I can almost picture baritone Bachchan looking up from the newspaper, peering through his glasses and booming at Abhishek, “Ah, I told you son, those machines were mean. Sheer danger.” Amitabh Bachchan has always had misgivings about the Dhoom machine and never encouraged Abhishek to get himself one. Any car in the world could be his, but not a motorbike. “My parents would probably throw me out of the house if I bought myself a bike,” Abhishek had said to me, after he’d enjoyed riding around Juhu during Dhoom. Since his dad had never allowed him to ride one, AB used to practise on the roads of Juhu at night with John as his tutor!
Now after John Abraham’s accident, Bachchan’s stand has been vindicated.
John’s passion for bikes and accessories is no secret. His simple wardrobe of jeans and white shirts is cowed down by the space taken up by his 14-odd biker jackets. He has an equal number of helmets (which he unfailingly wears) and his make up van is decorated with little models of all the popular bikes available.
It’s kind of cute to picture John Abraham on the night he had his accident (March 8). A famous film star at a glitzy function as chief guest would, in all probability, get into a swishy chauffeur-driven sedan and go home. But after the fanfare and flashbulbs on stage at a Gladrags function, imagine Maureen Wadia’s star guest switching vehicles and hopping onto a motorbike to zoom off on his own!
That’s when the accident happened. And, although John wasn’t drunk, he had his helmet on and he was on the right side of the road, he crashed into two guys on a cycle (which itself is not permissible), who were on the wrong side of the road.
No, this isn’t a reprisal of all the reports on the accident. Nor a don’t-hound-John PR spiel. On the contrary, the fact that John was more injured than the cyclists he took to hospital in a rickshaw is significant.
The leg injury has meant several days away from work. Stage shows all over the world (with ‘bad boy’ Salman Khan leading the group) have had to be postponed, mainly because of the Khan and a little because John with a crutch can’t possibly hobble all over the stage and call it a performance.
John’s accident has prompted producers to look at their contracts afresh and they’re discussing putting in additional safety clauses, as is done in the professional West. Tabu, who did The Namesake for Mira Nair in the US last year, reveals that her contract put unimaginable restrictions on her. Until the filming was complete, it stipulated that she could not, among other things, go para gliding or bungee jumping.
UTV and Rakeysh Mehra had similar contracts with all their Rang De Basanti actors, the essence being that they’d have to take extra care not to court danger or adventure.
The late Commissioner of Police, S.G. Pradhan of Mumbai, gave up driving a car the day he was posted in Mumbai as DIG, CID. There were no issues with his skill behind the wheel. But in that responsible post, he didn’t want to take a chance with somebody else’s lousy driving. Until the day he retired from the police force, he never drove a car!
The next time John plays chief guest, our speed dude will probably arrive, leave and stay put in a sedate chauffeur-driven set of wheels. Looks like it’s taming time for our hot wheels freak.
Hey Psst!
• John’s accident is called the Salman effect. Abraham’s next three months are tied up with Khan. After Ravi Chopra’s Baabul, John-Salman had their world tour together. On their return to Mumbai, the two were scheduled to shoot for Nikhil Advani’s Salaam-e-Ishq (an Indianised Love Actually). So much togetherness had to have its effect on John!
• Last week, he was all over TV outside a jail. What a shame that an accused out on bail gets such a hero’s welcome! Worse still, after the bouts of anger over his five-year sentence and all those sob stories about an eight-year trauma (the case took that long before the first judgement was passed), there’s been no trace of trauma or remorse in Salman Khan. Did you catch him on TV having a whale of a time in Abu Dhabi at the Indo-Pak cricket match?
Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor, Movie Mag International
