Amitabh Bachchan went down south to shoot for a TV commercial with some of South India’s biggest stars. Bachchan posted pictures from the shoot on Twitter, in which he is seen with Malayalam actress Manju Warrier, Tamil stars Prabhu and Vikram, Telugu star Nagarjuna and Kannada star Shiva. Bachchan also wrote about his experience on his official blog.

“I find myself in the company of their progenies - Prabhu, the son of the iconic Shivaji Ganesan, who has left behind some of the most prolific performances, not just for the South to admire but indeed the entire film Industry of the country.” - writes Amitabh Bachchan in his blog

Bachchan points out that his first Hindi film in the South, Pyar Ki Kahani, was a remake of a Shivaji Ganesan film Kaikudhta Deivam. Big B worked with Nagarjuna in Khuda Gawah and “there has been a long association with him and his family. His great father, who passed away recently, was a great admirer of mine and always told Nag about it.”

In his blog Bachchan goes on to appreciate the “professionalism and discipline of South cinema”. He writes, “Their modes of management, and the contents of their creativity have always been ahead of the industry in Mumbai. Though now the gap is slowly getting closed and the content and ethics of the two industries has been on par almost.”

Always an admirer of talent in every language of cinema in India, Bachchan says he feels “fortunate and blessed to have lived in the heady times of the greats of language cinema - of Shivaji Ganesan, MGR, Nagesh, Gemini Ganesan, Savithri - of Akkineni Nagarjun, NTR - of Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterji, Robi Ghosh, Madhabi, Chabi Biswas - of Rajkumar - of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Motilal, V Shantaram, Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rehman, Nargis, Nutan and Tanuja.”