Bal Thackeray

Now, before you start reading this post or for that matter the title of this post, let me make myself very clear. I am not getting into any religion issues. I am not saying who did what and when. Please take this as it comes to u. I am just trying to put forward my personal views here.

I always have had high regards for Bal Thackeray. As a child, I wasn’t aggressive. I was too receptive. No dynamism at all. All such highly regarded attributes started sinking into me after 7^th standard.

I watched Bal Thackeray for the first time on Zee TV. He spoke absolutely fearlessly in front of the TV reporter (guess it was Nalini Singh and the programme was Ghoomta Aaina). The aggression and his confidence in expressing his beliefs is what hit me the most. I was so inspired by that aggression that I started collecting articles which newspapers and magazines wrote about him.

Bal Keshav Thackeray.

He is more than the leader of the Shiv Sena party. He is so far the biggest brand in Mumbai that is known to all. There are chances that a Tamil in Mumbai wouldn't have heard of Amitabh Bachchan. But it is impossible that he wouldn't have even heard about Bal Thackeray.

When we talk about the strength of the brand, then lets talk about the power one person can have on the entire Mumbai city. There is a mass of security guards around the bungalow. What does this mass constitute of? A total of 177 police officers; 152 constables, 19 sub-inspectors, 3 police inspectors and 3 assistant police commissioners. Does the PM get this kind of treatment in Delhi? The state government gives him police vehicles and a bulletproof automobile to travel in; His residence in Bandra is fortified and guarded round the clock.

Bal Thackeray. Bala Saheb. The Supremo. The remote control. The Tiger (after the symbol of the Shiv Sena).

Why is this such a popular name? Why people automatically associate with some or the other things with this name? There were times when eminent personalities used to touch his feet (they do it even now). The list goes from well known politicians to industrialists. Sunil Dutt reportedly cried and begged in front of him to get Sanju baba out of jail and which he did!!

Michael Jackson touched his feet to seek his blessings before the only English live concert in Mumbai during the Sena days. Others were simply not allowed. Neither in Mumbai nor anywhere else.

Impressive!! Isn't it?? How did he do all this?

Well, we would need to get back a little into history to understand this.

His monstrous ego was nurtured from infancy. His father was a social reformer and anglicized his surname after William Makepeace Thackeray, the Victorian author of Vanity Fair. His mother had given birth to 5 girls and no sons. She prayed ardently to the family deity for a son and was blessed with Bal. He was therefore considered a navasputra, a boon directly from God.

His mother always wanted him to be a government servant. But his father never wanted him to be clerk. He wanted him to be an artist. He in fact brought him a bulbul tara, a stringed instrument. He could never learn that instrument to play!! He was an absolutely inept musician.

It was during that time (same time when WW II broke out) he started making sketches of the Banbury’s cartoons that used to come on the front page of the Times of India. Along the way, Bal got a sense of the larger political struggles around the city, whose rule was in dispute between the Gujjus and the Maharashtrians. He would listen to his father giving speeches at the meetings of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.

He started his career as a cartoonist in the Free Press Journal. And this was the platform which gave him so much freedom to express his opinion daily. He started his own cartoon weekly, which turned into a forum. Most of the Marathi speaking readers used to raise their concerns which usually used to revolve around jobs which are mostly occupied by the Southies (Tams and Mallus).

These all concerns and many other issues which used to be addressed to him encouraged him to form his own political party and he named it: Shiv Sena (the army of Shivaji, the king). He ruled Mumbai then. He rules Mumbai even now.

He is more than 80 now. But he is still the same tiger!! He has grown a long beard resembling a typical sanyasi, but then Saheb is always a Saheb! How can one challenge the supremo??

He is still the same Bal Thackeray on TV I saw when I was in 7th standard. Fearless. Confident.