Bollywood Reacts

Mega-star Sleeps with Gun Under His Pillow

Amitabh Bachnan shuns "intellectual media," prefers to blog.

Mega-star Amitabh Bachnan wrote on his blog Friday: "I am ashamed to say this and not afraid to share this now with the rest of the cyber world, that last night... I did something for the first time and one that I had hoped never ever to be in a situation to do... I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow. For a very disturbed sleep." This morning he lashed out at media outlets for "sensationalizing or giving the matter a color not complimentary to my demeanor... It is a pity that the ‘intellectual media’ portrays the incident of the gun under my pillow as one of ridicule and mirth... that the mettle of my comment was not put across in the context of its entirety... The act of pulling out my revolver is a symbolic metaphor, a figure of speech, to demonstrate my complete loss in faith in the system and in the governance, in providing me, a citizen of India, with my rightful sense of security." Elsewhere, Bollywood star Aamir Kahn expressed shock and anger over the Mumbai siege, blogging: "I dread to think of how various political parties are now going to try and use this tragedy to further their political careers... An incident such as this really exposes how ill-equipped we are as a society as far as proper leaders go. We desperately need young, dynamic, honest, intelligent and upright leaders, who actually care for the country."