DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s chairman of the General Authority for Entertainment, Turki Al-Sheikh, took to Twitter this week to thank Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan for gifting him his iconic jacket from his 1988 film “Shahenshah.”
“To the legendary and one of the best actors in the entertainment world in all time, you are an honor not to India only but to the world,” Al-Sheikh tweeted. “Thank you for the gift that you sent it means a lot.”
Bachchan retweeted Al-Sheikh’s post and wrote: “My dear and most considerate friend . . . I am so honored that you have received the gift of the jacket with the steel arm that I wore in my film ‘Shahenshah’ . . . some day I shall tell you how I was able to retrieve it.”
In the film, the actor played a double role: A corrupt police inspector by day and a vigilante at night.
Earlier this year, Bachchan won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Joy Awards in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has long had an affinity for Bollywood with stars such as Shah Rukh Khan headlining last year’s Red Sea International Film Festival’s red carpet in December.