Society

The Supporting Cast

These are the people who made sure the newsmakers kept ticking. OUTLOOK takes a dekko at the emotional, logistical lynchpins the inspirations for the stars of 1998. Those who made it happen for the year's happening people...

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The Supporting Cast
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A.B.Vajpayee
Prime Minister

The poet's need and the politician's agenda find both inspiration and support at home among the family. The administrative back-up comes from Vajpayee's two trusted aides.

My grandfather.Atal Behari Vajpayee's granddaughter Neharika told the assembled media when asked to name her choice for the country's top job a few months ago. An endorsement he was particularly thrilled to hear on television that evening. That Vajpayee dotes on his grandchild is obvious. Many trace his near-therapeutic emotional attachment to Neha to the "lonely years". Through the 1985-95 decade when Advani was fashioning the BJP into a Hindutva mould and Vajpayee withdrew into his shell. That is when Neha came along and the private Atalji, at least, found a new lease of life. Neha's parents complete the trio of family support. Namita the foster daughter who is probably the only one who can disagree with 'Baapji' vehemently yet on whom he depends the most. And Ranjan aka "Bengali babu" who married Namita after a whirlwind courtship, today the most trusted member of the family. These are the very REAL people around the PM: who make sure that while soaring high his feet remain planted firmly on the ground.

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Then there are the two nuts-and-bolts men. His personal secretary Shakti Sinha 40-something, intelligent and low-key this IAS official was drafted in especially for the job. Controls nearly all access to the PM. That he is also related to Vajpayee means the usual family-secretary tensions are absent. And the pipe-smoking, eternally hawkish, former IFS man, Brajesh Mishra. The PM's principal secretary, national security advisor and special emissary to the world's important capitals all rolled into one. Vajpayee trusts his judgement on matters both external and administrative.

Sonia Gandhi
Congress President

She depends on Priyanka, daughter, consultant, emotional crutch. And V. George, the most powerful PS in India

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CONGRESSMEN in the know will tell you that Priyanka + George = Sonia is the party's latest success formula. Priyanka has been there for her mother through the trauma engendered by Rajiv's assassination; a regular at the Jain Commission of Inquiry hearings investigating her father's murder; accompanying Mama on the campaign trail and providing moral support. George, the old faithful from Rajiv days, keeps track of what is happening in the aicc labyrinth and its implications for 10 Janpath. Has Madam's ear. Doesn't pay to cross him.

Digvijay Singh
Chief Minister

Diggy Raja's Madhya Pradesh is run by a dedicated team of bureaucrats who have turned the babu nightmare into reality transferred power to the people

FOUR years ago, Digvijay's insistence on decentralisation through panchayati raj was literally laughed out of the corridors of babudom. Out went the crusty caretakers of administrative decay and in came a team of civil servants, led by the chief secretary of the state, K.S. Sharma. Supported by Gopal Krishnan, Sunil Kumar, Amar Singh, S.R. Mohanty, Amita Sharma, Gauri Singh, Vinod Chaudhary and R.N. Berwa. They helped turn conventional political wisdom on its head by working for the people and getting their boss the votes in return.

George Fernandes
Defence Minister

Jaya Jaitly, confidante, intellectual soulmate, support system and articulator of all that the Raksha Mantri cannot himself say

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GEORGE is a man of many parts.Not all of which dovetail with ministerial gravitas.Enter Jaya. As a leading light of the Samata Party in her own right, what she says carries weight. That she is also seen to be articulating what Fernandes would really love to say (and sometimes does with disastrous consequences!) helps both the politician and the Cause. From streetfighting for swadeshi to seminars against the videshi lobbies to expressing solidarity for the Burmese struggle for democracy. Including informal chats with the media on George's behalf with no complaints on either side. Two minds that think like one.

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Dr V. KURIEN
Cooperatives Czar

As Mr Amul himself puts it, his inspiration has always been the small farmers (and cows!) and their quest for a better life

INDIA'S most famous milkman, Father of the country's White Revolution, has had the support of over two million doodhwalis in Gujarat for nearly 40 years now. They have made him the legend he is. Without fail and with faithful fervour, these milkmaids have made it all happen. Day after day they converge at 'milking points' in the state to collect about 40 lakh kilograms of milk. And to be inspiration for the man who has given the country its most profitable cooperative.

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Chandrababu Naidu
Chief Minister

The man Naidu, ceo of Andhra Pradesh Inc, can't do without. Rentala Chandrashekhar is a bureaucrat for whom cyberspace isn't all Greek

HE is known as the Infotech Man of Hyderabad. And as head of Chandrababu's Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, 45-year-old Chandrashekhar has been instrumental in realising his CM's dreams of making the state a landmark on the Information Superhighway. One of the few babus with a Master's degree in computer science from the US, Rentala was handpicked by Naidu no sooner had he taken over as head honcho. In fact, the chief minister is known to have described this hitech-wunderkind as his "strategic device in a competitive society".

Pokhran
The Bomb

The men who made it possible for India to gatecrash the Nuclear Party on a sultry May day

APART from nuclear physics, the factor that binds Dr Rajagopalan Chidambaram, the affable chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the modest head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, is music. Both are connoisseurs of Carnatic music. In fact, the story goes that after the successful nuclear explosions at Pokhran earlier this year and after the yield had been discussed threadbare, one must add they were yakking away well into the night about the keertans featuring saint Thiagaraja. The third dimension is provided by Anil Kakodkar, the perfectionist who is credited with designing and constructing the Dhruva reactor which has been in the thick of things for Pokhran II. Add to these names Santy, aka K. Santhanam, the low-profile former technical advisor to Kalam and Govindarajan, associate director, reactor controls, barc, and you have the full Indian nuke monty. Explosive material, really.

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Govinda
Actor

David Dhawan, the man who directed the gyrating pelvis into gaudy clothes and the hearts of millions

TAKE David Dhawan out of the picture and it may not take 10 fingers to count the number of Govinda hits. The star with the vibgyor-wardrobe has only managed to set the box-office aflame while working with the People's Director. Starting with Aankhen, the hit pair has created a power centre not seen in Bollywood since the glory days of Big B. Both seem to love the front-benchers more than those who occupy the dress circle. Dhawan has time and again spat on the Indian intelligentsia's taste for "good" cinema. Good is what sells, he seems to have convinced Govinda: who seems to have more than agreed. So, Dhawan continues, twisting keys that make the short, portly actor dance to tunes that make the cash roll in.

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Indipop
Music (?)

The rash of failed starlets and migrants to the big city from Bhangra country get a new lease of life, thanks chiefly to machines that can set right false notes

IT is the machine, stupid. The song is secondary. Ditto the lyrics. Just as one was beginning to believe that two of a kind are called falsies, element sillycon has included sound in its effort to inflate some God-given punctures. Technology is now mothering a new generation of wannabe singers whose midriffs matter more than their vocal chords. After a 'rough' recording is done, the battered magnetic tape goes to the hi-tech asylum where things are always made-in-Taiwan. And a star is born.

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Ajit Agarkar
Cricketer

The man who gave India Tendulkar and Kambli is whom the latest star on India's cricketing horizon looks to as well

TODAY Achrekar 'sir' walks with small steps at orthogonal routes. But Ramakant Achrekar is also the man who has a remarkable ability to spot the most fleeting whiff of talent in teenage boys. Like he has done with others, he discovered Agarkar. The boy is today the man with the world record for the fastest 50 wickets (in odis). But it is as a batsman who went on to backfoot to loft a fast bowler for six, that Achrekar picked him as something special. The nippy fast bowler has developed under the tutelage of Sir and it is to him that he looks up to even today whenever there is a problem.

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Subhash Chandra
Media Magnate

The man behind the man behind Zee is an advertising professional with the zing thing

ASHOK Kurien was watching cnn's live coverage of the Iraq war with Subhash Chandra and the rest of urban India when it struck Chandra that a private television channel for the country is not just a pie in the sky but a potential reality. The task fell to Kurien. Adman and former boxer. And his pugilistic skills have been put to good use, metaphorically speaking, of course, in the big bad world of media. Chandra is the man with the concepts; it is Kurien who does the running.

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Manoj Bajpai
Actor

He essayed the role of_the villain of 1998 in 'Satya' but it is his squeaky-clean parents who are role models

FROM back of beyond Bettiah to Bollywood bigtime, 32-year-old Manoj Bajpai couldn't have made the journey without his parents. The aging farmer father Radhakant Bajpai and his wife ignored the jibes of relatives and let the eldest of their six children, Manoj, chase his dreams of making it big in showbiz. The proud parents' patience has finally paid off and Manoj is eternally grateful.

M.S. Gill
CEC

The man who ensures India is never without a government looks to his spouse and his chauffeur for support

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THE cec's vote for his Best Supporting Allies goes to wife Vinnie Gill and chauffeur V.K. Balan. The former, say insiders, sets Gill's agenda at home and the latter helps him keep to agendas outside of it. To keep him, in the words of Ma Gill, "firmly grounded in the reality of family life". Domesticity is no downer, obviously. Balan, a compulsive buyer of 'spiritual' audio cassettes, tries to make things easier. As a provider of both safe passage and music for the soul.

Kajol
Actress

The female lead of 1998 owes it to her genes. Mum Tanuja and grandmother Shobhana Samarth. Who along with Manish Malhotra, her dress designer, comprise Team Kajol

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UNLIKE usual star moms, or for that matter, grandmoms, they don't chaperone baby at the sets. In fact, they haven't brought her up that way. Kajol, as the third generation cinestar in the big bad world of Bollywood, had been told by both mother and grandmother to avoid juvenile tantrums and learn to look after herself. They taught her how to conduct herself, of course, and she's learnt her lessons well.Kajol makes it a point to always mention the matriarchs in her family, whom she idolises. And the affection tinged with pride which both Shobhana and Tanuja exhibit whenever Kajol's name is mentioned tells its own story. Malhotra did the rest by clothing the ordinary girl in extraordinary apparel.

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