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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Two friends (and the heart of drama)
How people change: that is at the heart of great drama, whether it's Omkara or the story of any two friends who are changed by circumstance, and parted. Take Rajiv Gandhi and Arun Singh. In an interview by Shekhar Gupta, Singh relates how he and Gandhi parted ways. A fascinating excerpt:
He [Gandhi] wasn’t sure, and that is probably what hurt me the most, that he wasn’t sure that I was not making power-play. He had grown so used to a system and a structure where everyone was making a power-play. And he said to me in those very words, that we are two old friends, you can have any job you want. And I left with much bitterness, and much emotion, because I told him that that was the greatest insult to me. I didn’t want a job. And perhaps one reason for going so far away was to prove to him that I wasn’t interested in power.Perhaps we'll never know the full story of what happened in those days. Perhaps there is no full story. Rajiv's version, had he been alive, would no doubt have been somewhat different. So would Sonia Gandhi's version. And none would necessarily have been truer than the others. That's where tragedy arises from, and comedy too, and there you have all of drama.
I have never had the opportunity to say this... I loved the man, I had no intention of hurting him, but he thought I was.
