An Evening Well Spent: Meeting Rahul Bose, Lamaakan, Hyderabad, 2016

In this post we bring snippets from a talk delivered by Actor and Rugby Champion, Rahul Bose.

QlC member Ms Jhilam Chattaraj attended the event held at Lamaakan, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad on 18 March 2016

Rahul Bose

The Venue

Curious Audience

"I don't want to be remembered", said Rahul Bose, the Bollywood actor who delivered a talk on " Workable Leadership Principles". For almost two and a half hours, the charming, intelligent, articulate and incredibly funny actor kept the audience engaged in an evening that was full honest, humorous, insightful, inspiring stories and conversations. 

The venue was packed. There were people all over. The seats were full, the balcony was over crowded, the big boulders were taken, the floor was hardly visible, people sat on the boundary wall and I finally parked myself on a trunk of a tree leaning towards the ground. 

Never underestimate the Balcony

In conversation

Rahul's talk covered several elements. It began with memories of his early days in Bollywood. He recalled the days of struggle and pain and the joy of leading India's Rugby team in various countries. He emphasized on how as a leader of the team he had to under-promise and over-perform to instill a team spirit in everyone. Rahul highlighted the importance of being cordial and empathetic to others as a secret success mantra. Later, on a lighter note, he also revealed little tricks celebrities master over time to deal with rumours , scandals, gossip and criticism. The audience asked him several questions and he answered them with impeccable wit and patience. He sportingly posed for the selfie crazy young girls and boys.   

Elahe Hiptoola, fashion designer and founder of Lamaakan

Rahul's unbelievably self-effacing nature, moderate career aspirations, spartan lifestyle and a genuine concern for the society makes him a very uncanny Bollywood actor. He is a star living out of stardom in a little Innisfree of his own. His joy is in being the ordinary man doing extraordinary things. Thus his talk was about locating the qualities of leadership in our everyday regular lives and not in some grand aspiration to save the world. 

In a world of his own

Rahul encouraged the audience to understand the power of the present and their immense capacity to make a difference in the world just by doing one good thing each day. He has no desire to be quoted or remembered in the annuls of history and culture. He described himself as an ordinary man who loves to play Rugby and act in films with equal passion and give something  back everyday to the society. 

In the initial years, he enjoyed the fame and fanfare. However, looking back, he regrets his once apathetic approach towards many of the social and cultural evils around him.   He now tries to do his bit through his NGO, Rahul Bose- The Foundation which is dedicated to remove any kind of discrimination from all aspects of life. 

The evening with Rahul ended at about 8.30 p.m. I was full of thoughts and emotions. I carry back his confidence, humour, and the courage to live life authentically. 

An actor and a keen listener