Friends and Family

By not checking into the UPA (the new coalition government’s United Progressive Alliance) as soon as the electoral heat began to beat down, Singh will now have to sweat it out before he can enjoy the UPA’s beneficial effects.

In the shadowy world of power politics, popularity ratings are as fickle as a supermodel’s glory on the ramp—one day you are in, the next day out. No one knows this better than Singh. So it was with the deft skills of a survivor that he latched his leader Mulayam Singh Yadav’s fortunes and his own onto the coat-tails of Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the CPI(M), hoping to get a good bargain.

But then, Singh’s life is a sum of lucky choices he made as he went about collecting people and networking through them—from Mulayam Singh Yadav to Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Ambani to Parmeshwar Godrej, Subroto Roy to Aishwarya Rai. The trader-turned-politician has been credited with first mixing showbiz, politics and big bucks in a heady, intoxicating cocktail.

Singh was the psychedelic phantom, chased by showgirls and tycoons, allies and foes, as he conjured up images of power, authority, potency and sway.

While critics have called him a fixer and wheeler-dealer, his admirers cannot help but gush about his dizzying power and clout.

Ask Singh about his triumphs and conquests and he demurs, ‘‘I’ve never chased fame and glory and neither have I planned who my friends will be. I’m guided by my feelings. I befriended Mulayam Singh Yadav because he was different. Amitabh Bachchan was a star and I was a nobody when I met him.’’

Singh, however, concedes his fortune is his friendships, when he says, ‘‘Yes, my success are my friends and they have given me my values and have contributed immensely to my growth. However, I do not enter into relationships easily but when I do, I am loyal forever. When my friend, Flex Industries Chairman Ashok Chaturvedi, was arrested and mud flung on him, I publicly called him my brother. It is unfair to accuse me that because somebody is famous, I catch hold of him.’’

Perhaps there is a ring of truth here. Take his closest and most powerful friend in politics today, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. Who would have believed the friendship, which began in the unknown ’80s, would turn out to be one of the most successful and effective associations today? According to popular lore, the two met when Singh, a mere minion of a big business house in Calcutta, was regularly sent by the patriarch to meet politicians in UP because they owned several sugar mills in the state.

Yadav was a rising star then, and it was Singh’s job to seek him out. Singh would like to set the record straight when he says, ‘‘I was never a paid employee of the Birlas. I knew KK Birla because Kolkata is a small and friendly society. I was on the board of Hindustan Times but in those days, the implication was you were either a naukar or chamcha of the owner. Even recently, when a prominent industrialist told Birla’s daughter Shobana Bharatiya I was her employee, she turned around and said I was her brother. Today, circumstances are such we are not friends, but I will never forget the fact that she let me stay in her house for nine years.’’ As for Mulayam, Singh is emotional and acknowledges his gratitude when he talks of their friendship. ‘‘I’ve no other desires and designs but to strengthen the hands of Mulayam Yadav. My sense of belonging is so fierce and so committed, he takes over all other priorities. It is a strange relationship between us because we are so close. Even people are surprised when they try to divide us. It will never happen.’’

If Yadav was a lucky break, no one could have predicted one of Singh’s unacknowledged, faceless friends from the South would one day become prime minister of India. Guests seated in Central Hall at the swearing in of Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, were startled to see the new incumbent of Racecourse Road enter with another new face, Amar Singh.

It was a fruitful partnership that was struck a couple of years ago when Gowda was a mere MLA in Karnataka. Singh is candid when he admits, ‘‘I met Gowda in the early ’90s. However, when he became PM, our relationship waned. He did not want me around and I did not want to push it. I was not going to be pushy because Gowda was PM.’’ Okay, forget politics, where does Singh’s clout in showbiz come from? Why does every star and starlet want to sing Happy Birthday at his parties today and receive guests at the door? His friend, Sahara’s Subroto Roy, may bankroll the stars by appointing them brand ambassadors, but would he have got a toehold in the glitzy world of Bollywood had it not been for friend and brother, Big B?

It was a friendship that defied logic—a reticent, aloof, ageing superstar meets wannabe, ambitious power broker.

Singh is equally ecstatic when he talks about the three A’s: Amitabh, Anil Ambani and himself. ‘‘We three are temperamentally different but we have great chemistry between us. AB is quiet, discreet and non-complaining. Anil is always in a hurry; we call him Speedy Gonsalves. He is a compulsive planner and even decides the menus before we set out on our holidays. I am the most unsuccessful, disorganised, frivolous person and a loudmouth.’’

After a decade of digitally enhanced images of parties, politicking and networking, there is no question Amar Singh has arrived.

So where does India’s most famous power broker go from here? ‘‘My mission and zeal is for the SP and Uttar Pradesh. Nothing else matters to me now. I’ve got everything I can ask for. I do miss a couple of things, especially after my girls were born. It is a paradox that when I had nothing, I had all the time in the world. Now I have everything, but no time to enjoy them.’’