An army of new-age founders is scripting a bold story, moving away from the clichéd gender narrative. What's helping them is their valuable higher education, a sizeable corporate stint, and the courage to be unapologetic
New York, December 2017
“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down,
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ‘em out,
I am brave, I am bruised,
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me…”
When the American musical drama film The Greatest Showman opened in theatres, it garnered lacklustre reviews and a lukewarm response from audiences. Loosely based on the life of PT Barnum, the American showman who founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1870s, the movie reportedly had a less than modest collection in the first weekend—$8.8 million. But the aggressive numbers notched up in the subsequent weekend—$15 million—stunned all. In Hollywood, it’s rare for a movie to gather steam after an almost insipid opening. The Greatest Showman, however, was turning out to be an exception. But there was something that had been exceptional from day one: The rousing lyrics of the song ‘This is me’. A work by song-writing and composing duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, ‘This is me’ took the world by storm.
(This story appears in the 24 March, 2023 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)