Amitabh Bachchan shares some interesting anecdotes from his three blockbusters that released in 1979 in a chat
Shubha Shetty Saha (MID-DAY; June 24, 2016)

MR NATWARLAL
Rakesh Kumar was an assistant to Prakash Mehra in Zanjeer and wanted to helm Mr Natwarlal. Those days, we never got any comprehensive script; a general idea would be given and the scenes would be developed on set. If we were shooting in Kashmir, the spot boy would suddenly come and say, ‘Sir, the shoot has been shifted to Bombay’ (laughs). In Bombay, Chandivli studios had all the foreign locales in house. Even after 37 years, it remains the same. It was Rakesh who suggested that I sing in this film and Mere Paas Aao became the first song that I sung. Rajesh Roshan recorded it in Mehboob Studios. We used to have 150- 200 musicians around us during recording and that used to be some kind of an experience. Then Kamal master, the choreographer, insisted that the song be picturised in this small place near Gulmarg, because that was his lucky location. It was great fun.


SUHAAG
This was a Manmohan Desai film. Mannji would come up with unique ideas and they all sounded ridiculous when he narrated them. When we complained he would say, ‘Karna, yaar’ and they would end up being big hits. We did a lot of shoot for Suhaag in London and few old studios like Roop Tara. We were to do a scene where I had to ride a bike coming down the Mount Mary church steps with Shashi (Kapoor) riding pillion. Mann-ji and Shashi were skeptical, now when I look back, I wonder how I managed to pull it off. Now, working arrangements have gone through a sea change with everything organised, but it gets mechanical. Those days, we were expected to remember the continuity. Now, we have 10 people hovering around us telling us what to do; now the process of thinking for yourself is gone. Being organised is good, but I miss all that fun. If you watch the climax of Amar Akbar Anthony, I have a bruise on the cheek, which moves from one place to five different places by the end of the scene. The audience didn’t care about small details. They just loved the films.


KAALA PATTHAR
This film had a great script. I played a Naval officer with a stigma for having abandoned a ship when it was sinking, and then my character starts working at a coal mine. I really liked that role. It had a bit of a connect to my early years when I was working as an executive for Bird & Co. Before joining films, I was trained in coal mines in Asansol and Bihar. Of course, we didn’t go there to shoot because logistically it was becoming difficult, so the coal mine was recreated and shot in Raj (Kapoor’s) ji’s farmhouse in Poona.