Sitarist Niladri on Amitabh Bachchan's birthday episode of KBC

For Amitabh Bachchan’s 75th birthday, the makers of KBC 9 have shot a special episode. Since Bachchan was insistent about not celebrating it in a big way, they have done away with cake-cutting on the show. However, they will start the episode with an audio visual that will show the principal of Sherwood, the residential school where the superstar studied talking about the actor’s interest in theatre and how he would take part in the school plays.

Later, the entire faculty and the students sing ‘Happy Birthday’. Says a source from the sets, “Bachchan got very emotional when he saw that. He said he never expected the makers to do something like this.” That was not all. The actor’s favourite musician, sitar maestro Niladri Kumar, came on the sets and played the birthday song on the sitar.

Even this came as a surprise to Bachchan. After Niladri’s performance, the entire studio audience got up and sang the birthday song. “It was low-key as the actor wanted, and at the same time different,” adds the source.