He dipped into memories of his father and "literary giant" the legendary poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, whose birth anniversary was just two days ago.
Bachchan said his father had called him his greatest poetry but "my biggest problem in my life I do not know whether I am a free verse or a couplet, a chaupai or a shloka."
The veteran actor said he remains puzzled by his father's habit in his last days of watching Hindi films rather than turning to his greatest companion his beloved books.
"I don't know what he saw in the flickering darkness it had to be more than Hindi cinema's excessive poetic justice in three hours!"
"Did he see a flame that burns itself up lighting up the fire of the written word within...?
He called Indian cinema older than Hollywood, now in its centenary year as monster.
"We are our own monster an animal of many animal parts..."
Replying to audience questions, the actor even expressed his wish to play the character "my father played in his autobiography."
In his speech, Bachchan, an ambassador of the United Nations, often quoted statistics to emphasise the lesser literacy rates among woman in parts of India like his native Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, about female infanticide, bride burning about misogyny, dowry deaths, rape cases, prostitution, acid attacks and other issues affecting women.
