Triumvirate

As per dictionary, triumvirate is referred to a group of three men holding power in Ancient Rome, in particular ( the First Triumvirate ) the unofficial coalition of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus in 60 BC and ( the Second Triumvirate ) a coalition formed by Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian in 43 BC. In Hindu mythology we have our own triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, more precisely referred to as holy trinity.

The above thoughts came to mind while pondering over the retirement of Roger Federer after a glorious tennis career. Along with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, this triumvirate ruled the tennis world for more than 2 decades splitting a large number of grand slam and other important titles amongst them. In my school days, when I first started following tennis closely, there was a triumvirate that included an Indian prodigy and was popularly known as ABC of world tennis- the abbreviation for Amritraj, Borg and Connors. Unfortunately, Amritraj couldn’t keep pace with other two and later on a brilliant braggart McEnroe completed the triumvirate. Later on we had three brilliant American stars in Sampras, Courier and Agassi forming a triumvirate and dominating world tennis for pretty long period.

And this triumvirate concept is not restricted only to tennis for that matter. Another field where we have witnessed triumvirate repeatedly is our very own Bollywood. The first triumvirate of Dev, Dilip and Raj dominated silver screen for almost two decades till the next set comprising Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh ( not officially known as triumvirate due to certain periods that did not overlap) and for more than last two decades the Khan triumvirate of Shahrukh, Aamir and Salman have dominated Bollywood almost overshadowing the original triumvirate. And how can we ever forget the male singing triumvirate of Rafi, Mukesh and Kishore who left such a deep imprint that subsequently we had a new singer who’d be clone of one of the aforesaid three!

It would be interesting if my readers can suggest more such triumvirates that could form the basis of another blog on this theme.