Abhishek Bachchan interview | ‘I want to jump off buildings, ride bikes, dance in Switzerland and sing beautiful songs’

It’s a strange thing to wonder: how do Indians dispose of their own? The 2019 Tamil film KD took a comic look at thalaikoothal, the ritual practice of senicide (simply, killing off the elderly) in certain districts of Tamil Nadu. For the film’s upcoming remake, Kaalidhar Laapata, transplanted to the Hindi heartland, director Madhumita was in search of a comparable phenomenon. 

The Hindi heartland obliged. “In a lot of the states up North, there is the practice of leaving one’s loved ones if they are aged or unwell at the Kumbh Mela. It is believed that God will take care of them and their last days will be close to Heaven,” Madhumita says. 

She made another crucial tweak to the original material. The protagonist of KD was an 80-year-old man recently awoken from a coma, who, having overheard his family’s plans to euthanise him, embarks on a transformative journey after befriending a cheery street urchin. 

Abhishek Bachchan and Daivik Baghela
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

KD (short for Karuppu Durai) was played by Tamil theatre veteran Mu Ramaswamy. The character in Kaalidhar Laapata is younger, and suffers from Lewy Body dementia. What’s more, he is played by Abhishek Bachchan. 

“From a dramatic standpoint, memory loss is always interesting to explore when a character is younger,” Madhumita expands. “For instance, there is a thread of unrequited love in this story. Kaalidhar is torn between wanting to remember and wanting to forget.” 

Bachchan, quietly vulnerable in a beard, was drawn to the ‘pathos’ in his character, a man who has always lived for others and sacrificed so much — and for so long — that life has just slipped him by. It’s another of Bachchan’s gently inward roles, after Ludo, I Want To Talk and Be Happy, that centres on an adult-child relationship. 

“It’s never too late to live your dreams. That’s what Ballu (played by debutant child actor Daivik Baghela) teaches my character Kaalidhar,” the actor says. 

The film was shot in and around Bhojpur and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh (the Kumbh Mela sequence was faked in Orchha, a serene temple town on the banks of the Betwa river.) Bachchan has a strong family connection to the State. His mother, veteran actor Jaya Bachchan, was born in Jabalpur and grew up in Bhopal, and his grandmother and two aunts still reside there. “They would visit the sets and we had a wonderful time.”

Abhishek Bachchan in a still from ‘Kaalidhar Laapata’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Bachchan features in the recent comedy hit Housefull 5. He delivered one of his best performances in recent years in Want to Talk. The film, perhaps riding on director Shoojit Sircar’s name, secured a theatrical release, a fate denied to many slice-of-life dramas with a leisurely pace. Have audiences become too impatient to sit with a two-hour story that pays off incrementally?

Bachchan rejoins with a sharp ‘no’. He quotes a line from Field of Dreams—’If you build it, they will come’. 

“Even when people are scrolling through reels, they stop at what engages them and see it in its entirety. The same with a good film. They are rapt.” He points to Mrs, Aarati Kadav’s domestic drama that broke records on ZEE5 and became the most searched film on Google on release. “Traditionally, you would think the same about that film. But the platform believed in it.”

Abhishek Bachchan and Daivik Baghela in a still from ‘Kaalidhar Laapata’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

That said, Bachchan is hoping to return to a more mainstream performing language (he has King and the historical Raja Shivaji in the offing). The actor concedes that, in the last three-four years, he has ‘saturated’ himself with a certain filmmaking sensibility. It came from an urge to challenge himself and expand his boundaries. But his cup is now full in that direction.

“I have enjoyed doing these films but I also want to get back to commercial massy stuff,” he says. “I want to jump off buildings, ride bikes, dance in Switzerland and sing beautiful songs!” 

Kaaidhar Laapata will release on ZEE5 on July 4