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Hrithik Roshan never really basks in the glory of his success.

There’s a core of hunger and dissastisfaction about him that guides his talents to greater summits before pulling him back in time to start all over again from scratch.

I’ve seen the best artistes of Bollywood go through that existential and creative relay race. Perfection isn’t a state of mind. It is a quest, a quenchless journey that never ends.

I believe Hrithik eats lives and breathes his work. He started young. In fact, his first lead role was as a child artiste in Bhagwan Dada , a film that his dad Rakesh Roshan produced and his dad’s father-in-law J Om Prakash directed. In the film the young Hrithik shared screen space with the Southern phenomenon Rajnikanth. I think Hrithik out-performed his veteran co-star!

Scaling new peaks is nothing new to Hrithik. He’s done it from childhood. A loner by choice he had a speech impediment plus an extra finger to deal with before stardom beckoned. None of these ‘flaws’ matter any more as Hrithik sweeps across the screen in majestic leaps playing the Mughal emperor Akbar.

Galloping gloriously across the screen and engaging his lovely Rajput wife in a sword fight, he breathes a quenchless new fire into the historical genre. It would be no exaggeration to say that Hrithik turns Jodha-Akbar into a Mughal-e-Awesome. The sinewy poet-warrior’s part reminded me of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.
I’ve no hesitation in saying Hrithik would be the face of Akbar in books that need fictional visual representation of Mughal emperor. Just as much as Ben Kingsley became the face of Gandhi for all practical purposes.

Raj Santoshi should sign Hrithik to play Ram in Ramayan without a second thought. No one else today projects the valour and vibrancy of an era gone-by with such mollifying grace.

I’ve seen Hrithik go through hard times. After his debut a string of his films just wouldn’t work. He didn’t dither even when they called him a one-film-wonder.

Hrithik wasn’t bad in even one of those films that failed. In fact he was outstanding in films like Na Tum Jano Na Hum and Yaadein. He never let any film down. Today he has the potential to take mainstream cinema to another level. I’ve seen the undeserving become successful.

During the past decade actors with not an iota of Hrithik’s talent have become super-successful simply by hanging on to banners and directors who have a track-record of hits.It makes you scared to see the utterly mediocre strut around as mega-stars.

When I hear cynics snigger about how Hrithik tends to over-do the perfectionism I say, most of our superstars just got lucky.

They orchestrated successes, manipulated boxoffice figures and got themselves linked with various glamorous actresses and then pretended to get righteously indignant when they were caught out by the paparazzi.

Hrithik came into the industry with a sweetheart, married her and has had no affairs after marriage (and just one link-up prior to his wedding which, in private, he thoroughly regrets). Makes him an oddity in the entertainment industry where spousal fidelity means the wife doesn’t get to know what you’re doing behind her back.

Hrithik would rather have that challenging role than the secret roll in the hay. No furtive one-night-stands for this superstar. As Mughal-e-Awesome proves Hrithik believes in Won-Knight Stands.

Related posts:

1. Grand success of JA tempts Muzaffar Ali(UJ fame) to make another historical
2. Hrithik weaves a magical web (Source: Deccan Chronicle)
3. JODHA AKBAR was showcased at Cannes 2007
4. Now, Jodhaa Akbar banned in Uttar Pradesh (UP)
5. Jodhaa Akbar Music to release on November 27!