3 minutes of readingBombayUpdated: February 10, 2026 21:17 IST
There was a time in Bombay cinema. when child actor Master Raju was in high demand. Almost one in three films featured him in some role. From working with authors like Yash Chopra and Basu Chatterjee to Gulzar, he had covered it all. There was even a period when he did more films than Amitabh Bachchan, the heart of the 1970s. He recently reflected on this extraordinary phase in a conversation with Siddharth Kannan. Raju revealed how, during the shooting of the film Faraar (1975), Amitabh had to go to the set and wait for him because the young actor was in high demand, while Amitabh did not have as much work at that time.
Amitabh Bachchan waited while they took my photos first.
“Amit ji is very punctual, and how should I say this when he had less work than me back then? It makes me laugh to even say this. So he would arrive on time and his close-ups would be taken first. Then when I would arrive, he would be asked to sit on one side because my shots would take priority as I would have to leave in three hours. During that time, Amit ji would just wait. Once my shots were done, they would take the remaining close-ups.”
He also recounted a humorous incident from the same film when his mother scolded Amitabh on the set: “On the set of Faraar, my mother scolded Amit ji. In one scene, he was showing a wound on his hand and there was a swarm of flies. Lunch was on and we were eating. My mother said, ‘Please cover this, there are flies here and we are eating.'”
Everyone used to be late except Amitabh Bachchan.
In the same conversation, Raju highlighted Amitabh’s discipline on the sets: “Back then it was a norm to come late to the sets. Vinod Khanna ji was late, Sanjeev Kumar ji was late, Kaka ji (Rajesh Khanna) was late, even Dharm ji. I think everyone except Amit ji was late. In fact, being late was a trend, and not coming was also a trend.”
Raju also spoke about the tension that arose as Amitabh’s popularity grew.challenging Rajesh Khanna’s ‘first superstar’ status: “He didn’t want anyone to replace him, and Amitabh Bachchan was rising fast. Rajesh Khanna said something against Amitabh Bachchan to Jaya ji (Jaya Bachchan), and that led to a fight. Even the shooting stopped.”