Normally in life we find Heroes, or Naiks who always stand for values, espouse good causes, help those who are in need, play good samaritan, fight injustice and always win and Villains who always are selfish, greedy, venomous, wicked and challenge those who stand for values and always stand to lose after a prolonged battle.Rama and Ravan are two classic examples of our mythological characters of a true hero and villian. Bollywood introduced anti hero as a third character who are neither heroes nor full time villains because they had peculiar ways of establishing themselves. It all started with Kalnayak played by Sanjay Dutt, later on by Shah Rukh Khan in movie called Dhar. Jackie shroff played this role effortlessly in Agni Sakshi. While people disliked Villains, they liked these new anti heroes as much as they adored Heroes. To my Mind, SRK has been the single most successful anti hero in Indian Cinema.
In corporate India, also, we have had heroes and anti heroes. I would rate Ambani siblings as the greatest Anti heroes for they have achieved their status through sheer dent of hardwork, some fortuitous breakthroughs.Sr.Ambani once claimed that nothing is due to his ingenuity but God had been kind to him. Ambanis are adored in stock markets and their shares always reach dizzy heights and despite negative reports about their manipulating the system, even reprimands by constitutional functionaries like CAG have not diminished their stature. Even a series of articles by a corporate guru cum Chartered Accountant Gurumurthi, even continuous battle by Left parties have not diminished their clout even a little bit. If God is kind to them as Sr.Ambani claimed once, well no one could do anything about it.
the irony of the story is one gentleman who is from one of the most morally upright business families Ratan Tata unfortunately attempted to become an anti hero evidenced by the Radiia tapes but could not succeed., He is presently fighting a battle for privacy seeking to stop media from publishing all the tapped conversations through celebrity lawyer Harish Salve. He even attempted to wriggle out of this by suggesting that he refused to bribe a minister in a previous dispensation for a licence to own/start an airline.
another man who attempted to hog the limelight is Vijay Mallaya whose flights have now been grounded and recovery notices being slapped on him by Banks who have advanced money. Our Banks also became anti heroes when they advanced money against an intangible asset called spectrum much against prudent banking norms.
I share these thoughts now because RBI is seized of the matter of growing Non Performing Assets which are couched in a maze of CDR corporate debt re structuring. The outstanding loans of 10 big corporate houses in India have reached a high level constituting 25% of total NPAs. IF any RBI governor could infact walk the talk and recover all these monies, well our CAD and Fiscal deficits could come down and our Rupee will gain some more respectability
But will Raghuram Govinda Rajan be the man who will bell the cat?
