‘Is that Amitabh Bachchan?’: Steve McCurry’s portrait of Afghan refugee gets fans talking again
It’s not unusual for photographer Steve McCurry’s works to go viral, starting a conversation about serious affairs around the globe. However, an image that he reshared on World Refugee Day has left Bollywood fans intrigued as they spotted the uncanny resemblance of his subject to Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan.
To mark World Refugee Day, the photographer recently reshared a picture of an Afghan refugee who was living in Pakistan. “This portrait of Shabuz, an Afghan refugee living in Pakistan, reminds us of the millions of displaced peoples around the world,” McCurry wrote on Instagram.
The portrait shows an elderly man with a white safa covering his head and one eye. The picture of the old bearded man in a rugged state, wearing a spectacle that appears to be scratched, highlights their vulnerable state. And while most sympathised with the refugee in the picture, they couldn’t stop remarking on how the man looked like Bachchan’s doppelganger.
“The unprecedented humanitarian crises across the globe, have resulted in the largest number of refugees in history. A hundred million people have been displaced from their homes,” he wrote. “We must all redouble our efforts to support these people, who through no fault of their own, find themselves in vulnerable and precarious situations,” he added.
In fact, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Earlier, in 2018, before the release of Thugs Of Hindostan, which also starred Aamir Khan, Fatima Sana Shaikh, and Katrina Kaif among others, the picture took the internet by storm. Many social media posts at the time had gone viral claiming it was Bachchan’s look from the film. However, it was later unearthed that it was an image McCurry clicked in Baluchistan years ago.
The situation was same even now after all this years, this time the image reminding them about Bachchan’s look in his 2020 hit Gulabo Sitabo. Looks like every time the picture is reshared, newer people come across it speculating if it’s Bachchan from an upcoming project.
