Amitabh Bachchan, Sunday Fans and the KBC Helmet Story

Every Sunday that he is in Mumbai, Amitabh Bachchan steps outside his home, Jalsa, to greet fans who have gathered at the gate. The ritual is part of how his stardom works in public. One September 2025 meeting shows how it connects with his other long-running public stage, the quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati.

The Sunday ritual

Hindustan Times describes the gathering as the actor's Sunday darshan. In its report, fans arrive with posters and stand outside Jalsa while the actor comes out, folds his hands and waves. On the Sunday before Navratri in 2025, his staff threw dandiya sticks into the crowd, and Bachchan then took over the distribution himself. He also signed a few pamphlets for fans before going back inside.

The paper reports that he later posted an edited video of the scene on X. The Times of India and other outlets covered the same Sunday, which was Sept. 21, 2025.

Where the helmets came from

After the dandiya sticks, Bachchan handed out helmets. In his post he explained that he had met "the 'Helmet Man'" at KBC, a man who voluntarily gives helmets to bike riders for safety. "A learning for me," he wrote, "so I followed and gave out at the Sunday Fan meet .. dandiya sticks for dandiya and helmets to as many as I could .. Each day is a learning."

Hindustan Times identifies the guest as Raghvendra Kumar, called the "Helmet Man of India", who appeared on the 17th season of the show. Kumar replied on X that Bachchan's words and blessings were the greatest award of his life, and that his dream of a road-accident-free India was now ready to grow into a movement.

Why the quiz show matters

Wikipedia says Kaun Banega Crorepati is the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and that Bachchan has hosted it for its whole run except the third season, when Shah Rukh Khan stood in. It premiered on 3 July 2000 on Star Plus, and the entry says that was Bachchan's first appearance on Indian television.

The top prize started at Rs 1 crore, doubled to Rs 2 crore in the 2005 season, reached Rs 7 crore from season 7 in 2013, and rose to Rs 7.5 crore in season 14 in 2022, which the entry says marked 75 years of independence. The show has run in seasons with long breaks, including a four-year gap between the first and second seasons.

The link between the two stages

The helmet episode ties them together in a simple way: a guest's story on television became a gift handed out at a gate. Wikipedia says the show was well received and that Bachchan also works as a playback singer and producer.

What fans do and do not know

The reports describe a sea of people and posters but give no crowd count, and we found no official estimate. Police arrangements outside the home are not described in the sources we read. The detail that the ritual is a Sunday habit comes from the Hindustan Times account and other coverage, not from an official schedule, so we cannot say how many Sundays he has missed or why.

What we could not confirm

We could not confirm the number of fans at the Sept. 21 meeting or the number of helmets given away. We did not read the Times of India report in full, and rely on the Hindustan Times for the account. We did not verify the season dates beyond the Wikipedia entry. We found no independent confirmation of Kumar's helmet programme beyond what he and the actor said.

Sources

*Cover photo: Camaal Mustafa Sikander aka Lens Naayak Photographer Mumbai Delhi India, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mehul_Kumar,_Nana_Patekar_&_Amitabh_Bachchan_by_Camaal_Mustafa_Sikander_aka_Lens_Naayak_2.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mehul_Kumar,_Nana_Patekar_&_Amitabh_Bachchan_by_Camaal_Mustafa_Sikander_aka_Lens_Naayak_2.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*