Legend & Leadership....

Just finished watching #GulaboSitabo last night. I realized, I was little disturbed after watching the movie.. any movie that creates any kind of an emotion is just a brilliant piece of work and of course this movie is. But what disturbed me was little deeper... The last scene where Amitabh's character as a old man defeated in everything waddling away with a balloon in hand just haunted me more than the movie itself....

I grew up in the childhood of seventies where we were more defined by constraints in the 'license-permit' Raj and the heroism was defined by silently and romantically suffering the fate...then came an angry young man who stood up against everything that was wrong and just did everything that was required to fight the wrong without being too bothered about the 'purity' of means ..... that was Amitabh Bachchan for many like me, the man who performed on the screen what many wished to do secretly in real life but could not do.... I find it very difficult to be anyone's fan but I must confess that I was and I am a super fan of that Amitabh's image in my mind .... that's why I never really liked some of his later successful movies like Mohabbatein and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam where he was depicted as a stubborn patriarch who realizes his mistakes and then weeps with folded hands! Seriously? How can you make a man cry who used to confidently walk into a mob full of thugs with an ambulance so that he can send them packing after the fight!!

If my feelings have been so strong as a fan what must have gone through in the mind of the star himself... from an era where his character used to be more prominent than the story itself to an era where story-line of the movie is the real central character (as it should be!) ... of course the transition must not have been easy as is borne out by some of his forgettable movies during this transition, but the greatness of the man is he made that transition which many superstars simply failed to do! They just chose to fade away or become irrelevant!

As the times change, the requirements change...Today India is an open economy ... A lot many boys and girls from humble backgrounds discovered that they had an opportunity to carve out careers globally... In general I guess our confidence and exposure significantly improved ... our needs of entertainment is a reflection of that.... while we can still warmly cherish the 'Angry Young Man', our stories became more meaningful...larger then life characters would sound out of place in these movies and that's where credit is due to Mr Bachchan as he completely surrenders 'the Amitabh' to a Mirza .... just giving up everything that defined him.... his heights, his confident body language and last but not the least his baritone voice! His growth as an actor sacrificing the 'superstar' is something to learn from for all of us....

While I leave the learning takeaways to your imagination, let me say something at the risk of oversimplification.... His journey is like a life-cycle of a leader in an organization - when an organization is in the start-up phase or going through a huge crisis, the founder or the CEO does play an 'Angry Young Man /woman' fighting the big bad world.... but as the organization grows, it needs to have a story of its own, separate from that of the leader... While leader would always bring value, she/he needs maturity to understand that other characters of the story need to stand tall as well and what remains supreme is the story that all of them build together....