Part One : From the birth of a child to the birth of a star
When is a star born?
Is a star created from birth by the grace of the Almighty? Is a star birthed through the dreams that a dreamer refuses to give up? Is a star born on the precipice of back-breaking hardwork? Is a star born after the fall of another weakened star?
It could be one of these, all of these or none of these. But what came before the star? Lets find out.
Born to Mohan Kundra and Radha Kundra, little Rishabh was a well mannered child with a sweet temperament. When thousands of children grow up facing hardships that poverty and misfortune bring upon them in a country like India, Rishabh was lucky enough to be born into a extremely well to do family, his father being a respected producer of Indian Hindi Film Industry.
As is natural for any kid growing up in the land of Bollywood, little Rishu was also influenced by its art and glamour. He grew up listening to filmy scripts brought to his father, watching bollywood actors come and go from his house, playing on movie sets. Receiving lots of encouragement from his father, little Rishu aspired to become an actor when he grew up. His father was his favourite person in the world. He looked up to his father for guidance. All that was good in his childhood, be it his innocence or his mischief, all were connected to his father's presence.
12 years passed in laughter and joy.
Fate is a fickle deity, her winds of change travel fast, arrive unexpected and take no prisoners. It had been a normal happy day for the little boy that changed the course of his life. Once the strongest pillar of support for his son, that day Mohan Kundra became another name in the lost, dead pages of Bollywood. MK had not just been Rishu's father. He had been everything that that boy had ever loved and worshipped. And to open the door and see that very man dead and hanging from the ceiling was a sight the boy never forgot. His suicide was a bitter slap of betrayal that shattered the bubble of security and goodness Rishu had always lived in. Gone was the shoulder on which he could cry, gone were the hands he could hold, gone was the chest on which he could rest.
With little hands, this boy held the burning wood to light the pyre of his father, on small feet this child carried the ashes to the waters. Yet the scorching fire that had ignited in his soul kept burning and the tears of suffering dried up before they could be shed. MK took his son's innocence with him, leaving behind a lost and helpless boy.
Two hours before his death, MK had been sitting in his rocking-chair with his son on his lap and that moment of bonding had been captured in a photograph. Had Rishu ever thought that coloured glossy paper would be the last memory he would have of his father?
Had this been the only betrayal life gave him he would have still moved on. But sometimes life hits us harder than we expect. His mother remarried Kuku Bhatia, a man who was everything his father was not. Rishu, child that he was, took that as his second betrayal and grew to resent his mother and his step-family. Lost in his own grief of a parent's loss, he thought his mother too had abandoned him. How was a child to accept his mother as another man's wife so very soon after his own father's death? It did not help that his step-father did nothing to accept him as his own son.
His faith in human relationships suffered quite a blow and he grew distant and cold towards his mother. Radhaji, being soft-hearted was unable to get through the barrier of anger her son had built around himself. Thus with the loss of both parents, little Rishu was lost forever. A new angry, ambitious, stubborn young Rishabh took his place. Angry enough to name his mother "the woman who gave birth to him", and stubborn enough to refuse any identity other than that of a Kundra.
That boy grew up with the sole intention of carving his own name in the pages of time. He had no support from his step-family. He had to struggle and fall and get up to struggle again. In such a time he met a beautiful young woman called Dipali who was also struggling to become an actress. They began a relationship, which Rishabh believed would culminate in marriage and which Dipali believed would be a stepping stone to success. Dipali turned out to be an opportunist who left her love and married Sikander, Rishabh's stepbrother and then an actor about to take the industry by storm. That storm never came, and with back to back flops, Dipali's dreams of glamour and money were also shattered.
Another love lost to the whims of fate. One can only imagine his pain...
Dipali's betrayal was the final nail in the coffin for Rishabh. He had already lost his faith in God. Gone was his belief in relationships, gone was his belief in humanity. It was a shattering blow but Rishabh was a fighter, through and through. He refused to lose himself in unrequited love, that too of a woman as despicable as Dipali. Whatever little pieces of his broken heart he may have given her, she had broken them beyond repair. So what use was a heart to him when it had given him nothing but pain all his life? Of what use was a heart when the people in his life never seemed to give it any value?
Rishabh locked that part of himself in some deep corner and lost the keys. He had a sharp mind. He had talent. He didn't need anything else, anyone else. He refused to be the victim of fate's folly again. He would write his own destiny and make the world dance at his fingertips. It is a curious thing - when we run after lady luck she evades us, but when we spurn her and make our own path, this temperamental lady becomes our slave. Thus with perseverance and talent at work, fate finally opened her arms and embraced Rishabh Kundra.
A star was born . The once broken boy became RK. Romantic King RK. Superstar RK.
And like the flies attracted to honey, everyone wanted a piece of RK. RK Mansion became a famous address but never a home. His stepfamily became a dependent burden that RK had enough strength to carry easily without any attachment. The stepfather and stepbrother who had always looked down on him became his well-wishers overnight. His ex-girlfriend, whom he must have later felt ashamed to even know as a human being, began to show favour to him. He might be a heartless man, but he still had some principles. Besides, RK was no one's fool. Being heartless had its advantages, one being that emotions were less likely to cloud his intelligence. She had once taught him that every face is a mask. He was clever enough to never make the same mistake twice.
RK belonged to no one. No one had wanted him then and he did not need anyone now.
He was RK. Superstar RK.
Ahaaan.
(End of Part One)
Edited by felicity06 - 12 years ago
Hindi TV Shows
