Happy Birthday Amitabh Bachchan: How Shehenshah of Bollywood landed his first film

Abbas, impressed by the young man’s quiet conviction, turned to his secretary, Abdul Rehman, and asked him to prepare the contract.

In the late 1960s, filmmaker and writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was casting for ‘Saat Hindustani,’ a film about seven ordinary Indians who unite to free Goa from Portuguese rule. True to his socialist sensibility, Abbas wanted his seven protagonists to represent India’s many languages and faiths. Each role was a metaphor for the country itself—diverse, defiant, and determined. What he did not know then was that his film would also launch the career of a man who would go on to redefine Hindi cinema: Amitabh Bachchan.

In his memoir ‘I Am Not an Island,’ Abbas recounts the story of how it all began. He had just completed his screenplay and gathered his assistants for a casting session at his fourth-floor office in Bombay. They discussed potential actors for each region and religion—Maharashtrian, Tamilian, Bengali, Punjabi, and Urdu-speaking characters.

Abbas’s imagination ran wild as he visualized the ensemble. But one day, fate walked through his door in the form of a tall, slender young man wearing a churidar pajama and a Nehru jacket. His name was Amitabh (Bachchan was omitted).

The filmmaker was intrigued. “What does it mean?” he asked. “The sun,” Amitabh replied, “one of the synonyms for the Gautama Buddha.” There was something unusually calm and thoughtful about him, the kind of stillness that hides a storm underneath. Abbas asked about his background. Amitabh had graduated from Delhi University and had been working in Calcutta, earning sixteen hundred rupees a month. But he had quit his job and come to Bombay, hoping for a chance to act. The director was taken aback. “You mean you resigned just on the chance of getting this role?” Amitabh smiled faintly. “One has to take such chances,” he said.

Abbas, impressed by the young man’s quiet conviction, turned to his secretary, Abdul Rehman, and asked him to prepare the contract. When the time came to fill in the name and address, the newcomer paused briefly before saying, “Amitabh Bachchan, c/o Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan…” The mention of that name made Abbas look up. He knew Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan—they had served together on the Sovietland Nehru Award Committee.

Abbas told the young man he couldn’t sign him without his father’s consent. He dictated a letter on the spot, asking if the father approved of his son’s decision to act in films. Three days later, a telegram arrived from Delhi: “No objection where you are concerned.” And just like that, the unknown boy from Allahabad became one of the 'Saat Hindustani.'

Abbas’s office soon became a miniature India. Each actor brought their own culture and accent—Jalal Agha, Utpal Dutt, Madhu, Anwar Ali, and others. The director wanted them to inhabit their regions, their dialects, and their identities. Amitabh, who knew no Urdu then, began to practice ghazals until he got the rhythm of a shaair. Utpal Dutt, the seasoned Bengali stage actor, helped him refine his diction, while Jalal Agha coached him in the lyrical phrasing of Hindustani. Abbas remembered the young man’s diligence—how he sat through hours of rehearsals, eyes focused, eager to absorb every nuance.

Shooting began in Bombay, in a school hall converted into a camp for satyagrahis. The seven Hindustanis were trained for their on-screen mission. Abbas wrote that Amitabh’s quiet intensity often startled the others. In one fight scene, when provoked by Utpal Dutt as per the script, he reacted so fiercely that the director had to call “cut” to prevent a real scuffle. Another day, during a scene shot on a railway siding, Amitabh’s instinct for realism nearly made him leap off a moving train until Utpal Dutt and Jalal Agha stopped him.

The production later moved to Goa. The state, still bearing Portuguese influences, became the perfect backdrop for the story. The government offered support, letting them shoot in villages and forests. The cast and crew stayed in modest quarters—a few small rooms and a large hall. There were no luxuries. Everyone slept on the floor, trunks doubling as beds.

Amitabh, unlike the rest, carried one large trunk that contained his bedding. Every night, before sleeping, he would write two letters—one to his mother/dad and the other to probably his ‘girlfriend.’ It became a quiet ritual, a reminder of home amid the chaos of his first film.

On set, Amitabh remained reserved but deeply committed. Abbas noted how he would rehearse alone long after the others had packed up. When asked which role he related to most, Amitabh said he was drawn to the Punjabi and Muslim characters—perhaps because both carried a streak of poetry and rebellion. His sincerity impressed everyone, even the veterans. “He was decent, polite, and full of feeling,” Abbas wrote. “The idea appealed to him greatly.”

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When 'Saat Hindustani' was released in 1969, it didn’t run for weeks or make much money. But it won the National Award for its patriotic spirit, and Amitabh Bachchan received a special mention for his performance. The boy who once walked into Abbas’s office uncertain of his future had taken his first step toward immortality. Abbas, in his memoir, was careful to clarify that no powerful recommendation or political connection got Amitabh the role. Myths had circulated that a letter from Indira Gandhi helped him enter films. Abbas dismissed them firmly. “I don’t give roles to people who bring introduction letters,” he wrote. “And in any case, the Prime Minister did not write and communicate with me—to cast Amitabh Bachchan in my picture.”

What shines through Abbas’s recollection is not myth, but memory. The memory of a young man who believed enough in his dream to give up security for a sliver of hope. A director who saw something luminous behind that quiet demeanour. And a film that, though modest in scale, became the beginning of one of cinema’s greatest journeys.