Amitabh Bachchan heard the lesson from JRD Tata and, unlike many who have heard it, he actually lived it. For over four decades, without a single exception, Bachchan has stepped outside his Juhu home, Jalsa, every Sunday to greet the fans gathered outside.
Amitabh Bachchan. Dilip Kumar. Kareena Kapoor Khan. Three icons, three choices - and one truth that the entertainment industry would prefer you never fully grasped: you made every one of them. And you can unmake them just as surely.
Two flights. Three legends. And a lesson about power that most of the powerful would rather you forgot.
On the first flight, a superstar sat in silence while fans approached with warm smiles and walked away unacknowledged. On the second, not one but two of Bollywood’s greatest icons discovered, each on a separate occasion, that the unremarkable gentleman seated beside them was, in fact, one of the most powerful industrialists the world had ever produced. He had no entourage.
He required no recognition. He simply read his newspaper and sipped his tea. One set of stories is about ego. The other is about its quiet, complete dismantling.
