Whilst Mumbai is facing another round of hearty monsoons showers , it’s going to be raining biopics in Hindi films, given a massive boost by the astounding runaway success of ‘Sanju’, Hirani’s slice of life and times of the once beleaguered but ever-popular, film star Sanjay Dutt (despite it’s fair share of outraged detractors, outraged critics and mixed reviews).
According to the tabloids after some well-made biopics on our legendary wrestlers, boxers, sprinters, cricketers, actors and even underworld dons, there are a surfeit of real-life stories of achievers under research to be turned into saleable movies. In fact there are two films almost ready for release on our achievers in hockey ( Soorma and Gold ) while badminton golden girl Saina Nehwal’s success story is to be portrayed by actress, Shraddha Kapoor. Sports provides awe-inspiring tales like India’s famous 1983 first Cricket World Cup victory, now being made into a film !
Coming to other themes, the most exciting is the historical blockbuster on the legendary, Rani Laxmibhai being portrayed on screen by redoubtable ‘Queen’ Kangana Ranaut. Hrithik Roshan is undergoing an image makeover to play the genius mathematician, Ramanujam in yet another fascinating biopic to be completed soon.Another, interesting take is on Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut into space, to be played by King ‘Shahrukh’ Khan ! The list would go on as the cult of biopics has caught the fancy of audiences.
In all this, some amazing tales of people in less glamorous professions, like banking and finance, are being overlooked. Though a biopic is on, featuring Ex-PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, based on the book ‘The Accidential Prime Minister’ with the versatile Anupam Kher enacting the role, the film would hardly deal with his stint as a Banker (RBI Governor) and dwell on politics.
When PSU banks are facing so much heat over the NPAs and high volume frauds, a biopic on the life and challenges of an eminent banker would reveal another side of the banking story. Among many great bankers that India has produced, my vote for a biopic goes to SBI’s ‘Lady of Substance’ !
State Bank’s first woman chairman. Arundhati Bhattacharya, after joining the country’s largest lender as a probationary officer worked for 40 years. Her journey started at the bank’s main branch in Calcutta with large manual ledgers all around and ended with the bank embracing cloud computing. In her interviews, she has revealed that she wanted to become a journalist and calls her entry into banking an “accident”. After leaving her imprint in every department of the bank, post-retirement she plans to do a PhD in banking and finance, as per reports.
Despite astounding success as a banker, Ms Arundhati remained grounded and pragmatic in her approach to her work and her people and took many pro-employee measures apart from being regarded as a financial expert in the country. In 2016, she was named the 25th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. In the same year, she was ranked among the FP Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine. She was named the 4th most powerful women in Asia Pacific by Fortune. In 2017, India Today magazine ranked her at 19th in India’s 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.
There would be so much to enlighten us about the working of a large PSU behemoth in a biopic, if made – why not have Vidya Balan as Arundhati ?
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