Amitabh Bachchan

Movie – Anand

This was written when Raj Kapoor was seriously ill. Hrishida based the character of Anand on Raj Kapoor, who was busy making everyone around him smile while others were scurrying around worried out of their minds. (The film is also dedicated to Raj Kapoor, who affectionately called Hrishida 'Babu Moshai'.)

Then, it made the rounds - there was supposed to be a Kishore Kumar / Mehmood combination, but there was a misunderstanding between Kishore and Hrishida and Kishore was out. Mehmood walked out soon after, and his role fell into Amitabh's lap.

In Same movie - Amitabh rehearsed the climax scene with Mehmood, asking for his input. And Mehmood told him to imagine that Rajesh Khanna was really dead.

Abhimaan - Back in the eighties, they had a special Jaimala programme with Amitabh Bachchan. One of his song selections was from Abhimaan, and he went on to say, that from time to time, the film felt like a reflection of his life with Jaya.

“Khaike paan banaraswala…” as narrated by Sameer Anjaan’s son who wrote this song.

Like when Anjaan presented the song Khaike Paan Banarasiwala for the producer and director and they were aghast.

"'There is no Hindi word Khaike' they said. I explained it was a popular word in Uttar Pradesh and as Amitabh (Bachchan, who stars in Don) was from UP, he would be able to carry it off easily.

Then Kishore Kumar arrived………………'Is this a Hindi song? It doesn't sound like one,' the legendary singer said. 'I don't think I can sing this, please find another singer.'

"We pleaded with him. We said he was the best singer to sing it. Finally, he relented on one condition: He would sing it only once."

"If we liked it, good, otherwise, we would have to find another singer. We reluctantly agreed," Sameer remembers.

Kishore Kumar sang the song in one take and it went on to become one of the biggest hits of its time

Song was originally written for the Dev Anand movie Banarasi Babu (1973). Director Chandra Barot showed the movie Don (1978) to his mentor Manoj Kumar, who felt that the film was too tight and needed a song in the midst of the action-filled film, and so “Khaike paan banaraswala…” was recorded. It was shot after the film was complete and was added after the intermission to balance the action-packed pace of the movie.

Amitabh said that both 'Rang barse', from the 1981 Bollywood movie "Silsila", and "Hori kheley" from "Baghbaan" are "legacy" of his father and poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

"My entire childhood and later years right up to the film industry time, these were the songs sung by my father ... folk songs of UP... We would pick up a dholak and he would sing," he wrote.

"I repeated this during the times when I worked in Kolkata and early years of the film industry. Yash Chopra used to hear this from me each Holi at Prateeksha, when one day he decided to bring it to film .. and Rang Barse took birth in film ... though the words and tune are all my father's !!

"Then 'Baghbaan' happened. Hori kheley is another Holi song that would be sung by my Father, another folk song. When Ravi Chopra directing the film 'Baghbaan' asked me for a Holi number, I told him I would get one for him ... so Aadesh Srivastava and me sat one night and recorded this ... another contribution by my father