Kasab Amitabh, Nida and Gyan Ranjan

I am trying to insinuate myself in the Amitabh-is-like-Azmal Kasab controversy triggered by noted poet Nida Fazli. I have at least four plausible reasons to do so. One, I have been close to writer-editor Gyanranjan   who was foolishly compared with Amitabh Bachchan by the editor of the literary magazine  Pakhi in its September issue ; two, I am huge fan, like millions of other Indians, of the Big B ; three, I have read enough of Nida Fazli to believe him that his write-up in the Pakhi was distorted and sensationalized  by the media; and four, I have not only completely read the Pakhi issue on Gyan Ranjan but also have written a blog on the writer  based on the magazine’s issue.  

Let me try and put the whole controversy in perspective. Pakhi editor Prem Bhardwaj in his long interview with Gyan Ranjan compared ( rather apologetically, saying he be forgiven for this) ) the latter with Amitabh Bachchan. The interviewer’s idea was to convey that Gyan Ranjan too was an angry young man of literature as Amitabh was on celluloid in the seventies. The comparison, of course, was odious.

Nida Fazli, a close friend of Gyan Ranjan, tried to stress this odiousness in his write-up in the magazine. Nida justifiably viewed the comparison as an insult of Gyan Ranjan. For, Gyan’s anguish was his own, Amitabh’s crafted and scripted.

Gyanranjan had accumulated the anger through honest observations of the societal decadence, Amitabh had only simulated the anger his writers ( Salim-Javed) had cozily imagined in the film scripts for him.

Gyanranjan does not betray a fascistic streak through his characters like Amitabh did in the films of that era.  man A littérateur, however bad, is not a puppet, unlike a film actor.

So, where was Nida wrong? He merely pointed out to the puppet-puppeteer interrelation vis-à-vis Amitabh-Salim-Javed and Azmal Kasab-Hafiz Sayeed binary. Maybe, the analogy was a bit shocking, given the status of the superstar and the notoriety of Azmal Kasab. But, his point was valid.

Now coming back to Gyan Ranjan and Amitabh Bachchan. If you leave aside the angry young man epithet, both had many things common too.

They belonged to Allahabad; both are Kayastha and both were sired by litterateur fathers.

However, while Dr Harivansh Ri Bachchan was close to Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru, Gyanji’s father Ram Nath Suman was a hardcore Gandhiite.