It’s been a long time…

We finally launched the Cine Blitz Gold coffee-table book this month, titled, Love and Longing in Hindi Cinema. The book travels through the decades and takes a closer look at the various interpretations of romance from KAAGAZ KE PHOOL to KABHI ALVIDA NA KEHNA.

Apart from valuable inputs from industry influentials like Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Karan Johar, Javed Akhtar, Vikram Bhatt, Sriram Raghavan…there is a wealth of well researched information laid out along with breathtaking pictures from the past and the present.

While working on this book along with my gang of girls, I realised how much I’d actually been missing romance in our movies. I don’t think it’s just nostalgia. My younger colleagues agree with me as well, most of them being in their twenties. There is a sort of purposive-ness that’s crept in, the hunger for eminence overpowering the hunger to express…

In a way, this book is a reminder of how vital romance is, not just for our movies but also our lives. Love, longing, angst, passion, romance, music, melody, grace, gentleness, affection, monsoons, mountains…memories…being completely and wholly alive…living life from the heart…being full and overflowing…rather than empty and dry.

So let’s bring back the romance into our films and our lives, guys. And let’s not be apologetic about being emotional fools. Leave the calamities and the catastrophes, the demons, the devils and the disasters to the phobic Big Daddy. We are Indians. We are a joyous people. Give us our song and dance…and romance. Give us our joie de vivre. It’s been a long time…

The Theatre Of The Absurd?

Most of the statements made in this editorial, including the header above, don’t belong to me, even though I wish they did! ? These thoughts and words belong to some of the most prolific social commentators/ thinkers of our times who I happened to watch and hear on a forum discussion on CNN IBN. The topic was Rahul Bhatt and David Headley. Voice and words, theirs, sentiment, exactly mine. I couldn’t have put it better than them, so why waste time?

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s son Rahul Bhatt and his friend Vilas volunteered to help the investigating agencies with crucial information on the David Headley case and fell in between the slats. Maa main desh ka sachcha naagrik banoonga? Slap! Slap!

The kids deserved better. An anguished Mahesh Bhatt cried out at the CNN IBN show, “It was Rahul and his friend Vilas who walked into the office of the Head of Crime in the Mumbai Police department and said that maybe David Headley was the same person that they ran into two years ago and that changed the course of their investigation. The authorities in Delhi were clueless till then. And when the Intelligence experts came they privately thanked us and said this was the right thing to do because we guys were groping in the dark. Is this how you reward two young men who have done what the nation prescribes to everyone? I think no. They imposed a code of silence on us and then selectively leaked out the information to suit their own designs. I am outraged. I am hurt, betrayed by the authorities who are actually supposed to handle this case with great sensitivity. It is the duty of the investigative agencies to come clean and tell the truth in a shriller voice that can be heard.” Duties of the investigative agencies! Have we heard that anywhere before?

As Pooja Bhatt rightfully pointed out, David Headley officially gets a visa, gets into the country, scans the cities, moves around freely, gets a house, enrols himself in a gym while the Intelligence sits on its butt. It is left up to the FBI to ring the alarm bells after which two unsuspecting youths come forward and voluntarily offer valuable clues. And what happens to these two young conscientious citizens? They suddenly need a clean chit to lead a normal life!

What disturbed senior lawyer Harish Salve was that “the impression which has been indelibly created is that these boys are up to something.” Salve expressed his dismay vociferously. “We look more and more like a lynch mob and less and less like a democracy. All you need is the police to cast aspersions on somebody and we are ready to beat up people. We are becoming a country of gestures, we are not delivering results. How many convictions have we opted? It is the theatre of the absurd.”

“Why should we harass two citizens who have behaved correctly?” Social scientist Shiv Vishwanathan demanded to know. “In fact, I am surprised why no one asks whether the Home Secretary should get a clean chit or why no one asks whether the CBI or the other investigating agencies should get away so easily. This is a serial of stupidity, stupidity of investigation, and the intelligence of citizenship succumbing to the stupidity of an investigation.”

Sadly for these brave youngsters, Vilas has already lost his job at the Moksh Gym and Rahul is losing his mind wondering what wrong he did.

And far away somewhere Mr Amitabh Bachchan is upset about Shah Rukh Khan not responding to his birthday wishes.

What planet is it where we live these days?

What’s shocking is rocking or what’s rocking is shocking!

WANTED strikes gold and two weeks later, MAIN AURR MRS KHANNA bites the dust. Gauri Khan’s ramp walk created more flutter in the media than Salman and Sohail Khan’s film. Is there any method to this madness? I don’t think so.

I loved WANTED. It was a typical, loud, predictable pot-boiler of the senseless Eighties which we’ve seen to death but yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. No logic. But I didn’t even feel like watching MAIN AURR MRS KHANNA. No logic. I am a film buff, I love Kareena Kapoor, I enjoy watching her on screen, I had enjoyed watching Salman in WANTED and I wasn’t doing much at home during the Diwali holidays but I couldn’t get myself to go and watch that film. I just didn’t feel like it.

There’s a dialogue in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s ANAND – (My interpretation) Hum sab rangmanch ki kathputliyan hain (film stars, in this case) jinki dor uparwale (the audience) ke haath mein hai. Kab kaun kaise uthega yeh koi nahin bata sakta…The dialogue is followed by a loud guffaw. Hahahahahahahaha! Exactly my sentiment when I think of fame in the modern day context. Famous for being famous is the new phenomenon of the 21st century; the triumph of the trivial, thanks to the 24x7 streaming on the news channels; and we are all hooked to it. Looking for logic in what’s rocking and what’s not is a lost cause. Kabhi bhi kuch bhi rocking ho sakta aur wohi shocking bhi ho sakta hai.

For all that endless debate and analysis of what the viewer really wants and doesn’t want, I don’t think we can ever predict why we respond to certain things in a certain manner and why we, all of a sudden, stop responding to those same things in that certain manner.

Taking joy in nonsense is one thing, but I hope we haven’t started taking nonsense as joy!

Am I making any sense? Does it still matter?

It isn’t the whistle that pulls the train, you know. It is the steam.

Talking of optical illusions, someone told me that Sridevi has lost so much weight, especially on her waist, that it looks like she’s done a boob job. But why would she do that, now, at this age and time in her life?! “They look ominously big and out of proportion suddenly! A bit like Dolly Parton.” Well!!! It’s possibly just optical trickery, the thinner waist making the bosom look bigger…or may be, like she used to in her good ole HIMMATWALA days, Sri still stuffs them up.

Silicone implants happened to our film industry long after Thunder Thighs descended on us. Sushmita Sen was the first actress to go to town with her breast implants and since then it’s sort of blown out of proportions! Liposuctions, nose jobs, cheek jobs, tummy tucks, face lifts, skin peels, laser scrubs, contouring, sculpting, etc, etc. There are as many horror stories as well. Pretty-looking faces turning grotesque overnight! Botox is paralysing even the tiny traces of expression we occasionally got to see on some of these actresses’ faces. Some of them actually look like their own wax replicas. I don’t think there is any actor, male or female, who hasn’t done ‘corrections’. Lips and Jaws seem to be the latest obsession in town. A month-long holiday to some unknown foreign destination and suddenly you find them stepping down the Mumbai airport with swollen lips and painfully stretched, razor-edged jaw lines. I hope they can chew their food, poor things.

In 1947, when Kedar Sharma introduced fourteen-year-old Madhubala along with the nineteen-year-old Raj Kapoor in NEEL KAMAL, he apparently asked the under-developed teenager to tuck some coconut shells into her blouse. Ouch! That must hurt!

Enhancement is a big part of show business, no doubt. But it isn’t the whistle that pulls the train, you know. It is the steam. I mean, wear stilettos by all means but don’t get so tall on me that I start wondering if you have a face at all! Finally, you know, there’s a big difference between a beautiful actress and one who acts beautifully. A balance between the two would not be such a bad idea either.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to be sensible about something that’s happened to someone else.

A lot of opinions flew across the length and breadth of the country after Shah Rukh Khan’s detention drama at the Newark airport. Sympathetic, indifferent, emotional, angry, nonchalant… Our Poojaniya Shri Amar Singhji also had something to say from his sick bed. “Even Amitabh Bachchan was subjected to security-related checks in France but he never spoke about it.” So?! Perhaps Bachchanji only makes issues about not being given the front row seats at award functions!

It’s the easiest thing in the world to be sensible about something that’s happened to someone else. Look at the ruckus the Amar Singhs and the Bachchans create every time there is something even remotely unflattering said about them. “The security procedures at the airports are not totally unjustified,” said Singh. He’s right. Procedures have to be stringent when it comes to the security of a country. And may be our country needs to take a lesson or two from this incident. But we all know that this is not just about procedures. It is the lurking mistrust beneath these procedures, towards a particular religion, that’s disturbing. Aamir Bashir lost out on a role in MY NAME IS KHAN, an opportunity that could have changed his career, because he was denied a visa to the US. Irrfan Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Aamir Khan, they have all faced scrutiny and just because they didn’t make a hue and cry about it doesn’t mean they enjoy it.

According to Amar Singh, it would have been better if Shah Rukh had let people make an issue of his detention rather than protest himself. Spoken like a true politician. But why doesn’t Mr Chanakya impart some of his chanakya-gyan to his very own Chandragupt Maurya, the Pasha of Protest, who dashes off a ranting blog for every tinnie-winnie-winkie-willy comment made by every Tom, Dick, Harry or Ram, Shyam, Ghanshyam?! Kyon bhai? Tumhara khoon khoon hai, aur humara khoon paani hai?!

But! Aji aisa mauka phir kahan milega…Shri Amar Singhji was unrelenting in his chase. “There are two types of people in society,” he continued. “One who make an issue out of an incident, and the other who cooperate with procedures.” Kitne oonche vichar hain! But isn’t it strange Amar Singhji, that wisdom to some people comes only after the opportunity to use it is lost!

Akshay should be making a little silent prayer to God that he’s gotten away with it once again!

Sigh. Apparently some mysterious elements are trying to sabotage Akshay Kumar’s films. “Because they are jealous,” Kumar declared with great seriousness on National Television, but refused to divulge the names of the culprits. “I’ll divulge the names when the time comes.” That time doesn’t exist, that we all know.

All these big superstars, all seasoned and beefed-up and seen the good and the bad and all that jazz, should be men enough to take a couple of blows on their chin, one would have thought. But who says big boys don’t cry!

It’s one thing being a superstar on paper. It’s easy to say, “I’m humbled” when the honours are pouring in but you really need to have a lion’s heart to accept rejection with the same humility. “I goofed, guys, I’ll try harder the next time.” In inconvenient times we’ve seen the biggest of them drop poise and get all prickly and defensive and un-humble suddenly. Shah Rukh Khan blamed the press for the debacle of PHIR BHI DIL HAI HINDUSTANI. Amitabh Bachchan put up huge ads in the papers comparing Abhishek Bachchan to Al Pacino and Marlon Brando immediately after the release of GURU. It’s becoming a regular affair. Flash press conferences, last minute success parties, blatant declarations of box office collections…and whatever it takes.

And so Akshay Kumar pulls out this conspiracy theory after his latest film KAMBBAKHT ISHQ gets bad reviews. He should be thanking his stars if his film (like they claim) has raked in the two crore viewers and the Rs.100 crore box office collection. He should be making a little silent prayer to God that he’s gotten away with it once again!

By the way, whoever they are who are supposed to be conspiring against Akshay Kumar’s movies, must surely be ace idiots! They are not expecting Akshay Kumar to come up with a MUGHAL-E-AZAM someday, are they!

Sorry I miss the joke. What’s so funny? Being raped or being accused of rape?

Inside this issue there’s an interview with Shiney Ahuja, taken a couple of days before he was arrested. We did toss around with it a bit, wondering if we should pull out the pages. But finally we decided to go with it. We’d like to believe Shiney is innocent until proven otherwise. Especially for his wife and child’s sake, we hope he is.

His wife Anu had kept herself away from the public eye for so many years because she wanted her kid to have a normal upbringing. It is sad that she had to be introduced to the world in such a fashion, the very normalcy she wished to protect, exploding in her face.

There are some smses floating around the place making jokes about this incident. Some newspapers even printed those jokes. I miss the mirth. What’s so funny? Being raped or being accused of rape?

We love the theory of Crime and Punishment. We love taking on the high stool and playing moral umpires. We draw strict lines between the victim and the victimiser, and also keep the right to decide with ourselves. It is not because Shiney’s a celebrity that I am hoping what’s being reported about him is untrue; every time I read or hear of rape I pray to God that it’s not true. Every time I read or hear of rape my stomach churns with unbearable sadness and dread.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, I am not yet desensitised enough to make light of it.

There’s a new sense of anticipation in the air. Jai Ho!

The politics of tamasha might not be finding too many buyers any longer Perform or perish, that seems to be the present mood

Vinod Khanna and Shekhar Suman lost the elections, Govinda didn’t get a call, Dharmendra and Hema Malini backed out, Sanjay Dutt had to back out, and Rakhi Sawant wasn’t even considered. With the electorate becoming more discerning and demanding, I suspect the era of actors-turned-politicians might be coming to an end. Or rather, let’s say the politics of tamasha, of exploiting a star or a situation only for its speculation-value, might not be finding too many buyers any longer. Cut the crap – the message is loud and clear.

That’s not to say that film stars are not capable of becoming good politicians or leaders but I think capability and sincerity will be the key whatever the status, class or profession. Perform or perish, that seems to be the present mood.

Although it’s not just the political parties which look for mileage through this association; the film stars get to go on a trip too. The starched cotton kurtas, the pallu on the head, the sun glasses and the joined hands… I remember a senior journalist once telling me about the time when Reena Roy decided to support a political party floated by Dev Anand and Vijay Anand. The party, apparently, never got off the ground but it created quite an excitement within the film industry while it did. Reena Roy was a case in study on the day of their first (and only) rally at Shivaji Park. Dev Sa’ab had invited most of his colleagues for support which, perhaps mistakenly, Ms Roy took for an invitation to stand for elections. “At least it seemed like that to us. Straight from her feathers and plumes she got into a white cotton sari, plaited her hair, put her pallu on her head, sat in her white car and took off towards the venue,” the bemused journalist narrated. “Throughout the half hour drive, right from her house till she reached Shivaji Park, Reena Roy had her hands joined in a namaste to the junta on the roads even though nobody could see her through the dark glasses of her car! She was tripping on her neta number!”
The best was apparently when she was asked by Dev Anand to take the mike at the rally. “We were in splits,” revealed the scribe. “By then she was so deeply gone into her avatar that she probably forgot she was a star who’d just got off an expensive car. She started saying things like ‘Humare ghar mein gas nahin hai, mitti ka tel nahin hai, anaaj nahi hai…’ You should have seen the puzzled look on the crowd’s face and the embarrassment on Vijay and Dev Anand’s faces. We wanted to crawl out and disappear!” Jeez!

Well! Being fair to Reena Roy, our Parliament has definitely seen worse! From what I hear and know, Reena Roy was a fairly competent and successful actress in her time, which is more than one can say about 80% of our parliamentarians. But hopefully things are changing on both sides. That’s what I started out to say in the first place. There’s a new sense of anticipation in the air.

Jai Ho!

Stop worrying about who's getting the bigger share, first ensure you have something to share

In case you haven’t noticed, films have been off the shelf for a couple of weeks now. The producers are demanding bigger cuts from the Multiplex owners who are not willing to budge because they say they have their own basket of woes. “Akshay Kumar’s last release TASVEER 8x10 took a 25 to 40 percent initial. His earlier film CHANDNI CHAUK TO CHINA was marginally better. Shah Rukh Khan’s RAB NE…and BILLOO BARBER’s collections were below expectation. Abhishek Bachchan’s DRONA and DELHI 6 flopped! They have some gall asking for bigger cuts! Arre get the audience in first!” Harsh words! But the same rule goes for the producer isn’t it! A flop hurts him as much as it hurts the theatre owner.

So now the Multiplex owners have decided that as soon as the producers lift their ban and start releasing their movies, they will clamp their own ban by shutting their gates for Hindi films indefinitely! English and regional cinema is keeping their seats and samosas hot! Apparently both FAST AND FURIOUS (English) and MEE SHIVAJI RAJE BOLTO AI (Marathi) have done better business then TASVEER. Or so the reports say.

I think we need to get our house in order first. We can’t manufacture and distribute damaged goods and also haggle over them ourselves! The producers and multiplex owners can battle it out till cows come home but the fact of the matter is that they cannot convert their losses into gains unless they make watchable films – with or without the stars!

You spent millions on your film? You have the biggest stars? You have points to prove to your opponents? Totally not our problem! The audience doesn’t care! The shut auditoriums aren’t bothering them too much, “because you can’t miss bad films.” I was talking to a couple of my friends and acquaintances, film buffs mostly, and their response had me worried “Na rahega baans, naa bajegi baansoori,” said one of them. “One film costs my family at least 2 to 3 thousand rupees a week. Nobody watches a movie alone. We are 5 in our family and sometimes friends join in, then popcorn and samosas and ice creams, petrol…and 3 to 4 times a month. That’s 8 to 10 grand monthly! Almost a hundred thousand in a year! And most of the films are disappointing. Imagine the money I’m saving. I can easily watch the film when it comes on television or on DVD. Better to utilise the money in something more productive. The chance that you’ll get your money’s worth is 1 is to 100. I have started reading books and I think that’s far more fulfilling. One good film is not worth 320 bad ones!”

Na rahega baans, na bajegi baansoori! That sounds ominous! I suggest the sooner they resolve this matter the better it might be for the parties concerned. What if by the time the producers and multiplex owners decide to open shop, the audience decides to go on a strike! Humari maange poori karo! Give us good films! Down with bad films!

So guys here’s some advice if it holds any water for anyone. Instead of worrying about who’s getting the larger share, first ensure you have something to share. What you call collection, is at the end of the day, the audience’s hard earned money. What about bettering their compensation first?

There was a time when film folk were interesting, engaging, authentic, and, above all, graceful. But these days they are only in a hurry.

Cine Blitz completes 35 years in publishing this month and we are as wide awake as if it were just our first morning. Even though our fervour is, more often than not, not reciprocated…

Where is the time to stand and stare…or reflect!

Or do things just for the joy of it…It’s getting tougher for us, I must confess. Our best ideas for features, interviews and covers lie in our files, awaiting the patronage of an adventurous spirit, a breed, I’m afraid, rapidly diminishing amongst film stars.

Believe me, being the in-flight magazine for Kingfisher Red makes us the most circulated film magazine anyways. We catch more eye-balls than any other film or celebrity magazine in the country, so our concerns are not readership related. We grudge the joy of working that is denied to us.

Photo sessions and interviews are treated like chores by most of the stars, tiresome chores to be completed before the release of a film. No harm in that as long as they care enough to make it half as worthwhile for us and our readers as it is for them. Most of these interviews are distributed like pamphlets amongst the media. Minutes are divided by shoddier seconds. Let’s finish it off over the phone please. Unfortunately there are enough buyers for these ‘long distance short interviews’. How far we can hold our own in this completely impersonal atmosphere is a matter of thought. From their managers urging us to put their stars on our covers before the release of their films, sometimes, it becomes impossible to get even a ‘No’ in response from the very stars when you want to contact them in between releases. They are hard-pressed for time I know, but some of them are just uncultured, swollen-headed, full-of-themselves, badly-behaved assholes! Covers done, film is released, raat gayi, baat gayi! No replies, no call back, no courtesies, no graces, no etiquette… Too accustomed to their one-night stands, huh?

So let’s continue treating each other as a necessary evil and go through the motions. Everything cold, calculated and business-like, mechanically done with an eye on the final result, like making babies in a test tube! Now how much fun can that be!

There was a time, not too far back, when interviewing film stars was a pleasure, when interaction with them was more personal and meaningful. You could have real conversations with them. There was a time when film folk were interesting, engaging, authentic, and, above all, graceful. But these days they are only in a hurry.

A browse through our old issues always takes us back to those times when stars still had something to say. And we had something to write.

It’s not the same any longer. It’s not been the same for a long, long time.

Love in the Times of Red Carpet

Freida Pinto is living in montages. It is that magical time of her life. Everything is a heady blur, moments rushing past her one after another even before she’s been able to grasp them. Instant fame has that effect. It just sweeps you off your feet.

I read something about her being engaged or married in some newspapers and also read her and apparently her fiancé, Rohan Antao’s response featured in Mumbai Mirror dated 18th February 2009. According to the daily, Rohan is not even aware that he’s been dumped. “I don’t know what to say, if I’m engaged to her (Freida), dating her or even if I know her,” was his bewildered reaction. Whereas Freida SLUMDOG Pinto seems to have no recollection of any past involvements, if there were any. She says, “At the moment, my profession dominates my life. Do you have proof (of the engagement)? Nobody has a right to spoil my happiness.” Certainly not! Although I don’t see how being in love, engaged or married can spoil anyone’s happiness?

Perhaps she has decided to move on. And perhaps, it was not as much of a happy decision as we might want to believe. In such situations the tendency is always to lay the blame on the one who’s more successful – which might not always be true. Who knows, maybe Freida brushed aside all queries about Rohan Antao more to avoid pain rather than cause it. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. There are umpteen examples in the film industry when relationships have succumbed to the pressure of changing equations, especially whenever the power centre has shifted in favour of the woman. Deepika Padukone-Nihar Pandya, Aishwarya Rai-Vivek Oberoi, Priyanka Chopra-Hurman Baweja, Kajol-Kartik…all these girls moved on for better prospects – men, money or movies.

Is that such a bad thing? I don’t know, it’s too complicated to generalise. It’s a hodgepodge situation, really. Two completely contrasting sentiments come into play, mostly at cross purposes. Suddenly your girlfriend/ fiancée/ wife is a star! She’s all over the place, on television, in the papers, on the covers of magazines, wanted, loved, admired and adulated by hundreds - it could be disconcerting even for a stronger man and completely debilitating for the weaker, especially if he is neither rich, nor successful nor famous. Suddenly, for no fault of his, he becomes the loser…and the monster starts turning on his belly. The girlfriend, on the other hand, is wide-eyed, happy, ecstatic, heady…enraptured…looking expectantly towards the opened gates of heaven…everything else pales in comparison to the dazzling sounds and lights coming from there…everything…including people she might have loved…

Many such love stories have disappeared without a trace, engulfed by the overwhelming voluptuousness of showbiz. Love should conquer all but it has become a fat, lazy and apathetic zombie since it was demoted. Too obese to fight smart opponents like ambition, acquisition and adulation. Of late, love prefers retreat to hard work.

If we seek praise for a living, we should be ready for the insults

I wasn’t at the Screen Awards, nor, as I write this editorial, have I seen the telecast. I read in the papers that Ashutosh Gowariker was very offended by host Sajid Khan’s jokes. And now Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raj Kumar Hirani, along with Ashu, are planning to ban ‘such award functions’ unless the hosts show them their scripts before hand.

Beats me, the only thing they have found offensive in so many years about these award functions are the scripts of the hosts! I mean, clearly, these guys see themselves as serious connoisseurs of cinema! And yet they have sat through these farcical fanfares, year after year, in their best finery and expression, sometimes accepting and sometimes giving away undeserved awards. And after years of being party to these comical ceremonies, they suddenly train their guns on Sajid Khan’s jokes! Puhleese!

Yes, there’s a difference between humour and sarcasm. But are we looking for profundity here, sir? This is a circus, for Krishna’s sakes! And all of us are jugglers and jokers, scrambling for attention, glory, fame, money, viewer-ship, readership, revenue…immortality. The awards functions are merely television shows desperately, desperately chasing TRPs. If we see them as sombre tributes to Hindi cinema the joke’s on us! This is show business. We thrive on excesses. Who would know more about excesses than our affronted trio? Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Ashutosh Gowariker have spent millions and millions of rupees to satisfy their own creative whims! Propriety and righteousness are a matter of opinion.

So let’s not take on exalted positions and get romantic about ourselves. If we seek praise for a living, we should be ready for the insults. Intellectual supremacy cannot be an argument against it, because intellectual superiority is once again a matter of opinion, and an assumption open to everybody. Humari jail mein soorang! That’s a vain declaration. Either nobody in this world is above banter or everybody is.

Like this huge hue and cry about SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and this ‘selling India’s poverty’ outrage! Firstly, SLUMDOG is a piece of fiction, a book and a feature film, not a documentary on India. Secondly, it happens to be a fact that 80% of our population is poor*. The slums are India even though they are often treated like the country’s servants’ quarters. Of course, we would like to wish them away, sweep them under our expensive Persian carpets or much rather pretend they do not exist. They cramp our global style. We’d like to assume that we represent India and they do not! Isn’t it presumptuous on the part of a mere 20% to think that they make more appropriate ambassadors of our country than the rest of the 80%? How typical of us, pompous asses that we are. Come on let’s hide the hole in the wall with a Husain painting?! But they are not holes in the wall; they are our bona fide countrymen. If Madame Tussaud’s can house stupid looking wax replicas of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai why can’t Danny Boyle make a vibrant film on spirited kids from the slums? Both represent India. In fact, they, more than us!
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* As of 2005, 85.7% of the population lives on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day. The World Bank further estimates that a third of the global poor, now resides in India. And income inequality in India is only increasing.

Why should there be any moral onus on film stars to ‘take a stand’ or ‘do something’?

A couple of days after 26/11 a friend of mine called me and asked me, “Where have all your stars disappeared?” The tone was not very flattering. It was clearly a jibe. And this was only the beginning of various such asides, even before 60 hrs had become 72.

Subsequently, responses from film stars began to trickle in. You had Preity Zinta, Pooja Bedi, Rahul Bose, Shah Rukh, Aamir and many others coming out and voicing their opinions, some passionately and some not so passionately but most of them earnestly.

More rallies and morchas followed with discussions galore on the news channels. Simi Garewal talked about some flags flying over the slums of Mumbai and hailed ‘the Bush way’, Ram Gopal Varma naively decided to tour ground zero with our ex-CM, Amitabh Bachchan got caught with the right gun but the wrong licence and so on and so forth. Then Simi apologised, Ramu remained defiant and Amitabh Bachchan decided to step back and withdraw from the situation, with or without his pistol. While we looked at every move, every word with a magnifying glass, from a higher pedestal.

For instance, that friend of mine and those hundreds like her, who sarcastically asked me, ‘Where have your film stars disappeared at such times?’… My question to them is: good, bad ugly, while all systems lie in a heap around us, disorientation abounds, our minds are in a flux, running helter-skelter, posing a hundred questions and rummaging in this battered mess for a sane thought – our words often scurrying ahead of us – in such circumstances, why should the burden of nobility and composure fall only on famous shoulders, why should there be any moral onus on film stars to ‘take a stand’ or ‘act upon’ or ‘do something’ – any more than the rest of the citizenry?

Their job is to entertain. You may buy the ticket and watch their movies if they do. Don’t, if they don’t. You can accept or reject them as actors, you may accept or reject their films, you can rave about or rubbish their performances, but you cannot pull them up for not being ‘socially conscientious’. That’s their personal matter. They are not obliged to respond or act on every national crisis. If they wish to, it’s their choice, and so be it even if they don’t – Just like it is for you and me. I did not attend any rallies neither did I join any signature campaigns, that was my individual choice. I’d hate somebody getting righteous on me over this issue. I pay my taxes, I try to do my job well, I try and break no laws, I respect every religion. It is the job of our political leaders to look after the matters of the country, and I can only hope that they will try to do their jobs well while I try to do mine. And the same should go for film stars. Including, yes, Salman Khan.