HOW DO HUMANS BECOME LEGENDS?

 



“Some days, there won’t be a song in your heart...

                                                    Sing anyway.”        

Emory Austin

 

Finally, my wife and I decided to watch ‘Kantara – The Legend... Chapter 1’ in one of the local multiplexes. A couple of days ago, our son insisted, that we should watch it in NMACC’s IMAX screen to get the full movie-experience. But, my wife and I were against that idea, and, finally, last afternoon, without pre-booking our seats, we both landed at the ticket counter of a local multiplex. “Sorry Sir, all sold out,” the young man at the counter said. Helplessly, we called our son. “Let me check,” within in minutes, our son booked online at IMAX Wadala (Now, Miraj Cinemas)... We reached there an hour before... When the movie started, it was a full-house!

As I grew up in coastal Karnataka’s (Dakshina Kannada) Mangalore, I had closely watched the ‘Bhoota Kola’ cultures. It’s always there in our neighbourhood... The nightlong ‘Bhoota Kola’ – the captivating music, pulsating Tulu dialogues, and, above all, that mesmerizing scream of the ‘Daiva’... the ‘Spirit’... the ‘Bhoota’... all these were integral part of my childhood memories...

So, just as the original ‘Kantara’, this edition of ‘Kantara’, too, in that sense, made me feel home. While the packed audience was watching the entire spectacle, spell-bound, to me, it sounded very, very familiar folklore from my native village...

But, then, I went to watch this movie for one person: Rishab Shetty... This young man, a lower middleclass young man like many of us, who grew up there - yes, he single-handedly had brought to life this colossal spectacle on a mega scale, on the mega screen... It was his sweat and endurance, his unwavering self-belief, his risk-taking – story writing, direction and inspiring acting – for these, I went to watch this film...

Undoubtedly, Rishab Shetty deserved the standing ovation, the love, support and – yes, the box-office success...

Just as ‘Bhoota Kola’ was something familiar to me, the success mantras – like, hard work, passion, commitment, risk-taking, perseverance etc. – I, as a young migrant to this city, was familiar with, too...

But, then, why doesn’t every young man, always, become a Rishab Shetty or an Amitabh Bachchan despite diligently applying these success mantras in their lives?  

I don’t know...

I was watching Rishab Shetty (in the latest KBC episode) requesting Amitabh Bachchan to deliver one of his (Rishab’s) favourite Bachchan dialogues from the 1990 film, ‘Agneepath’...

And, this is 2025... Amitabh Bachchan is 83... 35 years on, the Legend delivered his legendary dialogue flawlessly as he did first in his forties. “How does he remember them? How does he do it?”... I found asking myself, in absolute awe of the man!





The new ‘Kantara’ has the extension: ‘A Legend’...

The ‘Bhoota’ scream, I am sure, would haunt every one on his/her way back home. As I was heading home, through this mesmerizing memory, I was asking: “How do humans become Legends?”

I could hear the answer: “Not just like that, Sir... not overnight... not without many, many, many setbacks.” Anyone who has studied the careers of these two Legends – Rishab Shetty and Amitabh Bachchan – has definitely studied the kind of endurance, humility, determination and discipline they both had been legendary for... As Emory Austin said, there was no song in their hearts many a day – but, they did not stop singing...





Many of us loosely talk about the number of crores a movie like ‘Kantara’ is making, unstopped. But, we forget to grasp what it really means, when we hear -  ‘with blood, sweat and tears’... Atul Kalantri clarifies:

“The smell of the sweat is not sweet;

but, the fruit of the sweat is sweet.”

The Legends return...

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: Hombale Films

Video:  1. @podcast-hub65  2. Hombale Films

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