08 February,2010 09:02 AM IST | | Shiboli Chatterjee
Two young men... with powerful political lineage... who lost their fathers in similar brutal fashion... have been making news recently. But, while one makes a powerful, political and symbolic statement by hopping onto a local train in the bastion of his political enemies, his namesake chooses a wife on national television.
Seeing 15 eligible women fight on national television to marry the man who allegedly beat up his wife (a story broken by this newspaper three years ago) brings to light how time and enough media exposure can change the opinion of people in this country. No one knows this better than the man literally at the centre of all the attention, Rahul Mahajan.
Mahajan had candidly admitted on a TV debate last year, "The media has used me. Now I am using the media!"u00a0
After a high-profile marriage to his friend of 13 years and an even more high-profile divorce, not to forget his arrest in a cocaine scandal just a month after his father's death, Rahul was the villain in everyone's eyes. The spoilt, rich boy who could do no right. Following in his father's footsteps in politics was out of the question.
That was left to his more demure sister.
He needed a plan to resurrect his beaten image and decided to try his luck in the unreal world of reality television. And how it paid off for him! In Bigg Boss, he tried to clear his name by bringing out his goofy side, flirting with the women, entertaining the housemates and ultimately the audience. Having achieved what he went there for, he famously scaled the walls and left the House.
And now he's apparently set out to find love again... this time in front of millions of viewers, following in the footsteps of another person adept at playing the media to achieve her goals, Rakhi Sawant.
We have to wait and see if Mahajan Jr goes one step ahead of Rakhi and ends up marrying one of the women on his Swayamvar (or Swayamvadhu, in his case), as he has been proclaiming. We don''t know what the women are thinking, proclaiming their love for a man with a dark past whom they have never met before. But we do know that he sure is aware of what he is doing.
After all, when asked about his penchant for reality shows, Rahul Mahajan had candidly admitted on a TV debate last year, "The media has used me. Now I am using the media!"
Rahul Mahajan and Rahul Gandhi u2014 one follows the camera, while the camera follows the other. But both know how to hog the limelight. Maybe the two are not so different after all.
