"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
I have been privileged to write about Amitabh Bachchan for the last fifty years and more . I have written about him when he was a nobody in Bombay
I saw "Saat Hindustani" flop, but I saw this unusual tall actor succeed as an actor and even win a National Award for his performance.
I have been a close witness (thanks to him) to his rise and rise and the few falls in his illustrious career. I was there when that one nearly fatal accident on the sets of Manmohan Desai's "Coolie" almost killed him. I was witness to his lonely battle to fight back and emerge a victor in the face of the most grim odds and cruel circumstances.
And then I was there when he fought back as an actor. It will be fifty years and more since an unknown actor with an unusual name came to Indian Cinema and created a niche for himself. There has been only one Amitabh Bachchan whose name is etched on the sky of success and I don't think there will be another like him in the time and times to come, take or leave it, but that is my opinion about him which has lived with me for generations and I am sure will not leave me for generations to come.
I am extremely grateful for having the opportunity to live through the era of Amitabh Bachchan and this I swear is no intention to flatter a dear friend who has now growing beyond all praise and gratitude..
What more can I say about a friend who has always been a friend and I hope will be a friend as long as time and friendship lasts.
Ali Peter John
Ali Peter John has had several problems with his name. He does not have a ration card, nor does he have a passport, all because of his odd-sounding name. He is an M.A. in English literature from the Bombay University, but he believes that he has learnt more in the University of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas than he has learnt at the university.
He was writing for India's prominent film magazine Screen for forty-eight long years and his column, Ali's Notes, has been accepted as a landmark by the film industry and readers who has been following him. He has written in almost all the newspapers and magazines of India on a variety of subjects about films. He has published twenty books during the last twenty years in his own way. The most prominent book according to him is his autobiography, Life-Bits and Pieces, which had its cover designed by the renowned painter M. F. Husain, the autobiography has also been translated in various languages. His circle of friends includes all the legends and down to Shah Rukh Khan.
He has been living his own simple life without expecting anything from life. He is now writing for a leading Hindi film magazine Mayapuri and at 71, he writes at least two articles every day. Some of them are his contributions to Facebook. He hopes to write till he can no longer write.
It was Khwaja Ahmad Abbas who picked up a post card I had written to him from a heap of fan mail that he used to get every day. It was that one post card that changed my life. I wanted to be a bus conductor. I wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest. I was advised to be a stenographer, but Abbas Sahab changed all my plans and showed me the writer in me and led me on my path.
I joined Screen on January 4, 1969 and left on August 7, 2007. It was the journey between 1969 and 2007 that made me know what the industry was and what the people who belonging do it were. What I had heard about them and what I saw and experienced with them was entirely different from what many said and believed about them.
This book is my tribute to all those who came across my path at different times and have lived with me and will live with me till the end of my life.
