Being the scion of one of Bollywood’s most famous dynasties might be considered a difficult enough burden to carry through life.

Then Abhishek Bachchan decides to go and marry the girl described by the actress Julia Roberts as “the most beautiful woman in the world”.


The fact that he is forever categorised as either “son of” or “husband of” appears to sit lightly on his shoulders. He decided long ago to accept any advantages it might bring and not waste energy trying to fight something he can do nothing about.

The 32-year-old actor, the son of a giant in the Indian film industry, Amitabh Bachchan, and the husband of Aishwarya Rai, the former Miss World who became a Bollywood star, is on a whistle-stop visit to Dubai to promote Delhi 6, an epic movie directed by Rakesh Mehra, which will be released in February.

He has been travelling for two days from a remote location deep in the heart of Kerala, southern India, where he is working on another film, just to spend 24 hours at the Dubai International Film Festival. He apologises for being a little tired and for keeping his beige baseball cap firmly on and refusing to remove his large aviator sunglasses. “I look terrible and my hair is short under this,” he says.

Being part of Delhi 6 was “a life changing experience” and he identifies strongly with his character Roshan, a young man who grows up in the US and travels to India with his ailing grandmother and finds himself on a journey of self-discovery. The story is centred on Roshan’s impressions and feelings towards a country he hardly knows. Delhi 6 is the postcode of old Delhi, which becomes a microcosm of the entire nation in the film with all its social and political complexities.

“I spent the majority of my childhood at boarding school abroad so I related to the part. I know what it feels like to be an outsider in one’s own country. The film shows India the way it is. It’s not something that you see in the magazines or in the news. It’s much more enchanting. It’s functioning chaos.

“One line that appeals to me in the script is when my character is debating whether to go back to New York or not and he says, ‘One of the reasons I like this place is that India works. The people make it work. You can’t explain why it works, but it does.’

“That sums up what that great nation is all about. It’s the people who make it magical. It’s why I wanted to be part of the story. I truly did discover myself as a human being.”

He is frequently asked to comment on the recent tragic attacks by dissidents in Mumbai, which resulted in the deaths of 173 people, but is reluctant to deliver what he describes as “meaningless sound bites”.

“One is always expected to give sound bites about unity and bumping up morale. That isn’t going to help anyone. India’s greatest quality is that it picks itself up. It’s high time we stopped discussing it and did something about it,” he says.

And although Delhi 6 has strong political and social overtones, it was never designed as a movie with a message. “The film isn’t made with the intention of trying to rectify anything or uniting people. It’s not about explaining. It’s more about asking the question ‘Why?’ Why we live like we do and what we are doing.”

Bachchan and Mehra, the producer and director of the acclaimed 2006 Rang De Basanti (Colour of Sacrifice), have been talking about collaborating for 12 years. “We had our first professional talk in September 1997 when he decided to be a director and I decided to be an actor. The story he wrote for me 12 years ago never got made but the name of the main character, Roshan, stuck. It has been worth the wait.”

Their arrival at festival headquarters at the Mina Al Salaam hotel is pure Bollywood. Mehra, Bachchan and his beautiful co-star Sonam Kapoor, the daughter of the Indian movie icon Anil Kapoor, step off an abra to be met by a phalanx of excited photographers.

But mention the label “Bollywood” and Bachchan bristles slightly before he delivers a big sigh of resignation and explains why he hates the term.

“Unfortunately, it’s in the dictionary now and it’s something we have to live with, but people have forgotten the origin of it. The name was coined by a journalist as a derogatory term. He was accusing the Indian film industry of copying all sorts of Hollywood movies. It was not flattering and I don’t appreciate the origins of the word.”

Bachchan has starred in dozens of Indian films with their trademark singing, dancing and colourful melodrama and sees no reason not to carry on doing so. He launches himself into a passionate defence of the Indian film industry.

“I believe that we are a unique movie industry. We are the largest film industry in the world. We sell the largest number of tickets in the world so I don’t see why we should be named after any other industry. We have a great amount of respect for the western world and the films they make, but we have our identity and I think we should be known by that.

“The world has woken up to Indian cinema. I don’t see why, when we have been given the privilege of this wonderful platform, we should shy away from that platform. We love the song and dance and the pomp and pageantry. We love the melodrama, why should we try to change that now? It would be a great victory if I could move it on and take it to a new level. The only way of doing that is doing the work we do and doing it well. It would be a Herculean task to try and reverse that.”

He feels that DIFF is the perfect place for East to meet West. “It’s all about belonging to a larger creative fraternity. It’s not about being from the East or from the West. It’s a wonderful feeling coming to the film festival and standing in theatres full of brilliant creative minds. You don’t feel that you are from India or the UAE, you feel like you are part of a larger family. So I don’t believe in these sort of demarcations.

“Obviously, I think they make wonderful films in the West. Would I want to work there? If I was offered a film that interested me, yes, definitely.

“Dubai is a fantastic place. When Rakesh and I were driving from the airport the first thing he said was, ‘Do they have a studio here?’ In Dubai, you can see how a modern city can bridge the gap between the East and the West.”

Bachchan is also the son of Jaya Bachchan, another Indian film star. He and his sister Shweta may have had a privileged life, but he says his parents always took care that they didn’t become spoilt. “I was born and brought up in the industry. It was my playground as a child. Having both parents who are actors, there were a lot of their colleagues around when I was growing up but my sister and I lived a very normal life. We had to do our school work and go to bed at certain times. We were never allowed to feel special about ourselves. Dad never really brought work home. My mother stopped work for a while after I was born but the rule she always had was, ‘No shop at the table.’

“I can’t say I always wanted to be an actor. As a child, you change your mind every day. One day I wanted to be an astronaut and the next a fireman. The great thing about what I’m doing now is that as an actor you get to do them all.”

The family name is actually Srivastav; Bachchan was the name adopted by Abhishek’s grandfather, Haricansh Rai Bachchan, a poet of Urdu and Hindi literature. Abhishek, who was dyslexic as a child and worked hard to overcome it, attended Bombay Scottish School followed by boarding school in New Delhi and Aiglon College in Switzerland. He went to university in Boston but dropped out half way through his degree course to pursue a career in films and join his father’s business, which had run into difficulties.

He says he has never tried to compete with his father, whom he resembles physically, right down to the deep voice. “I believe that nobody can compare to him and that he is the best that ever was, so why would I waste time trying to compare myself? You can’t beat the best. I show him all my films and he loves them. I don’t get nervous; I’m eager to see what he thinks. He knows the job inside out and all the tricks of the trade. His opinion has always been very valuable to me. There’s no better learning ground than that.”

His father’s recent health scare is now over – it made headline news in India and the hospital was besieged by anxious fans who had heard about the abdominal illness. Bachchan says he is used to living his life with this type of scrutiny. “You are a public figure and it comes with the territory. You can’t let that rule your life. There are people out there who love you and people in equal amounts who don’t. That is part and parcel of being a public figure. You have to accept it and if you can’t handle it, don’t become a public figure,” he says.

He expected the inevitable comparisons with his father and the interest in his own personal life as his own career got off to a lukewarm start with JP Dutta’s Refugee. His co-star was Kareena Kapoor, with whom he became romantically involved. The pair announced their engagement at Amitabh’s 60th birthday party in 2002, but the relationship did not last.

When he was first spotted with the stunning Aishwarya Rai, the Indian press went into a frenzy of speculation. He and Rai were married in April 2007 in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Mumbai. They were barely wed when the rumour-mongers started suggesting that all was not well between them.

Bachchan just shrugs.“We don’t worry about the crazy things people write about us. We knew it was going to happen when we first got together. They would say we were going to get married or we weren’t and as soon as we got married they started writing that we were splitting up. So we just get on with our lives and don’t worry about it. Ninety-nine per cent of the time it’s complete falsehood what they write and as long as the people you love know the truth, it doesn’t matter. You can’t let it get to you. I would much rather channel my energy into getting a good shot.”

The pair are currently co-starring in the new Mani Ratnam film, Raven, on location in Kerala and their marriage is just fine, he says. “It’s great fun being married to Ash. I have done several films with her and always enjoyed working with her. I did my second film with her after we got married and it’s nice to get home and have your wife there. There is no tension. Her being an actor helps because she understand, what are the requirements of an actor on set.

“And yes, she looks like that first thing in the morning. I’m always asked if she has a bad day and the answer is always, ‘No, she doesn’t.’ She is consistent.”

Earlier this year, the three Bachchans – Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya – embarked on their Unforgettable World Tour, performing on stage together in the US, Canada, London and Trinidad, with guest appearances from other Bollywood stars such as Preity Zinta and Ritesh Deskmukh. Abhishek also had a success this year with the film Dostana, a story of two men who fall for the same girl.

With Aishwarya gaining a foothold in Hollywood with movies like Bride and Prejudice and The Last Legion, the Bachchan fortune is looking up.

Says Bachchan: “What a wonderful time to be an actor when you get to make movies like Dostana and Delhi 6 in the same year. You can’t dictate or predict whether a film is going to be a success. It’s not in your hands, so the best thing is to enjoy the process. You remember each one for the memories you brought back. It’s all about the memories and the journey.”