A Babe In The Bollywoods

Looking for...the Big B was conceived as a biography. Yash Chopra had found his Boswell in Dr Rachel Dwyer, a lecturer at London University, who flaunted her doctorate and gained access to all nooks and corners of Bollywood. Bachchan wanted an academic of his own to follow him around, a foreigner, preferably female. As Hines says disarmingly, having a biographer "was almost a better indication of social standing than the number of machine-gun-toting bodyguards you had cluttering up your driveway". She had been a student of Dwyer and was the perfect choice for Bachchan. Or so it seemed at that time.

For the next three years, Hines followed her subject around, interviewing him whenever he could spare time between shoots, which was not very often. She was a constant wherever he went—London, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Jaipur—staying in incredibly luxurious hotels which, as she brightly puts it, she could not have afforded "in a million years". In separate rooms, of course. The tabs were always picked up by Bachchan or, more likely, his producer. It was a wonderful joy ride for a young girl from a small town in Cornwall.

To cut to the chase, that biography of the Big B did not see the light of day. Hines had an edifying experience. She made the mistake of sending her first draft to Bachchan for comment and all hell broke loose. As she puts it ever so delicately, "he went mental". Bachchan was anticipating a sanitised version of his life and here was someone digging up the Bofors scandal and his various flings all over again.

He threatened to sue Hines. The Great Patriarch became the Angry Young Man all over again. She was informed by e-mail that he would fight her to the last drop of blood in his veins. "A threat which, even at my most upset, struck me as a little filmi," says Hines. She tried to reason with him. If he would just tell her what he didn’t like about the book, she would change it. No. All communication was cut.

So what have we got here? It’s a book that’s the equivalent of what ends up on the cutting room floor when a film is being edited, the leftovers; delicious leftovers, nevertheless. Instead of a book on Bachchan, Hines has written one about her time in Bollywood with Bachchan as the central character. There is no inside dope but we learn that the Big B is not a foodie, he is quite content with just soup at lunch. He doesn’t drink. The man may have our country’s best voice but was once turned down for a job as a broadcaster by All India Radio.

As for Bollywood, there are some juicy bits about Aamir Khan though she is coy on her relationship with him. She spends quality time with Manisha Koirala on her rooftop garden getting drunk on some Nepali version of a cocktail. Hines is good at describing the scene when a film is being shot, the chamchas that dance in attendance around the stars, the chaos in the dilapidated film studios, the complete disregard for the safety of the lowly hands on the sets. "The dressing rooms for the world’s most glittery of the glitterati are shocking: cheap whorehouses, but without the pride."

She tries to get at the bottom of the Rekha-Bachchan rumours. Did they or did they not? Shobhaa De kept her waiting in her living room for an hour-and-half and then proclaimed it never happened; it was a lie created by Rekha. Her former boss at Stardust, Nari Hira, is not so sure. She gets a maybe from him while Khalid Mohamed of Filmfare and Bhawana Somaya of Screen refused to talk. If a Bollywood journalist values his career, he better not squeal on the reigning deity. There have been stories of Zeenat Aman and Bachchan getting cosy in London. Neetu Singh started that one but later panicked and denied having said anything of the sort. The jury is still out on that one. Let me put it this way: I would have if I were in Big B’s boots.