Anything But Khamosh: The Shatrughan Sinha Biography by Bharathi S Pradhan

Author:Bharathi S Pradhan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw
ISBN: 9789385609596
Publisher: Om Books International
Published: 2015-12-21T06:00:00+00:00

6

Southern Comfort

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself.

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Jack Welch

An incredulous aspect of Shatrughan Sinha’s stardom was that the actor-politician from the staunch Hindi belt found resonance in the most unlikely part of India – in South India where men in white dhotis spoke a different language and where the BJP could never make much headway. It is interesting that some of the biggest stars of South India unabashedly drew inspiration from SS and also forged a personal bond with him.

“He looks like one of us,” chuckled Chiranjeevi, the actor-politician from Andhra Pradesh.

Indeed, at a function organised by Congress politician T Subbarami Reddy in Hyderabad, an array of top South Indian film stars standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Shatrughan looked like an assembly line – tall, tanned, confident men, all of them sporting a moustache.

One of them was Chiranjeevi, a much-revered name in Telugu cinema with a fan following that could at times go out of control (at one of his jam-packed political rallies, thirty-two people died in a stampede). Sitting in his Jubilee Hills mansion that looked down on the city of Hyderabad, he accepted without hesitation, “I became an actor because of Shatrughan Sinha.”

The inspiration began as admiration from a fan. “Whenever a new Shatrughan Sinha film was released, irrespective of the character he played in it, I’d watch it with complete admiration,” said Chiranjeevi. “I went to see a Hindi film only for Shatrughan; he was the main attraction for me. For example, I didn’t know whether Randhir Kapoor or anybody else was the hero of Raampur Ka Lakshman. It was enough for me that Shatruji was in it.

“When a film of his called Sabak was released, my friends told me it was a disaster. I was such a big fan that I still went to see it. And if I came back feeling let down, it was not because of the subject or because he played a sober role in it. I was disappointed because Shatruji had changed his hairstyle in the film!

“I used to like the way his hair would fall over his forehead. But in Sabak he had backcombed his hair and that completely changed the image which I admired. Fortunately, he later switched back to his normal style.

“In 1975, I was still a college student doing my second year BCom when Sholay was released. Much after it was released, I came to know that Shatruji was to have done Dharmendra’s or some other role in it. Those days news did not spread as fast as it does today. When I heard it, I was oh so disappointed. Arre, how I wish he had been in Sholay!

“People would tell me that my eyes and facial features looked like his. I think it was that constant comment which triggered the idea that I too could become an actor. Till then we had very handsome heroes like NT Rama Rao, A Nageshwara Rao, Shobhan Babu, Krishna, Krishnam Raju, in Telugu cinema.

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