From his first outing on the stage as a 'chicken', when he was in kindergarten, to his forthcoming film with Farhan Akhtar, mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan recollected his cinematic journey in a face-to-face with his fans in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Settling down to a tete-a-tete with his Delhiite fans after cutting the birthday cake at the packed India Habitat Centre auditorium, Amitabh, who turned 60 on October 11, said he felt he had more tests to pass as an actor.
"I am by no means satisfied as an actor. I still feel a flutter in my stomach thinking about how I will fare in my shooting tomorrow. The day I will be satisfied, I'll stop growing as an actor," said Amitabh.
He asserted it was not ambition but a natural extension of his extra-curricular activities, that included acting on the stage that brought him into the film industry.
"I fluked it," he jokingly said when asked about the secret of his success. He went on to say, "I personally don't feel that I have achieved any great success. I am still looking for challenges."
On which was his favorite role, the super star said it was impossible for him to pick out any one role as his favorite. He would rather just see his career divided into four distinct phases, he said.
The initial stage in his career consisted of films made by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, which were followed by films scripted by the writer duo of Salim-Javed, Amitabh said.
He moved on to the technically superior genre created by Mukul Anand and Tinu Anand and then to the films made by the new generation of directors like Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, said Amitabh.
At his humorous best, Amitabh handled the question diplomatically about how he saw the comparison between him and his son Abhishekh Bachchan. "I see it as a comparison between a father and a son and nothing else," he said.
Charming the audience with his easy wit, he offered to apologize to the parents of one of his fans who told him about the fasts she kept for his well being when he was recuperating from his accident during the shooting of the film Coolie.
He floored the audience by narrating a verse from his famous song Kabhie Kabhie and reciting a line from his father, poet Harivanshrai Bachchan's famous poem ‘Madhushala’.
The interaction between Amitabh and his fans was followed by the screening of one of the superstar's most famous films Zanjeer, the first in the retrospective of films to be screened at the India Habitat Centre from October 15 to 22.
Amitabh also inaugurated an exhibition of original Bollywood posters of some of his most popular films at the Centre.
From his first outing on the stage as a 'chicken', when he was in kindergarten, to his forthcoming film with Farhan Akhtar, mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan recollected his cinematic journey in a face-to-face with his fans in New Delhi on Tuesday.