Rachel Dwyer Say "Amitabh is better than Kama Sutra and Taj Mahal!"
The name 'Amitabh Bachchan' does more for India abroad than other known symbols of India's soft power such as the Taj Mahal, curry or the Kama Sutra, according to Rachel Dwyer, an expert on Indian cinema and culture.
Delivering the Annual Distinguished Ford Lecture 2011, Dwyer, a professor based at the London-based School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), said that Bachchan was a "great communicator of moral sentiment" through films that had won fans far beyond India.
Bachchan, who was on a visit here on Tuesday, was the respondent to Dwyer's lecture titled 'Amitabh Bachchan: Emotion and the Star in Hindi Film', delivered to a nearly 300-strong audience mainly comprising students and people of Indian origin in Oxford.
The lecture was sponsored by Alfred Ford and family, who support the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS). Alfred Ford is a great-grandson of Henry Ford, the car manufacturer and Sharmila Ford, Ford's wife, is a member of the OCHS Board of Governors.
Dwyer noted that Bachchan was uncomfortable with the word 'Bollywood', but used the word several times in her lecture that dwelt on the importance of emotion and Bachchan's contribution to Indian cinema in the genres of romance, comedy, and the angry young man.
Bachchan is known to prefer the use of 'Indian film industry' than 'Bollywood', since the latter resonates with Hollywood. He believes that Indian films have their unique identity that need not be clubbed together with Hollywood.
It was for the first time that Bachchan's famous dialogues and songs such as 'Kabhi kabhie mere dil mein khayal ata hai' and 'Kajara re' were played in the historic venue of the lecture, the Examination Schools building constructed in 1882, which is the venue of final year exams of the university students.
