MENTORING IN BOLLYWOOD

Mentoring is the in-thing in Bollywood. Stars are rubbing off their gold dust on the chosen few. Aamir is mentoring Jackie Shroff's son Tiger. Hritik has under his wings Varun Dhawan, Siddarth Malhotra and Arjun Kapoor; and John Abraham is training Shakti Kapoor's son Siddhant Kapoor.

What triggers off this passion of mentoring ? In a dog eat dog world of Bollywood , mentoring sure sounds quirky, sassy and altruistic.

Well, the godfather culture was always there in Bollywood. It also has  favourites and camps. All these nurture, protect and promote the individual. In such an informal work culture professionalism and kinship goes hand in hand. Trust is the unwritten norm, and personal ties are still thought to be stronger than legal contracts. Emotional bonds rule.

In Bollywood, the individual is the industry. The star is the power. The ideology, the dogma , the style and the substance. Personal charisma and skills are earned through a period of `struggle,' so much a part of the Bollywood lore. The Star then finally becomes the School.

It is here that finally the urgings of mentoring rears it head. The Star wants continuity. Continuity of his star-complex. It doesn't matter if it changes its form. Dons a different personality. He wants to give what he has struggled and earned. On the sets, in the gym and in relationship lessons. So he mentors.

ANNA REINVENTED

Anna Hazare is on a pan-India whirlwind tour. But his motives are clouded. In his last uprising he had targeted Delhi. He lay siege of the Capital. Believing, maybe rightly that Delhi is India. His message got telegraphed via a symapthetic media. But the government of the day failed him. The power elite stymied his ideological coup.

This time around he chose to touch the lives of people directly. This time around he is a new Anna. All brimstone and fire spewing Moral Man who is baring his wounds and voicing his hurts as never before.

He has branded his erstwhile comrades Kejriwal and Baba Ramdev as traitors to his cause. Those are strong words. This signals the birth of a new Anna. This one is not innocence personified. This Anna Avtaar is a man of ego. Packaged within the layers of his ideological concerns and social comments, are his diatribe against a tribe gone awary. His own people who stabbed him.

In this sense this is mission personal and much mission impersonal.