Amitabh Bachchan left India at peak of his career, lived 6900 km away in..., did everything alone for 2 years, then...

Amitabh Bachchan is one of the biggest superstars in India. However, there was a time in the late 1990s when Big B had left India at the peak of his career and started living alone in a foreign nation 6900 km away. When Amitabh felt creatively unsatisfied and wanted to get away from the Hindi film industry, he shifted to Switzerland, where he did everything alone for two years. The Sholay star came back to India with a new zeal. To make good cinema across different Indian languages, the megastar launched his own company Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL). But, his company faced several losses and went bankrupt. Bachchan had to sell his Juhu home to pay off his debts. He soon bounced back with Kaun Banega Crorepati and Mohabbatein in 2000, and never looked back.

This inspirational story of Bachchan's downfall and rise was recounted by Rajinikanth at the audio launch of Vettaiyan last year. The Tamil superstar shared why he considers Amitabh as his role model as he said, "At the peak of his career, when he was 57-58, Amitji got bored. He bought an apartment in Switzerland and started living there alone. He did everything alone. Seeing that, I also tried doing it in Bengaluru. But Amitji returned after a year or two and he floated ABCL. He wanted to do good films in various languages. But that endeavour backfired. That’s the sad reality of cinema. If you aren’t careful, you will be finished."

"I learnt a lot from him. He is my role model. When he lost the money, and became addled with debt, many were celebrating his downfall. When you go to dizzying heights, there are many who are waiting for you to fall. Sometimes, they don’t even wait for you to fall. They would celebrate even the slightest of slips. And yet, after failing at 65, he came up. He took up the challenge, and stood up for himself. Even now, at 82, he works ten hours a day, kickstarts his day at the gym. If there are people who are waiting to stamp on you when you are down, you have to get up, stand tall, and stamp on the very people who put you down, and climb back to the top. That is Amit ji", Rajinikanth concluded.

The 2024 action drama Vettaiyan had Rajinikanth in the leading role and Amitabh Bachchan making his debut in Tamil cinema. It was the fourth movie in which the two superstars shared screen space after Andha Kanoon (1983), Geraftaar (1985), and Hum (1991). The TJ Gnanavel directorial also starred Fahadh Faasil, Rana Daggubati, Manju Warrier, Ritika Singh, Dushara Vijayan, and Rao Ramesh among others.

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