Amitabh Bachchan reveals how father Harivansh Rai’s anti-caste stance gave the family its ‘Bachchan’ surname
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Mumbai: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has shared the story behind his iconic surname, revealing that his father, the celebrated Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, rejected the caste system from childhood and chose “Bachchan” as the family’s surname.
The revelation came during an episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati Season 18, when Bachchan discovered that a contestant, Dr Jagriti, was also from Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and had studied at St Mary’s Convent School, where the actor himself was a student.
Recalling his admission to the school, Amitabh said his parents took him to St Mary’s Convent, where the admission form had a column asking for caste. “My father was against the caste system right from his childhood; he disliked it completely and never accepted it,” Bachchan said.
“For the first time, right there, he said, ‘Our caste is Bachchan.’ Under that name he filled in the form — caste is Bachchan, and the full name is Amitabh Bachchan,” the actor added.
Amitabh Bachchan was born on October 11, 1942, in Allahabad, now Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was born into the Srivastava family and went on to become one of the towering figures of modern Hindi literature, best known for Madhushala and other celebrated works such as Madhubala, Madhukalash, Nisha Nimantran, Satrangini, Agneepath and Jo Beet Gayi So Baat Gayi. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1976 for his contribution to Hindi literature.
Harivansh Rai’s literary work also reflected patriotic and national themes; during the 1965 India–Pakistan war, he reportedly wrote powerful lines on courage and fighting the enemy.
Amitabh’s mother, Teji Bachchan (born Teji Suri), was from Lyallpur in Punjab (then part of British India) and belonged to a Punjabi Sikh family. Educated in Lahore, where she also taught psychology, she met Harivansh Rai at a college event in the city; the couple married in Allahabad in 1941. A theatre enthusiast, Teji even played Lady Macbeth in her husband’s Hindi adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
(Inputs from IANS)