Dear Arshad Warsi, the Bachchans don’t owe you anything-Entertainment News , Firstpost

Dear Arshad,

I have always loved your work: who doesn’t! But you have also been a bit of a cribber throughout your career. I remember years ago you spoke about the Golmaal franchise saying it didn’t help you as an actor. It only helped director Rohit Shetty. When your statements appeared in print, all hell broke loose.

So what did you do? Instead of taking responsibility, you promptly accused me of misquoting you. But I didn’t hold it against you. Everyone does it when the going gets sticky. Even the great Gulzar Saab spoke about his not-so-pleasant experience of working with Kamal Haasan in Chachi 420. When Kamal Haasan challenged him, Gulzar Saab said something like, ‘You know how journalists are’.

I never held it against Gulzar Saab and my respect for him remains undiminished. The same goes for you, although with you, the disclaimers are far too many to ignore the main show. Once when your marriage was in trouble you voluntarily called up to speak about it. I pointedly asked you if you wanted the conversation out in the public domain, and you said yes because you felt it would help your wife to see where she was wrong.

Soon after you were at it again. Telling the world I had betrayed your trust. An eye-rolling emoji would not be inopportune here.

Now it’s the Bachchans about whom you have said at an event for a film, ironically entitled Bachchan Pandey (or maybe that was the whole idea?): “I started my career with ABCL (the now-defunct Amitabh Bachchan Corporation), (director ) Joy Augustine, they got me in the profession. But then they left me, abandoned me. So I don’t know what to call them. Godfather or what, I don’t know.”

This is a very teenybopper way of looking at life’s opportunities. This you-don’t-love-me-anymore logic is as obsolete as Charles Dickens’ Great Expectation. Nobody owes any of us anything, Arshad. The fact that the ABCL launched you with such fanfare—and I remember how much Jaya Bachchan endorsed and supported you—should be sufficient reason for you to be eternally grateful.

What is this narrative of rejection and abandonment? Were the Bachchans supposed to continue spoon-feeding you? Sorry, even parents don’t do that. Soon after ABCL launched you in Tere Mere Sapne the company went bankrupt and placed the Bachchans in a financial crisis.

Your cribbing about the ABCL reminded me of a very dear filmmaker friend who was constantly harassed by a music composer whom my filmmaker-friend gave a big break to. Thereafter the composer could make no headway in his career.

But is that the filmmaker’s fault? Is he obligated to continue working with the composer? I don’t think so. All of us need to take charge of our own lives, success failure included. And the sooner we know it the better.

Everyone has his or her own burdens to bear. Why should you expect anyone else to bear yours?

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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