LODESTARS OF THEIR OWN SKY
India Today|November 11, 2024 - Special Issue
YOU HAVE TWO FORMS OF greatness. There are those who acquire more lustre and I power than their peers.
LODESTARS OF THEIR OWN SKY

Many of these happen to be in places that necessarily affect the lives of others-politicians come most obviously to mind. But the bulk of them merit comparisons only within their class. In the scales of greatness, they swim with the shoal. Then there are those who rise above their vocations, whose aggregate value has far surpassed the circumscribed limits of their day job. What they inflect is the course of society itself, in material and symbolic ways. In the following pages, we present precisely such an exalted set. Ten icons, who differ only in the life-practices they chose when they started. When they crossed over to greatness, they attained to the same universality.

If any confusion lingers, the names would erase it. You would find the word 'actor' somehow wholly inadequate as a descriptor for, say, Amitabh Bachchan. He's a cultural phenomenon that spills over the embankments to define an epoch itself. It's not difficult to see how this 'flooding' effect works for artists, or sportspersons. To see why, for instance, Sachin Tendulkar is more than the sum of all his runs put together. Our list also has corporate titans, but only those who have been architects of things greater than their company valuations, those who qualify as visionaries and change-makers. Nor is this, by any stretch of the imagination, a toothless club of grey eminences. They are all supremely active, having nowhere exhausted their generative potential-even the nonagenarian automaker R.C. Bhargava. Greatness, at some level, is an inexhaustible fuel.

1 AMITABH BACHCHAN, 82

Actor, Bollywood legend

Eternal Superstar

Esta historia es de la edición November 11, 2024 - Special Issue de India Today.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición November 11, 2024 - Special Issue de India Today.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE INDIA TODAYVer todo
Delhi's Belly
India Today

Delhi's Belly

Academic, historian and one of India's most-loved food writers, PUSHPESH PANT'S latest book-From the King's Table to Street Food: A Food History of Delhi-delves deep into the capital's culinary heritage

time-read
1 min  |
January 06, 2025
IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO
India Today

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

Hemant and Kalpana Soren changed Jharkhand's political game, converting near-collapse into an extraordinary comeback

time-read
3 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
THE MAHA BONDING
India Today

THE MAHA BONDING

At one time, Fadnavis, Shinde and Ajit Pawar were seen as an unwieldy trio with mutually subversive intent. A bumper assembly poll harvest inverts that

time-read
3 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
THE LION PRINCE
India Today

THE LION PRINCE

A spectacular assembly election win ended a long political winter for Kashmir and his party, the National Conference. But Omar Abdullah now faces crucial tests—that of meeting great expectations and holding his own with the Centre till J&K gets its statehood back

time-read
2 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
TRIAL BY FIRE
India Today

TRIAL BY FIRE

Formal charges in a US court, an air marked by accusations of bribery and concealment of information, the attendant political backlash, pressure on stock prices, valuation losses. Yet the famed Adani growth appetite and business resilience stays

time-read
3 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
'Criticism has always been a source of motivation for me'
India Today

'Criticism has always been a source of motivation for me'

It’s just day five since he was crowned 2024 FIDE World Chess champion (which he celebrated with a bungee jump), and Gukesh Dommaraju is still learning to adjust to the fanfare.

time-read
4 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
THE YOUNG GRANDMASTERS
India Today

THE YOUNG GRANDMASTERS

GUKESH DOMMARAJU IS NOW THE YOUNGEST EVER WORLD CHAMPION, BUT THAT IS JUST ICING ON THE CAKE IN INDIA'S CHESS STORY. FOR THE 'GOLDEN GENERATION', 2024 WAS THE YEAR THEY DID IT ALL

time-read
10 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
SHOOTING QUEEN
India Today

SHOOTING QUEEN

Manu Bhaker scripted a classic turnaround at Paris 2024, putting the ghosts of the past behind her through sheer willpower to engrave her own destiny

time-read
3 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
THE COMEBACK KING
India Today

THE COMEBACK KING

It was in no one's script: Naidu's standing leap from near-oblivion, to a place where he writes the destiny of Andhra—even New Delhi

time-read
2 minutos  |
January 06, 2025
HALTING THE BJP JUGGERNAUT
India Today

HALTING THE BJP JUGGERNAUT

A roller-coaster year saw the Opposition coalition rebound with bold moves and policy wins, but internal rifts continue to test its durability

time-read
2 minutos  |
January 06, 2025