‘Weak team ke sath score karke kya milega sir?’
This was one of the famous lines from the movie MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and it is truly apt for a person like Sushant Singh Rajput who has gone beyond stereotyping time and again in his short span of a career. He was a man for the big league. Though it is quite heart-aching to write ‘was’ to describe Sushant as he passed away just a month ago, but still, no one could not resist the temptation of seeing him act one last time.
Dil Bechara premiered on 24th July on Hotstar and since then it has become the talk of the nation. From the Hotstar server being crashed to the heap of praises for Sushant’s flawless acting, we are witnessing an unending surge of teary-eyed farewell for our beloved ‘Hero’, Sushant Singh Rajput.
Now the question is would the movie be applauded the same way, had Sushant been alive. Would he be getting the same love, respect, and appreciation that he’s getting now? That’s where this thing gets tricky.
We have seen him act and more than that his choice of scripts. He has always broken the shackle of Bollywood stereotyping by choosing a variety of characters ranging from Byomkesh Bakshy to MS Dhoni. SSR himself has admitted once in an interview that he was a big fanboy of SRK and his admiration for SRK was quite mirrored in his romantic expressions. But when it comes to showing restraint, he didn’t hesitate in shedding his lover boy image to become a quiet and calm Dhoni or a sharp and observant sleuth, Byomkesh Bakshy.
Did Sushant deserve to be in the big league of Bollywood? It was an obvious question back then in the mind of Industry insiders and a segment of the audience. We have seen in various instances, where he has been bullied, insulted, or ignored by the powerful people of the industry as well as by some star-kids who take the industry and the audience for granted.
Now the impending question that arouses is whether Bollywood deserved a rare talent like Sushant or not. Below are a few parameters that make SSR standalone from the others.
Avid Reader
Name me one actor who carries books in his vanity van and shooting floor. There is no way you will find because there ain’t one. He was but an exception in this department. He was a voracious reader and possessed a different perspective of seeing things which can be pretty evident from his social media posts. While his contemporaries were busy flashing their weird sense of fashion on Instagram, he was sharing his dreams of sending poor kids to NASA. Veteran actor and his ‘Del Bechara’ co-star Saswata Chatterjee said that he went inside the vanity van of Sushant which was full of books. It’s our responsibility as a mature audience to look upon the difference and value the person behind these captivating thoughts.
Interest in Physics
It would be unfair to expect all our favorite bollystars to have an interest in Physics and we ain’t complaining. All we get to know about them is about their weird habits and celebrity tantrums which might sell a few copies of a film magazine but won’t add any value to anybody’s life. India is a country where filmstars are worshipped and followed to such extent that people don’t even bother to commit a crime to mimic their favorite superstar. On the contrary, Sushant was a person who had a keen interest in astrophysics and he supposedly bought a piece of land in the moon. He used to own a piece of one of the best star-gazing telescope as per his own words. He had an altogether different world of his own where he had gone to any extent to fulfill his urges to learn a craft. This is the kind of attribute one should be mimicking instead of blindly following a person who doesn’t set the right example for his followers.
Tech-savvy
Having a smartphone doesn’t make you tech-savvy but the optimum use of technology to achieve a goal. Sushant, an AIEEE 7th rank holder and a final year drop-out from Delhi College of Engineering, loved coding and also founded an Artificial Intelligence Firm. He had a knack for quantum physics and he was so extraordinary in it that he was mistaken for a physicist by a Cambridge Ph.D. scholar in a brief encounter in Paris Airport. Fascinating, right?
Niti-Ayog Collaboration
He has been chosen by Niti-Ayog, the policy think-tank of Govt. of India, as the brand ambassador for the Women Entrepreneurship Program. He did not just lend his name for the promotion but also agreed to invest in the start-ups founded by women entrepreneurs. Such a progressive soul we lost.
These personality traits indicate that he was a thought leader and way ahead of his contemporaries. His demise not only tore open the darker side of Bollywood but also a segment of society where talent is often submerged in the pool of favoritism.
