Amitabh Bachchan was at the peak of his stardom when he worked with director Tinnu Anand on Kaalia. This was Tinnu’s first film and Amitabh was an established superstar. In a recent interview, Tinnu recalled that a few days into the shoot of the film, they had a big fight on the set after which, Tinnu was ready to walk out of the film. He shared that it all started because Amitabh did not want to say a particular dialogue but Tinnu was particular about not changing a single line of the dialogue.
Talking to Lehren Podcast, Tinnu said that his father Inder Raj Anand, who was a veteran writer was very strict about his dialogues and would not allow any actor, including Dilip Kumar, to change anything that he had written. The dialogues of Kaalia were also written by his father. Tinnu recalled that when Amitabh walked in on the set that day, “his mood wasn’t good.” As soon as Tinnu narrated the scene to him, which also had Pran and Parveen Babi, Bachchan apparently said, “I won’t say this dialogue.” When Tinnu asked why, Amitbah gave a plain “no.” At one point, Tinnu even walked off the set and said that he was ready to leave the film and the producer could hire another director for this.
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Tinnu explained that his father and him had stayed up until 3 am to come up with an applause-worthy dialogue and he believed that they finally had it. “I know I will get an applause on this,” insisted Tinnu. Amitabh asked how he was so certain and reminded him that this was his first film, while Amitabh had worked in a few dozen films by then. “He (Amitabh) said, ‘ you know every director tells me that you will get claps on this but when I go the theatre, there are no claps,” Tinnu shared.
Tinnu then made a declaration to Amitabh that caught him by surprise. “I said, ‘sir, I swear on my mom, my profession, if I don’t get a clap, I will leave this profession, I will never direct again. But you will have to swear too, that if there is clapping on this, you will leave your profession,” he said. After hearing this, Amitabh got up from his chair. “I thought he was going to hit me. He looked at the light man and said ‘switch on the lights. He is such a stubborn director, he won’t budge. I will say the dialogue’,” he recalled.
The dialogue in contention had a flair of poetry to it and Amitabh had told Tinnu, “Sherbaazi kyu kar rahe ho yahan pe? (Why are we speaking in prose?)” After the release of the film, Tinnu said that he attended many screenings and in every screening, there was applause after this dialogue. The dialogue that caused the fight was ‘Tu aatish-e-dozakh se darata hai jinhe… voh aag ko pee jate hain paani karke. Chala dijiye goli’.
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