Nepal was my first foreign trip: Bachchan

Keeping the Nepal quake victims in his prayers, megastar Amitabh Bachchan remembered his first trip to the Himalayan country in 1954, which was also his maiden visit to a foreign nation.
The 72-year-old actor said during his growing years Nepal was a dream geographical location and even though it was a foreign land, it had "several universal qualities with India".
"I visited Nepal in 1954. We were still living in Allahabad... Babuji had desired a meeting with some of his very close literary contemporaries. We flew from Patna airport to Kathmandu, the Capital of Nepal, in a twin engined propeller Dakota aircraft, that warhorse of the WW 2 era, and perhaps those that have interest in aeronautics, the most sturdy and long lasting aircraft to date," Bachchan recalled in his blog.

"It was my very first experience on a plane, and of course my very first visit to a foreign country. The excitement generated was beyond compare. I was in some very superior space during those times, my worth and value among my friends reaching its peak," he added.
Bachchan later returned to the country on several occasions mostly for film shoots and he said there was a massive change in Nepal in terms of development and landscape but the love for Indian films remained.
"The later trips to Nepal have been for films I shot there - 'Khuda Gawah' and 'Mahaan'. Those were most exhilarating. Nepal was completely different from those 1954 days. Developed and gushing with its modernity, yet still preserving its history, tradition and culture.

The love of the people, their hospitality, the frenzy with which they gave audience to us, and of course their love for our films," he said.