FEW of them would admit it, but politicians are the most fervent of strivers for a place in posterity. And what better start can you make towards that goal, as you take your first steps into the after-life, than to have your name in large type above a whopping obituary in the top people's newspaper?

That accolade was accorded Ashok Kumar this week. When the MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland opened that sobering page of The Times on Tuesday, however, he will have probably, after pinching himself to check he was indeed still alive, cast around for a suitably jaunty response to anxious inquiries from friends.

Mark Twain's "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" will have been the most obvious one.

The generous tribute below Dr Kumar's name was in fact to the Ashok Kumar who was the grand old man of the largest film industry in the world. He was the face of "Bollywood" in the 1940s and 1950s and in a career spanning five decades won two of India equivalent of the Oscars. He was 90 when he died in Bombay

It is for the ladies to say whether the certainly photogenic Labour MP is as handsome as the film star who was one of the best-looking actors in Indian cinema, but there is one striking parallel in their life stories. Both made a false start to careers.

The politician's stumble came five months after he won a by-election in November 1991 to become MP for Langbaurgh; he was narrowly defeated at the general election of 1992. Dada Moni - the "respected elder brother" status he enjoyed among India's film fans - on the other hand, had his comeuppance on the first day in front of the film cameras.

It was 1936 and Kumar was a trainee technician with the Bombay Talkies company when the studio's big star ran off with the director's wife just before work began on a new film; the young camera assistant was drafted in as replacement leading man. In the first scene he mistimed an attack on the villain and broke the man's leg, causing film to be delayed for months.

The two Kumars came from opposite sides of the sub-continent. The film star was a Bengali and the future MP was born in the Punjab. Dr Kumar's father came to Britain as a young maths scholar, went back to India with a bride he met here and returned to this country when their son was two.

The 45 year-old bachelor MP _ he regained his re-named seat comfortably in 1997 and held it this year when his 9,357 majority was an increased share of the vote - is not a avid watcher of Indian films, although I hear that he has been known to get tongue-in-cheek enjoyment from the genre; cricket, badminton, music and reading are his preferred pastimes.

But he liked the Goodness Gracious Me sit-com on TV and now looks forward to Monday evenings and his other Asian showbiz namesakes in The Kumars at No 42.