Amitabh

I was introduced to him on a hot afternoon in '92 watching Khuda Gawah at Dadar's Plaza Cinema.  Even though Amitabh first started making family-friendly movies (Anand & Bombay to Goa), he really touched a nerve as the Angry Young Man - faced with poverty and crime often in a broken family (Deewar & Zanjeer).  From those heights, Khuda Gawah, was hardly his best moment.

India too was having a mid-life crisis in the late 80s and early 90s.  The inflation and emergency in the 70s had given way to stagnation.  Politics was marred with corruption and communalism.  The same Plaza Cinema was destroyed in a series of blasts within a few months of my outing.  India had opened up its economy just a year earlier and the IT boom was just getting started; both trends globalizing India quickly in the following years.

My mind plays his deep baritone voice when narrating the story of India.  No one contextualized the subsequent changes India went through as well as he did

• ABCL grew too fast too quickly; but still paid his debts his full. 
• As TV channels went from 2 to 200, he became the country's top TV host at KBC; but still deferred to the 'Computer-Ji'.  
• He was one of the first to associate with Gujarat government (led by a then pariah Modi). 
• He is the most prolific social media star; but tweets in Hindi more often than not.  
• He owned(?) the first mobile phone in the country but still played a rural postman.

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Amitabh carried India's conscious through these changes. 

So it was with much concern to learn that Amitabh, now 77, tested positive for Corona.  ~40 years after the nation prayed hard for him to recover, we are joining together again in sincerely wishing he fights COVID and recovers.  His successful recovery will buoy the morale of lakhs currently diagnosed with it.  His is the voice we need!!