He was tall and many of them didn’t know his name, so they called him Taal Gachh (palm tree). He would add to the speculation about his height by telling anybody curious enough to ask that he stood seven feet in his socks.

Nobody disputed it, and there was no way of confirming it either until he volunteered to be measured head to toe!

To the residents of Kamduni circa 1973, Amitabh Bachchan the superstar-in-the-making shooting in their sylvan village wasn’t the highlight. His towering presence was.

Four decades later, Kamduni has much to worry about but the mere mention of Saudagar, the Sudhendu Roy-directed film that was India’s official entry to the Oscars that year, brings a smile to many an old-timer’s face.

Madan Mohan Mondal, who was an extra in the film about a self-serving jaggery trader played by Bachchan, is an archive of anecdotes about the month-long shoot.

“The first thing that struck us was the lead actor’s height. He would joke with us, claiming to be seven feet tall,” recounted Mondal, who runs a grocery store. “One day, all of us made him stand straight while we measured him with a string. He stood there like a statue for us!”

From 8am till 4pm for more than a month, Kamduni was like a carnival with a group of performers putting up a free show for the villagers’ viewing pleasure. A 20-strong crew that included actress Nutan would arrive every morning from the city with their equipment and shoot through the day along sparkling, palm tree-lined ponds and red-soil tracks resplendent in the sun.

Bhaskar Mondal, 23, has grown up hearing stories about the shoot from his father Chandradhar, 52, who had become the envy of the village on being chosen to share screen space with the Amitabh Bachchan. The film opens with Moti, the character essayed by Bachchan, pouring a glassful of freshly tapped palm nectar into 12-year-old Chandradhar’s glass, who devours it instantly.

“Today it feels almost unreal to think that Bachchan and my father had spent time together. He had told my father that he could grow up to be an actor,” said Bhaskar, whose father is in the city recuperating from a stroke.

Big B’s attempts to speak the local tongue still elicit a chuckle. “One day, we went up to him and swore in Bangla just to test him. He stared at us blankly,” recalled Madan Mohan.

Saudagar did not do well at the box-office in the year of Zanjeer but almost everyone in Kamduni has watched the film. Many have seen it multiple times and villagers still hum the songs.

Saudagar could even be a metaphor for Kamduni of the present. “The film’s theme of exploitation and ill treatment of women in a patriarchal set-up seems to have acquired new relevance,” said Abhirup Mascharak, a student of film studies at Jadavpur University.

Did you know Saudagar was shot in Kamduni? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com