Ahead of the launch of Icons, a book about the men and women who shaped today's Indian, writer-columnist Anil Dharker gives Manish Gaekwad a peek into the selection process, and why the Ambani brothers and Kiran Bedi didn't stand a chance of making their way in
Ahead of the launch of Icons, a book about the men and women who shaped today's Indian, writer-columnist Anil Dharker gives Manish Gaekwad a peek into the selection process, and why the Ambani brothers and Kiran Bedi didn't stand a chance of making their way in
Our photographer saunters in half an hour into our conversation and aims at Anil Dharker, when Dharker raises a hand to halt him. "Let me freshen up before you shoot me," he pleads and leaves the room to appear in an ebony silk Fabindia kurta over a starched white churidar. He appears regale and becomes the poseur pleasing the photographer with angle after angle, mood after mood. In earnest, no one understands the game of iconography better than he does now. One minute, the austerely clad writer, another minute he's transformed into a magnetic persona the camera cannot get enough of. He typifies what he is to release this evening.
Edited by him, Icons is a book about men and women who shaped today's India. 
Popularity doesn't make icons
Since all great lists are speculative, he broaches the topic by offering how it is never fair when you draw a list. Ruing over the lack of young achievers' names in the book, such as Shahrukh Khan, A R Rehman, he clears the air over why this list of icons is not based on popularity. "You can have a committee to decide who should make it to the list but it will be a roomful of people who will love to disagree. I was clear what I wanted; I wanted to take a representative from each field, and stuck to it." This is how Amitabh Bachchan becomes the grand daddy of cinema. And this is why the dueling Ambani brothers lose out as Dharker mentions in the introduction, that the book is about living people's contribution to present India and "Dhirubhai would have made it had he been alive, no credit goes to the sons who are reaping their father's sows."
Down with paper tigers
Over the glaring absence of women in the book, apart from two Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi and legendary playback singer Lata Mangeshkar, the writer-columnist shares an anecdote about how a bunch of cronies sat together to debate on it. Notwithstanding Pratibha Patil's feeble presence, they couldn't gather another distinguishable woman to be India's President. "Where are the women in the field of art, technology, information, economics, philosophy?" he bounces the question back like a ping-pong ball. "Sania Mirza will not make it to the list," Dharker affirms when asked who he sees as a rising star who'll make it to an iconic status ten years from now. "Rahul Gandhi definitely, Varun Gandhi, obviously not." Dharker has hopes for rising badminton talent Saina Nehwal, but we'll have to wait and see: "We live in a media-driven society, with people who have the ability to exploit the media. Paper icons like Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat, even Kiran Bedi, who have absolutely no substance and monger for publicity, need to be slowed down." He asks if anyone remembers demolition-man Khairnar. "Where is he?" Dharker suffixes his answer as a timely omen to avoid hyped role-models.
Window to success and failure
Contributor Ranjit Hoskote's monograph on shaman guru Deepak Chopra comes across as raillery where Hoskote stresses on how DC uses mumbo jumbo like "the self is a self-referral cybernetic feedback loop." With words like these, how does DC make it to the list? "No one is perfect. The essays on MF Husain and Prannoy Roy aren't complimentary; they are great people but the idea was to window their success as much as their failings. My brief to the contributors was not to make it sound like a hagiography, but as a balanced critical analysis."
Dharker dedicates the book to his actress daughter Ayesha with a breezy, piquant quote: "These are wonderful men and women, Ayesha. But there's always room for more", setting a sombre conversational tone for a reading of Icons, secretly wishing she aspires to be in a book like this.
The 21 who made it
APJ Abdul Kalam, Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, Baba Amte, Charles Correa, Deepak Chopra, Ebrahim Alkazi, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, Khushwant Singh, Lakshmi Mittal, Lata mangeshkar, MF Husain, Manmohan Singh, Narayana Murthy, PN Bhagwat, Prannoy Roy, Ratan Tata, Salman Rushdie, Sonia Gandhi, Zubin Mehta
Icons edited by Anil Dharker, published by Roli Books in asssociation with The Oberoi, Mumbai will be released by Amitabh Bachchan today. The book will be available at leading bookstores for Rs 395
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