Rajesh Khanna: Won Through Subtlety, Lost To Context

Rajesh Khanna: Won Through Subtlety, Lost To Context
He got attached to the results of a context he had not created,
and unlike Amitabh, failed to recreate and reinvent himself.

Handsome looks, his mannerisms , an infectious smile and a subtle dialogue delivery style are what defined Rajesh Khanna. His phenomenon has come alive in the past few days since his death. Life is a great leveler and holds its cards close to its chest. While life takes back what you want the most in life, it returns it on death, when you were expecting none of it. Rajesh Khanna got it all when he least expected them, lost it all even as he desired to hold on to them, and regained them just for a brief period when his eyes had shut forever.

Cinema offers a very interesting paradigm of life. It imitates life, and then creates an illusion which life – seemingly almost deliberately -- struggles to keep up with, forgetting that it was the creator of the illusion in the first place, and so has the power to recreate rather than hold on to an ephemeral passage of time. Personalities in the form of stars and superstars mirror this play of the real and the illusory, resulting in a roller coaster ride for them. Much before the information revolution made the previous day's success irrelevant in the morning, cinema had already provided a deep perspective on the success-failure equation. It had made actors realise that you were just a hit away from being a phenomenon and perhaps just a flop away from being discarded.

Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, who replaced the eternal romantic as an `angry` superstar, in that sense are not just personalities, but case studies in their own right. While one rose to superstardom on the back of charm and subtlety, the other rose to superstardom on the back of intensity. Both actually were simply pawns in the script of life, which wove a context and placed its two best protagonists on centre stage, for they, with their immense talent for expression, were the two most suitable boys of Bollywood to enact the role life had envisioned. The terms `pawns` and `suitable boys` should not be seen as being disrespectful to Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, for when you see it from the perspective of life being a master, both Khanna and Bachchan were the chosen ones, and it is a tribute to their immense talent and charisma that they found themselves in a period of Bollywood history which is one of the most discussed. They both exuded just the right kind of talent and `reel behaviours` for the prevailing context.

If Rajesh Khanna brought alive like no one else the undercurrent of romance of a young India in the late '60s and early '70s, Amitabh Bachchan became the demolition man of systemic ills once it became clear the country could no longer afford to live in romantic solitude and had to find ways to resolve its real time issues. Thus, context was the backdrop in which both succeeded, and change in context was the backdrop in which Rajesh Khanna found his personal decline.

The reason Amitabh has managed to come back from decline and stay on as an enigma for so long is because he found ways to reinvent and express himself beyond a limited context. He managed to operate beyond the `master social script of life`. He found a script which was not necessarily linked to the social milieu and revolved more around his own limited contexts as a human being and a professional.

Rajesh Khanna perhaps lost this perspective when the context had changed course. He got attached to the results of a context he had not created, and unlike Amitabh, failed to recreate and reinvent himself. But there is no taking away from the fact that he shaped a critical period in the evolution of Hindi films and laid the foundation for the emergence of `The Superstar` designation in Bollywood.

Rajesh Khanna is gone, but his phenomenon will live on, kyun ki `Anand Mara Nahi, Anand Marte Nahi` .   

Sunil Gavaskar – Playing It As Straight As Ever

Sunil Gavaskar – Playing It As Straight As Ever
In every way, he set the tone for the threads to be picked up and built upon by others.

My idol Sunil Gavaskar turns 63 today, and there is none of the drop in guard that you would associate with an ageing person. It is remarkable that even twenty five years after he retired from international cricket, his passion for the game and his engagement with the sport is as infectious as ever. From an opening batsman, post retirement, he has flowered as a commentator and columnist. In both these roles what has not changed from the days when he held his bat in an elegant stance is the `straight drive`. Even now, he plays it as straight as ever and says it as it is.

My brother and I grew up in a generation which worshipped Gavaskar as India's first true sporting icon. He was also India's first commercial sporting superstar, who showed the way to cricketers how to leverage themselves as a brand and create financial security while still playing. In every way, he set the tone for the threads to be picked up and built upon by others.

It was only in the latter part of his career that we could watch him bat ball by ball, as much of cricket before the TV boom in the early '80s was followed through radio commentary. Avid cricket players in our society compound, we picked up the nuances of Gavaskar's batting through the description meted out by radio commentators. While the commentary was good, the commentators too seemed to get inspired by the way in which he met the fearsome rising ball in front of his nose, or ducked a bouncer, or left a ball alone outside the off stump.

More than the runs that Gavaskar scored, what he brought to the table with his attitude, technique, temperament and class was a pride of being an Indian. He was India's first truly global sporting personality – even though he represented a sport which only few countries indulged in -- and guarded his wicket not just for the hunger of runs, but also for ensuring a fledgling India -- with a weak sporting philosophy and evolving democratic framework -- held its head high on the international stage.

Gavaskar, through his sporting achievements, made Indians believe in themselves. He was the first to go past Don Bradman's 29 test centuries and the first to scale the incredible 10,000-run peak, which is now an accepted benchmark to be recognised as a top batsman. He played in an era when the West Indian fast bowlers brayed for `blood` and not just wickets, and he faced them more with his mind as a protective gear than with a helmet. Concentration formed the cornerstone of his efforts at the crease. Though more talented as a batsman than what he allowed the world to see, he etched out risky strokes so that his team, which depended heavily on him at the top of the order, did not have to suffer.

The importance of the legend and legacy of Sunil Gavaskar can be understood from the fact that it took India a number of years to find a stable opening test batting pair. The value he brought to the art of batting is a legacy in itself, which was later mirrored more by Rahul Dravid than anybody else. The classical nature of Gavaskar's batsmanship is sorely missed by connoisseurs of cricket, and by those who learnt the fineprint of batting from the way the legend operated at the crease.

The greatest aspect of Gavaskar's craft was that batting became synonymous with him and he became synonymous with the word copybook. The copybook nature of batsmanship is what will put India back on top of the test rankings, and nobody knows this better than Gavaskar himself.

Happy Birthday Sir! And wish you many, many more years of health, wealth and prosperity, as well as service to Indian cricket.

Thank You Mr Gavaskar.