Two milestones in the same month for Big B

' Zanjeer' and ' Don' may be two hit films released of Amitabh Bachchan, the one-man industry in Bombay in the 1970s. The significance however is not lost on his fans and the industry observers, as the release dates of these two flicks – May 11, 1973 and May 12, 1978 respectively, were on successive dates but with a five-year gap.

Old-timers remember him snatch victory with ' Zanjeer', from a hostile movie world which kept rejecting him for nearly four long years since his debut in 1969. If one goes back in time, that was the era of the star families and chocolate heroes on one end and macho, action types on the other in Hindi cinema. In this milieu, for a star with minimal connections in the industry, to rise from 10 flops and two hits to grab a top slot was a miracle, which happened. AB got the role, which Dharmendra and Dev Anand rejected and the rest is history.

Social media has been buzzing with the reactions to the blog of Amitabh Bachchan who has gone nostalgic about his film released 42 years ago. The film also catapulted the current Superstar of Tamil cinema to that status when it was remade and released in 1980. It was also released in the local version in Telugu with NTR in the lead and in Malayalam with Mohanlal.