All India Radio is undoubtedly the single-most voice that breaks not just physical barriers but lingual barriers too and ties the entire nation in a single thread of togetherness. Back in 1930, when the radio setup was in its initial days, little did people know that it’ll be the most impactful medium to strengthen the whole process of nation building.
While AIR is credited for giving a platform to a lot of creative artists, not much of the population is aware that one of the most well known presenters Ameen Sayani rejected our very own Big B!
Amitabh Bachchan, who had wished to become a radio presenter before he tried his luck in Bollywood, visited the studios multiple times but failed to make the cut as Ameen Sayaani didn’t clear him. In one of his interviews, the versatile presenter revealed that he did not have enough time to meet him in the 60s as he was too occupied with his shows and moreover, the latter didn’t take an appointment for the voice audition.
In an interview, he said, "It was somewhere in late 60s when I used to do 20 shows a week, spending most of the day locked up in the sound studio as I was involved in the every process of radio programming. One day, a young man named Amitabh Bachchan walked in without appointment for a voice audition."
Referring to Big B as a ‘thin man’, Ameen didn’t even realise that he was the same man whose persona bowled him over when he watched ‘Anand’ for the first time. "I had not a second to spare for this thin man. He waited and left and came back a few more times. But I could not see him and kept telling him through my receptionist to take an appointment and come", he added.
"Today, though I regret denying him an audition, I realise that what happened was for the best for both of us. I would have been on the streets and he would have got so much work on radio that Indian cinema would have lost its biggest star," Sayani said
As AIR celebrates its 80 years of glory, it’s interesting to see that one of its major losses ended up becoming Bollywood’s brownie point! Perhaps, this is what people mean when they say, what’s meant to be will always find its way.
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