Eventually, our needs, film stars or not, are almost always, basic and simple

What makes you truly happy? – We put that question to our film stars this month and you’ll read their responses inside – Kids, pets, friends, lovers, music, monsoons, moms, books, smiles…Eventually, we all breathe the same air. Eventually, our needs, fi lm stars or not, are almost always, basic and simple.

In the course of my 25 years in this profession, I have so often been pushed and prodded to answer all kinds of questions about fi lm stars. We tend to imagine fi lm stars live on a different planet – that they are exempted from all those small day to day things that make a common man’s life, that they have different emotional needs, or maybe that they have no emotional needs at all! We imagine that all that fame and fortune makes their hearts beat differently, that they live in a world run by a different, more benevolent god.

Amitabh Bachchan had once told me in an interview a long time ago, that an actor’s job makes him even more fragile and vulnerable because he is constantly drawing out emotions from within to put them in a character, which could leave him empty and drained or incapable of reacting emotionally to real life situations. All the more reason perhaps why they would protect and hang on to their emotional zones so fi ercely. And let’s face it, whether they require it or not, compassion and concern is not something that will come very easily their way. Even among their own family and friends, I have seen them be the constant benefactor, obliged to be the sole provider of not only good life but good cheer and good behaviour. Obliged to succumb to unreasonable demands from their siblings and spouses...compensating, forever, for being perceivably the more fortunate member of the family…and forever short-changing one self emotionally...

I have seen actresses letting their siblings walk all over them out of some strange sense of guilt. I’ve seen parents use their famous sons and daughters to fulfil their own desperate dreams. I’ve seen married actors walk onto their sets without breakfast or in the same crumpled clothes as the previous day because there’s no one at home to look into these mundane matters so early in the morning. I’ve seen so many of them subjected to the inverted snobbery syndrome within their own immediate environments.

Words of a famous actor to an actress friend: “There are very few people in my life whom I can take for granted, who I know are there and will be there for me always even if I don’t meet them, don’t speak to them for months, if I don’t ever do anything for them…people who need and expect nothing from me…please don’t take that away from me…I need to know you’re there even if only to take you for granted…”

That was in 1996. They are still friends even though their worlds are completely apart now and they hardly ever meet.

We need to get closer to the gut if we desire a deeper impact

Rizwan Khan was beautiful; gentle, non-confrontational yet straightforward and truthful, and always wanting to do the right thing without making much ado. It’s not surprising that the world has a medical term for his condition. Even if it’s shocking what we will accept within the parameters of normalcy. But why get into these philosophical existential debates of what’s normal and what’s not, considering the film doesn’t.

Rancho of 3 IDIOTS was more audacious, always smarter and better than his immediate neighbour and a bit too worldly-wise and smug for his age perhaps, but a hero all the same. He had all the answers. Wish it was so easy and breezy in real life.

Both movies gathered millions and made a huge impact. Both heroes caught the fancy of the audience. But have we really broken new cinematic ground?

Even though we are tackling more challenging themes, our narratives continue to be dripping with kitsch. Both films unabashedly played to the galleries. 3 IDIOTS even more than MY NAME IS KHAN. As long as we continue to maintain this huge gap between cinema and life, these messages, however noble, will have little more than speculation value. The worlds we create on celluloid will remain to be unattainable in our minds, a faraway fantasy. We need to get closer to the gut if we desire a deeper impact – provided, we do and if at all we need to. For argument’s sake, why should a filmmaker be doing an educationist’s or a leader’s job? His primary job is to entertain and ensure his financers a profit. And finally, even a gutsy film may end up doing nothing. Writers, filmmakers, poets, artists, Sufis, gurus have been advocating love, peace and compassion for over hundreds of years now, but we continue to plant explosives under the tables of unsuspecting 20-year-olds. We continue to vandalise each other’s homes and cities.

Any significant change cannot be brought about in isolation or overnight. It requires amalgamation of all available forces. A nation that honours and revels in mediocrity needs to break many domestic grounds before it breaks any other. And cinema is just a small part. We have criminals and murderers looking upon us as our elected leaders but we are not even going there. I’m talking about the recent National Award and Padmashree announcements.

I wonder if receiving these honours has indeed been as honourable as it was meant to be for both Arjun Rampal, recipient, National Award and Saif Ali Khan, recipient, Padmashree. An honour that needs to be justified is not an honour. It is an embarrassment. And, true honour is in knowing that you are remarkable, not in being told so. But these are only lofty words, like our films. Arjun Rampal not only had a party to celebrate his award but is also said to have called up some of his colleagues and bragged, ‘Are you a National Award winner? No, isn’t it? But I am.’ Saif tried to justify his Padmashree on the front page of a daily, saying maybe he was given the honour because of LOVE AAJ KAL! A little hesitance from them would have probably made them a little more deserving.

That’s honour for you in the times of bomb blasts! It’s a futile battle. So let us not fool ourselves and accord ourselves some undue significance. Let us revel in our mediocrity and kitchy-ness.

Where’s the party tonite?!

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the flooziest of them all?

Comical! Two fairly successful and established actresses have been hopping on their heads for the last one month, trying to outdo each other. It’s getting shriller and fiercer inside the ring, but who’s looking?! Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the flooziest of them all?

Thus ensues, the Ridiculous Battle for Supremacy! Whose legs are longer, whose waist is smaller, who gets the bigger men, who gets the bigger money, who has more fans, who has more films, who is sexier, who’s the better actress, scratch, snatch, claw, clench… Who’s the queen of the powder room?

Does this No 1 jamboree make any sense to anyone any longer? Can’t go looking for one every Friday?

Truth is that no one cares, so who are Kareena and Katrina singing their songs for? The auditorium gets empty every three hours. Even the tiny piece of popcorn under seat K11 is vacuumed out. The audience returns to their homes and their lives…

Go get one, girls…and let your publicity managers have one too.