The two reasons I agreed to come to your programme: firstly, the great joy of coming back to Calcutta and secondly the opportunity to come to the Netaji Indoor Stadium, which is very close to my heart,” announced Amitabh Bachchan as he played chief guest at Spectrum, the school fest of Ashok Hall group of schools on Saturday evening.

Bachchan was standing in the galleries of the Netaji Indoor Stadium, the same stadium where he had swung to Saara zamana in an electric bulb-fitted suit for Yaarana in 1979 and also where he had helped his team winThe Telegraph Anniversary Debate in 1990.

Looking at the photograph of that debate Metro carried on Saturday morning, Bachchan turned the clock back and went on a nostalgia trip, sitting in the Darjeeling Lounge at ITC The Sonar Calcutta. Here’s Big B talking to t2 about the time when he was just another B struggling to make it Big in his favourite city, Calcutta. And yes, he also spoke about Rann, why he loves working with Aag maker RGV and why his fans would only accept him as Amitabh Bachchan. Read on…

Do you remember The Telegraph Anniversary Debate of 1990? Our team won… that’s what I remember (laughs out loud)! I think we were talking about something to do with politics. There was Mani Shankar Aiyar who was in the other team. But I clearly remember we won!

On Thursday night you got really emotional about Calcutta on your blog…

Aaah, you know it’s very strange if you ask me what I did yesterday, I won’t remember. But I remember everything that happened 20-30 years ago. I don’t know why a human being behaves like this. Maybe because those were the impressionable years.

What are your earliest memories of Calcutta?

I had first come to Calcutta to look for a job. I was out of college, not knowing what to do. Someone told me if you go to Calcutta you will get a good job. So I got a train and came here. I had this one jacket, one pant and one tie… I used to wear that and go to all the offices with my credentials and ask for a job. Great moments! And then in the evening we all jobseekers would get together and compare notes. We used to study a lot of newspapers because they would ask us questions. Then, of course, first job… first ever salary… and what you want to do with it.

How was it living in Calcutta at that time?

Seven-eight of us used to live in one room not bigger than this (the room we are sitting in is around 10x10 ft)… some on the floor, some on the bed… in Clapton Apartments on Russell Street.

And you started acting during those years, in English theatre?

Yes, we were with the Dramatic Club of Calcutta and the Amateurs. It was great fun. A lot of serious theatre was done there. I was introduced for the first time to all the major playwrights. We did Virginia Woolf, we did Death of a Salesman, we did a musical called Desert Song, we did A Streetcar Named Desire.

Did you do Marlon Brando’s role in A Streetcar Named Desire?

No, no, no, I was the person in charge of background music (laughs)!

From those years to Yaarana to The Telegraph Debate to The Last Lear, you have been coming to Calcutta for decades now. What has changed in this city?

You know the best thing about Calcutta (is) that no matter what peripherally or superficially is changed, its heart always remains the same. And its heart is full of passion. I always tell all my colleagues, any time you want a moral or ego boost, go to Calcutta. Because the people here are incredible. The amount of affection and the way they express it is unbelievable. I can never forget that.

Coming to Rann, you have been very critical of the media. How much of that is there in the film?

On the blog, I am on Day 634. And I think hardly six days would have been devoted to the media. Not necessarily criticising it but also appreciating it. And when I have been critical, it’s largely to correct something that has been wrongly projected about me. But in Rann, it’s a story of a media baron named Vijay Harshvardhan Malik. He

is a man of great integrity… when he speaks, the nation listens. Everything that he says is taken as gospel truth. And so he has a great responsibility. But media is also about running a business.

So does this man compromise with the business or compromise with his conscience?

I am pretty sure that there must be several occasions in the lives of reporters when they want to file the truth. But the seniors or bosses may not think that is going to be remunerative. They may ask the reporter to change it or give it another angle to make it exciting. This is the battle Harshvardhan Malik, my character, fights in Rann. And politics comes in as an add-on to this debate. It’s not a deliberate attempt on my part or Ramu’s (Ram Gopal Varma) part to bash the media. Not at all.

Is the conscience-business struggle limited only to the media? Don’t you face it in the movies?

Yes, in a way, it’s similar. There are many times when we play roles or we enact certain sequences or we do certain scenes in a manner we are not comfortable with. But because the director wants it and because he thinks it’s going to be very commercial. You would never find me coming out of an egg and speaking a lot of gibberish, like I did in Amar Akbar Anthony, in real life. I would never do that. When I did it, I was complying with what Manmohan Desai wanted me to do. And I used to tell Man, what are you doing? This is going to look ridiculous in the film. And we used to laugh about it. But somewhere he was right because that became so popular and everyone enjoyed it. So you sit back and say, I won’t argue with you. That’s really the struggle within all of us… contending with your conscience.

When you are offered a script about which you have strong views, like say Rann, do you incorporate changes or at least suggest them?

Most of the time Ramu comes with a final, complete script. He does not entertain anything beyond that. Primarily because there’s never been any reason to do that. Yes, I can have an opinion about a certain scene and I can discuss that with him and if we think that it needs to be done in this manner, we make that change.

Since Rann is about the media, we have to ask you about the years you banned the media. Today, when you look back, do you regret it?

It came about as a misunderstanding on the part of the media as to what my role was during the time of the Emergency. They thought because of my association and friendship with Mrs Gandhi, it was I who had propagated the press censorship, which was an absolutely ridiculous accusation. And it was they who banned me first. They stopped writing about me. Even when I worked in a film, I would end up being a comma. Photographers would put their cameras down and not take my photographs at public gatherings. And I thought, well, if you have the liberty to ban me, then I would also have the liberty to ban you. So I didn’t speak to them… But then later on as time went by, we realised that it’s not going anywhere.

Rann is your sixth film with Ram Gopal Varma. What makes you go back to him, despite RGV Ki Aag?

I think I have only done more films with Hrishida (Hrishikesh Mukherjee). Ramu comes up with very unique ideas and I love the way he challenges his artistes. I love the way he presents them, even the smallest of them. He has a certain sense of camera and presentation, which is quite unique, and I love that. He is also very quick. Rann was made in about 20-25 days. That’s remarkable. There’s continuity of thought and look. Every role that he has given to me has been very challenging. I know he faced a lot of flak for Aag and Nishabd but I loved doing those films. They challenged me as an actor.

But they were rejected by your fans…

Sometimes you have to succumb to the choices, to the likes and dislikes of the people. For them, Amitabh can’t do this. He can’t behave like this. How can he fall in love with an 18-year-old? Then you think about it. But honestly, for me as an actor, Nishabd was one of my most challenging roles. People, I feel, did not want to identify with me playing that character. There were moments in that film where Ramu put me in positions and situations where I had to dig really deep… how am I going to enact this? I am afraid those nuances were lost and were overtaken by a certain personal link that the audience has with me. ‘Arre yeh kaam toh Amitabh kar hi nahin sakta hai’. I realised this early on that we have a direct interaction with the audience.

In the mid-80s I was driving somewhere and I was stuck in a traffic jam. And 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, one hour went by and we were still stuck. We were all standing in the same place. People started getting out of their cars and started looking around, what’s going on. I was still in my car and somebody discovered that I was there. He came and knocked on my window and said: “Sir, aap idhar kya kar rahein hai? Aap baahar nikliye, do jhaapar mariye… abhi traffic jam theek ho jaayega!” Obviously, I can’t do that and it’s not going to solve the traffic problem. But that is the impression they have… ki yeh baahar nikalke theek kar dega. Mere saamne agar do aadmi aa jaayein main toh bhagoonga! But that is the perception!

Can a star not break that perception and become an actor?

That will come when people become more cinema-sensitive. There are regions in this country where the sensibility is more. Bengal has great sensibility. Which is why you will find so much appreciation for the finer qualities of moviemaking. It comes in your nature, in your character… In every Bengali home you will find music, culture, dance and you grow up in that atmosphere. It’s there in south India, it’s there in middle Maharashtra. There is this inborn culture and you start noticing these sensibilities in cinema. But Hindi cinema is universal and it has to cater to every city and therefore you have to take care of these things.

What are your plans with AB Corp after the success of Paa?

Abhishek said, it will be want-based and not need-based…

I would agree with that. It was, in fact, Abhishek’s idea to produce Paa. If we were putting in so much of ourselves in the film, then we wanted to have some amount of copyright over it. Then, of course, his main idea was to make the film within a very limited budget. And we did that. I think that went a long way in the success of the film.

How do you feel when you see Abhishek wearing dhuti-panjabi and playing Surya Sen (for Ashutosh Gowariker’s Khele Hum Jee Jaan Se)?

(Smiles) I am happy that he is playing Surya Sen. It’s a story that not many people know about. And it will be wonderful to see how it shapes up. I think it’s important that Abhishek does varied kind of roles. It will benefit him as an actor.

And when do we see you coming back to shoot in Calcutta, playing a Bengali maybe?

We are all talking. I will be meeting Ritu (Rituparno Ghosh). He has something in mind. So let’s see!