FROM RISKY FLICKS TO POLITICAL TWIST

E is complicated. A man who soared high from scratch acquiring in the process legions of fans but then, like a tragic Greek hero, crashed only to be derided by the same people who had once feted him.

- KALYAN THOLETI

As the great Telugu poet Sri Sri so eloquently summed up the ways of the world—"When I leap to the sky with fire they exclaim amazed ... and when I fall down with blood splashing, the same turn ruthless." Though the poet sang so in a different context, it might apply to Mohammad Azharuddin, the favourite child of controversies and a flawed hero.