A cartoon: Visual of a tombstone on which reads, ``Here lies ABCL. Buried by one Mrityudaata''. Grafitti near Amitabh Bachchan's bungalow: ``Mrityu Debt A''. The writing on the wall for the no-longer-Big B?

Bollywood is abuzz with allegations. ABCL cheques of even Rs 1,500 are bouncing. The landlord asked for long-pending rent on the ABCL offices and a few Shiv Sainiks visited him. He spoke to someone who spoke to someone who spoke to Doordarshan about his outstanding multi-crore credit. But hasn't he managed to sell his shares of Rs 80 crore in a pharmaceutical company to repay his debts? He'll recover. He's finished. He'll come back.

Hero-to-zero. Will he, won't he?

Actually much of this need not matter to us, the public. This is not the first time the film industry has lost money over this, or any other, man and his movie. The same filmwallas have also made enough money over the same man in similar sorts of movies in the past. One formula can only be flogged for so long. Thus the film industry is as much to blame for creative failure and bloated costs as any multi-faceted actor becoming a victim of a set image.For us, the audience, it should be a sad time because we are watching the end of an era. We have seen Amitabh Bachchan through various stages in his life: angry young man exploding on the screen in Zanjeer, angry middle-aged man imploding in several celluloid fiascos and angry old man self-combusting in Mrityudaata. Let us indulge him one last time in the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, our long-standing hero won't hammer in the last of those nails.But we know he's going to let us down. He's been doing it since a while now.

In failing to make a comeback he's let himself down only yesterday. We've known many reels back that our hero has feet of clay. He battled for our middle-class morals on celluloid, Vijay avenged evil, Sikandar won over our muqaddar, the average Indian stroked his abhimaan. Then came the accident and the country turned into a vast prayer hall. Has Bachchan returned the compliment? Has he ever put his money where his mouth is by even planting a tree, never mind setting up a garden, a school, a library or a hospital for the masses?

He joins politics to do ``a friend a favour''. His performance in Parliament is restricted to perfecting his sartorial elegance with an elegantly draped shawl. He quits politics proclaiming it to be a cesspool only to deny he ever said so. The man does not even have the courage of his own convictions.Our shaastras, and nature, guide that as one grows true enlightenment lies in returning something to society since there is much that has been received from it. We assumed that Amitabh Bachchan would act in decent films, grow old gracefully and use his wisdom and considerable clout to stride off the screen once in a while and lead some truly deserving from the streets to the promised land of happy endings. Instead he launches ABCL to benefit himself and some more over-paid, under-achievers in the film industry.

Compare this with the off-screen performance of southern megastar Rajnikanth. He could have catapulted himself into national politics but chose, instead, to be a backroom boy when Jayalalitha's financial excesses increased in direct proportion to her burgeoning physique. Rajnikanth repays his debt to Tamil Nadu by setting up free marriage halls, employment centres and enormous other charities. The man who cannot himself remember when he last gave an interview is always available for social work. From Amitabh Bachchan what has India got nothing but contempt.

Our tragedy is that we have never had a truly pan-Indian hero after Rama; and him too the BJP hijacked for its selfish ends. For a brief while there was Rajiv Gandhi, cutting across intellectual, socio-economic and geographical borderlines. Amitabh Bachchan was supposed to be one among all of us. But he has shattered mass hopes of a middle-class victory by creating his own make-believe where he thought muscle and moolah could master morals.Amitabh Bachchan's tragedy is two-fold. He took away our hero from us. He failed his Vijay.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.