Four Rahuls & The Wall

The mind-numbingly predictable nature of our daily grind often throws up one disturbing question: Are we all just remixes of the same song? I mean, although our lives appear to march to different beats, our core theme seems to be resoundingly similar, right?

With this as the basic premise, let’s explore the destinies of five very different people connected by the umbilical cord of the same first name. Let’s put their personas under the microscope and see if we can identify the signature tune that binds them.

The given name I am gonna pick for our seriously trivial exercise is Rahul - which also happens to be SRK’s name in 7 blockbusters including the humongous popular Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham.

Now Rahul means ‘conqueror of all miseries’ in Sanskrit. So by definition all Rahuls should have a life-curve full of crests and troughs. Rahul Dravid’s career path is a living testimony to this fact.

In 1999 World Cup, Dravid was the Top Scorer. In 2007 however, he had the most awful run as the captain of the team that exited the world cup prematurely. In 2011, when everyone wrote him off, The Wall stood tall, and ended up scoring 69 runs from 79 balls in his final ODI match!

‘Against all odds’ seems to be the recurring number in any Rahul’s biography. Take Rahul Sharma, the leg spinner who battled facial paralysis and a dodgy vision to make it to the Indian Squad. Or Rahul Mahajan, the son of the slain leader Pramod Mahajan, who slumped to a personal low with the Cocaine Overdose episode and then bounced back as a Reality Show Star in Bigg Boss 2.

Rahul Bose’s story has seen as many twists and turns. He began with a bang with English August. Followed it up with a string of flops. And remerged as the superstar of art house cinema. Rahul Gandhi’s destiny has strangely witnessed a similar pattern of ups and downs. The thing to see is if the princeling lives up to his name and hits a crescendo soon.