The New York event, organised by Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan, was also attended by son Abhishek Bachchan, who at the beginning of the recital, quietly carried a bagful of his grandfather's books to the table where his father would sit and read for over an hour.
Later, Abhishek and wife Aishwarya Rai joined Amitabh when a book on Harivansh Rai Bachchan by family friend and writer Pushpa Bharati was released.
Amitabh, who read quite a few passages from his father's most famous work Madhushala, recalled some people asking the senior Rai how he could write on drinking and the world of intoxication when he (the poet) was a himself a teetotaler.
The senior Bachchan would then talk about how the Kayastha community is known for their drinking. "Seventy five percent of my blood has alcohol in it," he would say, adding that he was afraid to touch alcohol.
"That is the reason I don't drink," Amitabh said laughing. "And I have asked Abhishek not to." (Some accounts have it that in his later years, he drank a little and that too occasionally)
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