Apparently Amitabh Bachchan is set for a new landmark: he's going to copyright his voice.

Much ado about the Big Baritone

Apparently Amitabh Bachchan is set for a new landmark: he's going to copyright his voice.But which one? The famous lovely, dark and deep voice or the other somewhat sanctimonious one he likes to project?

Disclaimers first. Mr Bachchan's significance as an actor and modern Indian icon is indisputable. He brought fire and sensuality to films, suavity and nice suits to TV and still sometimes does a great turn like Khakhee. I personally would not have chosen a waxwork as a symbol of his achievement.

In some interviews he presents himself in humble, perhaps truthful terms, as just an actor making a living. In other words, he doesn't take on the onus of working class hero politics that fuelled his fame.

If you think he's setting a regressive example by taking bahu-to-be on an anti-Manglikification yatra, too bad. He never promised you a role model. Whatever my opinion, I'm on board with this straightforward premiseu00a0-- it's his private right.

So why, at the slightest public criticism, does Mr B climb onto a high horse and then trot further up to the ground called Moral High from where he declares that every political switch, every commercial moveu00a0-- is not that? So delicately wounded, so unjustly attacked is he, so crass and dirty-minded the world. He won't stop till he's assured he's the moral gold standard.

Both sides of this record are playing as he explains why he's copyrighting his voice. He objects to people mimicking his voice to sell products he's againstu00a0-- such as gutkau00a0u00a0-- but also, to earn money and sometimes to make fun. From now on he wants them to do it only with suitable permission, and I guess, permission is sister commission.

A few questions for Our Icon:
Can you actually copyright a voice? If copyright is for creations and inventions, then wouldn't the rightful owner of his voice be God? Or at most, his parents?

If he believes in stuff he endorses, shall we assume that as ambassador for Gujarat, he's cool with the state's most recent claim to fame: a state-abetted pogrom?

While presenting an award at the 2003, 49th Manikchand Filmfare awards, did Amitji not know what the Manikchand group manufactures? Was he not against gutka those days? Oh sorry, he's just an actor making a living.

Are these mimics preventing him from making his living? Does he think advertisers who use mimics will instead use him? Is Mr B unhappy being an original, of which the copy is proof, and now also want to be the copy? Surely that's taking "lock kiya jaye" a bit too seriously?

Does he think, we the audience, are too stupid to distinguish the copy from the original? I've seen that gutka ad and I wasn't confusedu00a0-- and I'm not even a crazy fan.

The crazy fans are what leads to this imitation, for it is proof of their love which has made him a cultural icon, and from which he derives his wealth, fame and power. Is he now implying he has no value for that love? Is that a nice thing for a man whose life millions prayed for, to imply?

Oh and any plans to copyright "his" "signature" dance moveu00a0u00a0-- the one perhaps invented, but definitely made famous by Bhagwan Dada in Albela, that's now part of the Bachchan iconography?

Good thing our icon's against smokingu00a0u00a0-- Virginia Slims can't feature him in an ad that says "you've come a long way AB" anyway.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company.

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