- Lived:
- b. 11 October 1942, Allahabad (Prayagraj) → Delhi and Calcutta (Kolkata) briefly, then Bombay (Mumbai), where the life has happened ever since — living, as of September 2026
- Field:
- film acting — Hindi popular cinema, the Bombay industry the world calls Bollywood; also television, narration, and one very public voice
- The Big Idea:
- Rejected for the very voice that later became the most recognized sound in India, he was the "angry young man" of the 1970s — and then stayed the biggest star in the world's biggest film industry for half a century, falling catastrophically twice and rebuilding twice.
- In their words:
- he answers nearly every setback with his father's line, "Mann kā ho to achchhā, na ho to zyādā achchhā" — "If things go your way, good; if they don't, even better" (his own habitual quotation, as of September 2026)
- If you remember one thing:
- The reason a young person can actually use this life is not the stardom — it is that the same man was nearly killed on a film set, went effectively bankrupt at 57, had his name dragged through a national scandal, and answered all three not with excuses but with work.