IT’S not the stuff Bollywood legends are made of. For the popular Indian cinema that has huge fan following around the world has always celebrated values like brotherly love and camaraderie.
No wonder the shooting of Pramod Mahajan, the top BJP leader, by his own brother has come as a rude shock to the land that celebrates the epic of Ramayana with its noble message of sacrifice and love among siblings. But then if we have the legend of Ram and Laxman on the one hand, we also have the fable of Cain and Abel on the other. And both sides of the picture are equally true as the good and evil exist in equal proportions in all societies.
While Mahajan battles for his life in a Mumbai hospital, everyone in India, right from the scandal-hungry media to conspiring politicians, is dying to know what really made Praveen Mahajan to shoot his elder brother. Conspiracy theories based on property disputes and political rivalry have been shot down by police and the Mahajans. Apparently, there were no issues between the brothers to talk of or kill for. India’s politics-obsessed television channels and media have been hunting hard for a ‘murder motive’ in the true Sherlock Holmes fashion but nothing has turned up so far. So we know who did it, we don’t know why he did it! In the end, it may prove to be a mindless act carried out on the spur of the moment. Regardless of the motives, there is little hope of Mahajan surviving this attack. You can get slugged pointblank thrice in a Bollywood thriller and yet survive to dance with your damsel in distress. But real life is a little different from reel. For all you know, a moment of madness may have cut short a promising career.