It is hard to believe the normally unflappable Amitabh Bachchan would react the way he did to an anonymous troll which wished him death while he recovers from coronavirus in a Mumbai hospital. The tweet seems to have really got to him. The veteran actor, always poised and measured while in public, showed an unseemly mental streak, threatening to let loose the army of 90+ million followers against the madcap who wished him ill. “…all I shall say to them is thok do saale ko." The most charitable explanation for this unbecoming use of language and a show of great grandeur from an acclaimed actor is that he was in a state of coronavirus-induced stupor. For, in the near half-a-century of his career under the public gaze he had not shown such a poor judgment, a lack of humility and, above all, a loss of nerve. Clearly, the foolish troll touched a nerve and the real Amitabh Bachchan came out jumping out of his skin—and what we saw was not pleasant. Dropping the mask for once in the coronavirus times, when wearing of it is necessary, the great thespian, this time writing his own lines, resorted to what a dialogue-writer of a B-Grade Hindi movie would use in a similar situation. The iconic actor ought to have shown better sense than to launch an abusive tirade, questioning his tormentor’s paternity, calling him charitraheen, besharam, behaya, etc. Whoever ‘Mr Anonymous (how can Bachchan be certain it isn’t a Miss or a Mrs or Ms?) is, he certainly managed to provoke the Angry Youngman of yesteryears to bare his linguistic claws. We have no doubt on second thoughts Bachchan would regret the extremely distasteful response to an ugly and rude troll. Best way to handle such social media trash is to pretend not to notice. That riles the sender more than the recipient.
