Easter 1982, Nandakhal Church in a coastal village of Maharashtra, India. Our lives had changed forever and introduced us to what became an obsession. My brother and I aged 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 went on our first trip to India with our parents for a 4 month visit.

My brother and I became quite comfortable roaming about, mingling and playing with the kids and elders in the village. Being able to speak our mother tongue Marathi, which we were taught since infancy back in Canada, helped us to connect and bond with our relatives, as English was not spoken widely in our community during that time.  As Easter Sunday came around, my brother and I ran off with our cousins from our village Ghosali, to watch the showing of a Hindi film called Amar Akbar Anthony behind the church, in the neighboring school compound.

Like all Indian kids abroad from our generation, our home had Indian music constantly playing in the back ground. We had seen a couple of movies here and there, but had no idea what was waiting in store for us.

This was different. My brother Paul and I were in awe, starstruck, following what we witnessed.

Upon our return to Canada when visiting our cousin Johnny, Paul and I could not contain our excitement.  We were fumbling over ourselves while telling Johnny about the movie we had seen in India with this amazing actor, Anthony Gonsalves, which was actually the character’s name. We didn’t know any better, we were only 4 & 5. Meanwhile it turned out Johnny had seen a movie in Montreal while we were away, which he was excited to tell us about as well. The movie he had seen starred this phenomenal actor named Don. Johnny too was only 5 and not knowing any better thought that was actor’s name.

We argued about which movie and actor was better, went on and on about the amazing fight scenes, dances, songs, performances.  Only to realize later the actors we each were enamored with, was the same person…Amitabh Bachchan.

Thus began numerous weekends of watching just Amitabh movies, for hours. The obsession continued with our sister Liza, born a few years later. Liza would sit still with undivided attention and watch a three hour video tape entirely of songs from movies with “Nana Bachchan” as she called him, which would spare my mother time to do her house work.

Till today, if you ask me and some of my cousins in Canada, who is your favourite actor or who do you think is the best actor, our answer will be Amitabh Bachchan. In my opinion no one else compares, no one else has the combination his presence, charisma or talent on this planet. Amitabh is on a whole other level. As many say a “Living Legend”.